Podcast Transcription: Ask Ted: What Are The 3 Things Men Over 40 Should Do to Get Fit in 2025?

Ted Ryce: Today I'm going to be answering the question, what are the three things med over 40 should do to get fit in 2025? So this is an Ask Ted episode. This is based on some questions people have been asking me on social media lately. So that's what we're going to get into. So if you're interested in the answer to this question, you'll want to stay tuned for the episode. 

What is up my friend, welcome to the Legendary Life podcast. I'm your host, Ted Rice, health expert and coach to executives, entrepreneurs, and other high performing professionals. So I just want to dive right in in case you're new. To ask tags or to this show. This is when someone asked me a question either directly, I think it's a really important question. 

You need to know the answer to, or kind of based on what I've been hearing. So let's just drive, drive, don't drive right into it. Cause you may be driving now, but let's dive into it. At least I will. So the first thing I want to tell you is start making changes. Now it's the end of the year and you might be thinking, yeah, when new year starts, I'm all in, I'm going to start. 

Oh, just when, when it. When the clock ticks, you know, uh, midnight on December 31st, 2024, and it, it, it, you know, changes over like I'm on it. Well, at least as soon as I sober up from all the champagne and whatever else you were drinking, that's a mistake. You think you're going to go from doing nothing or even getting fatter and more unhealthy because of the lead up and craziness of the holidays, then you're going to start strong. 

Oh, it might happen, but that's, that's the recipe for crashing and burning. Start now. What can you do today? Not tomorrow, not a month from now, not when, it's Decem uh, messing up the dates. January 1st, 2025. What can you do today? That's what I want you to focus on. What small changes can you make today? Then, think of it as setting a foundation. 

Because you will get to that period, somewhere in there. Where you can go all in, but you already want to be on your way. You don't want to be like, Oh, well, yeah, yeah, it's January 2nd. Finally, kind of, you know, kind of like pulling out of the haze from New Year's and you go to the gym and it's super busy and you're looking around and it's. 

You don't know what to do. You end up, you know, kind of anxious. You end up pushing too hard. You're sore for way too many days after. Cause you know, you pushed yourself. You think you're going to get in shape for one day, right? Not going to happen. Don't do that. That's, that's what happens. And gym memberships. 

I've been at a client today. We had our group coaching call and Chad, shout out to you. If you're listening, Chad has lost over 20 pounds and he hit an all time low today. And when I asked him, you know, I forget what I asked during the call, but he, he made a joke and he said, what do I do about all these people who just showed up to the gym? 

So people are already starting to take action and it starts to build up until right first month of June. The new year and then then things start trailing off the second month, the third month, et cetera, and the cycle repeats itself and what I want you to do is instead of going all out, start with goals like adding walks or how about this instead of adding walk, track your steps, look at your step data, you probably have a wearable, you probably have an Apple watch. 

Or even just look at your phone, and because it tracks your steps, it's got some health app on it, especially if you've got an iPhone, I've never used an Android, have I? Nope, don't think so, I've been in the cult of Apple, got indoctrinated, haven't been able to leave, sorry for another time, but check the steps, and then try to get it. 

Try to add steps, try to add steps until you get into the neighborhood of eight to 10, 000. And you may say, well, I don't have time to go to, you know, take walks. Uh, I'm going to go to the gym. Okay, great. Walk on the treadmill. Oh, but I want to ride the bike. Okay, we'll just count, you know, just count that day as a solid day in terms of in terms of steps if you got on the bike, but the point is, um, you know, start start adding things now or start doing home bodyweight workouts. 

Or go hire a trainer now. Whatever you got to do, start with some small changes so that you can start to ramp things up. Even doing one workout per week is better than doing zero workouts per week. Even one workout for 20 minutes or two workouts for 20 minutes is better than doing zero. This is the big difference. 

Big mistake that so many people make you it doesn't matter. Oh, but that's not a real workout. That is bullshit Yeah, it's not an hour long workout, but it's a workout. Sometimes I do 20 minute workouts Am I not in shape? Was that not a workout for me? Eventually you learn how to make them challenging Yeah, it's not gonna, it's not the best workout in the world, but it's better than nothing. 

And the people who you look around and you think are super fit, let me tell you something, they are consistent. So start by with what you can and then build on that as soon as you have the bandwidth to do it. The next thing I want to tell you is to focus on sustainability, right? Again, avoid falling into the or nothing. 

Oh, I don't have time to do the 60 minute workout. Okay, great. 30 minutes. No, no, but I don't have time. Okay. 15 minutes, 10 minutes, one set of pushups do something. And even I'll give you an example. I got a client right now. He's going through a lot of stuff with his business flying from Austin to San Francisco to talk with investors for his business and he just had a baby. 

Let's say maybe three or four months ago, five months ago, something like that. We scrapped workouts. He's doing a set of squats and a set of pushups every day. Oh, but Ted, that's like not doing again. Get out of that line of thinking. Do not judge. What I just said in terms of how bad ass it is, or, or, you know, he's doing it versus we were really struggling to get him to do workouts before. 

Now we just lowered the bar to one set of pushups. And then we just added a week later, we added a set of squats. So that that's and guess what now his weight's coming down. He's doing other things too, but his weight's coming down He's getting back in shape. One of the biggest things is people think it's all about intensity intensity intensity It's not if you do one month of intense workouts for the year and then the 11 rest of the months of the year You sit on your ass, you screwed up, you did it wrong. 

You don't understand because if you don't understand that this is about consistency, then you're missing the whole big thing. Because yeah, you can make some arguments, which I'm not going to open up the, uh, you know, can of worms here, but yeah, okay. If you go through, you know, periods of your life where you're more in shape and then got out of shape, it's better than having never ever done any exercise. 

Yes. But that's not what we're talking about, right? This is about consistency and consistency is a high-performance skill all on its own and being flexible to make it happen. So think of this. There is no winning fitness. You win fitness by staying as fit as you can for as long as you can. It's an infinite game where there is no end point, not a finite game like football where you know who's playing and there's a clear winner, clear loser, right? 

You lose if you're not consistent. You win by continuing to play the game. It's an infinite game, right? I love that concept. Infinite game, finite game. Third is invest in the help that you need. So if you weren't, first of all, you're not in shape right now because your past attempts, you, you didn't, you didn't get something right. 

It's as plain as that. It's as plain as that. You did not do something right. But now I want to ask you, was it lack of accountability? Meaning you really needed someone to stay on top of you. That's probably the number one thing. Why. One of the, or let's say one of the top three reasons why people who make more money than me have some more successful businesses than me are really smarter than me. 

That's why they hire me. Not because I'm smarter than them or more, you know, they hire me because I know how to keep them accountable and they respect me enough. Meaning like they listened to this podcast or, or read my stuff on Twitter. They were like, I like this guy. I like his approach. I'm sold on this whole vision he has. 

I'm going to hire him because I can be that guy. I think can hold me accountable. The next is inadequate guidance. In other words, You hired Keto, bro. And you're like, Oh, that's great. I did Keto started losing weight, man. This pounds are flying off, but God, I just want a hamburger with the bun. How sad is it eating hamburgers in between two leaves of lettuce? 

Oh my gosh. How sad, how pathetic. And unnecessary, ultimately, so if you're doing something that is requiring a very strict diet approach or a workout approach that is just hard for you to maintain, it's too many hours, too intense. It's not the right program. If you can't keep it up for 10 years. So this is called the 10 year test. 

If you don't see yourself doing this for 10 years, you're going to have to, it doesn't mean you can't do it. You don't know what else to do. It fails the 10 year test. You're like, I don't see it working for 10 years, but gosh, could I, I think I could at least make it work for three months. Okay, fine. But understand if it fails the 10 year test. 

Really, it's the rest of your life test, but 10 year test sounds way, way, you know, more marketing, more marketable. But if you can't see yourself for doing it, doing it for 10 years, you're going to need a different approach, right? Well, what about you, Ted? Can you do what you're doing for 10 years? No, rest of my life, the way I approach nutrition, rest of my life. 

Guess what? My blood work looks pretty good. I'm pretty lean all the time. Sometimes I'm leaner. Sometimes. You can't quite see the veins on the abs, but like now in full transparency, but I'm getting back down there. But the point is I can keep this up. So was it lack of accountability? Was it that you were following guidance that it just was short term in nature because you know, you couldn't keep it up. 

Or this is another one, a mismatch between your commitment level. And the level of support. Maybe you were super fired up and started, you know, whatever, but you know, the support for the course or, or maybe even a coach. For example, I just talked to someone the other day. I'm pretty sure he's going to become a client because again, we hit it off. 

You have to get the right level of support. If you start to lose momentum because you're super committed, but the coach is too busy because he's not charging enough. And so he's like trying to sign up a bunch of people and just do the bare minimum to get everybody. At least a little something of what they need. 

But in the meantime, you're kind of losing momentum. Then you don't have enough, then it's not the right level of support for you. Also, if a book, an app or low touch coach, isn't pushing you into action, it's time to level up to a coach or community that keeps you accountable. It's as simple as that, right? 

For my clients, I get, I want to tell you this. I have some clients, they want to save money. So they joined my coaching group because that makes the lot, Oh, well, you know, I'll just show up to the coaching group. Yeah. It's not as much accountability, but I'll show up to the group and some people crush it in the group. 

I've got a group of guys right now who are just crushing it and they show up to the calls. But then some folks, they sign up and they really should have done one on one, but they didn't. Why? It's more money than I want to spend. Now I could spend it, but I just feel so uncomfortable. I feel like I should just do the group and you know, that should be enough. 

And then I'll, you know, do it on my own. I'll, I'll, I'll like, you know, step up and I'll do what I need to. I'll make the calls. And then it doesn't work. Then it doesn't work. Why? They didn't care enough. They didn't care enough about the other people in the group. It wasn't strong enough in terms of accountability. 

And I tell people, I'm like, look, you don't want to pay more for me to coach you one on one, but you're not showing up to the group calls. You're not doing the weekly check ins. So you're just, you're either at the point now where you step up and do it and show up to the group calls. Or you've wasted all your money and we don't give refunds. 

You think I'm going to give a refund to a person like that? I mean, we don't give refunds, right? Cause we're doing the work. We're doing the work. So it's like step up and do it or lose the money. And you know what? It's a good thing that people lose the money. Yeah. Might not like that idea, but it's not about liking the idea. 

The fact that it kind of hurts is part of the point you're getting feedback. You try to use your brain to, to, to determine if it was right and you wanted to save money. And instead of focusing on the end result that you needed, And being honest with yourself, you screwed up. Don't do that. If this is really important to you. 

And let me tell you, there's three big areas of your life that are crucial, that are crucial, that are non negotiable for you to get mastery in. One is financial. We live in a financial world. Got to pay the bills, got to figure it out financially, economically. Or you got to move to the woods and like, make your, you know, chop wood and go hunting and right. 

But you're not going to do that. And neither am I for that matter. The second is relationships. You can't afford to have bad relationships. A divorce will, uh, and if you've been divorced, you know, actually had a decent divorce was tough in many ways, but. I won't get into it. Most, most, most of the times the divorces, uh, you know, crush people financially, psychologically, the children, like you can't afford to be a slouch in the area of relationships. 

It will cost you big time. And lastly, health. You can't afford to be a slouch when it comes to your health. Cause it's the most important thing. No, Ted, God is more important. Okay, great. Go to church in a wheelchair then. Right. Or, uh, you know, my family's more important. Great. Try to go play with your kids or your grandkids, but you have to be careful because you already had a heart attack. 

Or you're so overweight and so out of shape that, you know, you don't have the energy. You get out of breath, easy chasing your kids around or you're waiting until you retire so you can travel the world. But guess what? You're fat and out of shape now and you don't even know if you can do it, even though you have the money to. 

So health, no matter what your goal is, health is going to be foundational. It's going to be the energy that helps you achieve that goal. So investing in the right help can be transformative. And I want to be clear here. I'm not saying we'll hire me. If I'm not the right coach, don't hire me, hire the right coach. 

Probably a good chance that I'm the right coach for you. If you're listening to this. But if you feel like, you know what, I like you Ted, but you know, I really feel like this other guy or girl, whatever, or, you know, I was going to make a joke, but I'll just, I'll just keep it, keep it going. Hire the right person for you. 

Okay. Hire the right person for you. Really, really important. I literally told someone that the other day. It's like, work with a person who you feel like you're going to show up for them, like you trust them. Hire that person. It's the best advice that anyone can give. Don't hire the cheapest. For sure. 

Don't do that. You always get what you pay for. Okay. With coaching, you always get what you pay for. So just a lot of bad stories about that. I don't think fitness coaches are scammers. They just don't have the skills and experience. So, you know, the 28 year old guy might look fit, but yeah, he has no idea what, what you're dealing with. 

If you're a 40 plus. And um, that is it. So, so those are the three big things. Number one is start now. Start making changes now. Then when you hit a period of going all in, okay, ramp it up, but start now. Two, focus on sustainability. Keep asking yourself, is this, is this workout too much? Is it too hard? Can I see myself keeping this up for 10 years? 

How about this diet? You know, can I keep it up? Cause fat loss diets, you wouldn't keep up for 10 years, but you feel like this is sustainable enough, you know, what you're doing is it. Is it allow for enough flexibility really to allow you to get you to where you need to get to before you burn out trying to do keto or paleo or whole foods? 

And then third is invest in the help that you need. And again, that's not just with health and fitness. It's any area of your life. Okay. I assume that you want to get your health and fitness handled because you're here. But again, it, that advice, it's true for every area. You can't afford, uh, you can't, the three areas that are non negotiable are your career slash, you know, financial world or life area of your life. 

Uh, the second is your relationships and the third is your health. You have to, Be high level in all three of those. And the fastest way to do it is to work with someone, the right person, obviously, especially with, if you're working with relationship counselors, I do not have a recommendation there for you, but it would be good to have. 

Anyway, that is it. What can you take action on after listening to this episode today? Because knowledge is not power. It's only power when acted upon. So what are you going to do differently after listening to this episode? And if that thing is like, you know what, I've been on the fence for a while. Want to work with you, Ted, go to legendary life program. 

com slash apply, book a call and we can have a conversation about whether my coaching programs are right for you or not. We'll give you some information once you book the call, so you'll get to see, you know, the different pricings, the different options, some of the frequently asked questions, my approach, and, um, we can go from there. 

All right, again, that's for, if you're not an entrepreneur, executive, or high performing professional, meaning like doctor, lawyer, accountant, auditor, then veterinarian, then this isn't for you, find something else. But if you are a high performer, then definitely go to and feel like I'm a good fit for you. 

Definitely go to legendary life program. com slash apply. That is it. Hope you enjoy this. Get ready. Wishing you the best for 2025. Let's all get ready to have an incredible upcoming year. Talk to you soon.