These 5 Proven Steps Help You Transform Your Mind and Body After 40
The Quick Cut:
Achieving our best body and health after 40 gets harder due to declines in metabolism, hormones, and available time.
It took me decades to finally breakthrough and achieve my desired body transformation in my mid 40s.
Besides up-leveling my fitness and nutrition, the biggest difference maker was deep shifts in my mindset and self-awareness.
The journey to transform your mind and body after 40 can be boiled down to five repeatable steps that help you maintain your results year-round.
I’ve captured these steps that I took, and that my over-40clients take, to consistently stay lean, strong and empowered, in a five-step ‘blueprint’ below.
Taking these steps will help to finally enjoy permanent change in your body and your life.
They are designed to help you upgrade your mindset and boost your metabolism so you can have a ‘total transformation’ that lasts.
The Long Slice:
If your goal is to be lean, strong, and empowered after the age of 40…
(You already know what I’m about to say…)
…it’s not easy.
Once we hit mid-life, our metabolism slows, our hormones decline, and life gets more stressful and challenging than ever.
This leaves many of us struggling with our weight, feeling less than great about ourselves, and concerned about our future.
YOUR BODY IS A REFLECTION OF YOUR MIND
It took me 30+ of struggle and frustration to finally achieve a permanent transformation and get my body to where I wanted it to be, for good.
It wasn’t easy, and it took a long time, but I finally broke through, in my mid-40’s, and have kept my results, till now, into my 50’s.
While getting more proficient with my nutrition and exercise was necessary, the ability to finally enjoy positive, lasting change in my body, and overall happiness, came primarily from profound shifts I made in my thoughts, habits, and beliefs (i.e. my mindset).
Tony Robbins says that our results come from the actions we take, but those actions are preceded by our thoughts and feelings/emotions.
If we have a thought that says ‘I should workout today’ but then another thought comes in and says ‘I don’t have time’ or ‘I don’t feel like it’, the action never happens. (Sound familiar?)
Additionally, understand that what we think about determines how we feel. If I think of someone I love, I get happy. If I think of someone I dislike, I get upset.
So, if you agree with me that how we feel determines the actions we take or don’t take…
…and how we feel comes from what we’re thinking…
…then you may also agree that struggling with our weight doesn’t start in the body, it starts in the mind.
Thus, our body is a reflection how we’re thinking, or as I like to say, ‘the outside is a reflection of the inside’.
WHY MOST WEIGHT LOSS JOURNEYS FAIL
I help professionals over 40 achieve permanent body transformations.
The first step I take, before we even get into nutrition strategies, meal plan, workout routines, etc. is to make sure they’re empowered with the right thoughts and feelings for the journey ahead.
Without properly addressing the mindset piece, any changes you may attain are usually temporary. In fact, studies have shown that:
A full 93% of people who diet regain the weight
While 91% of New Year’s weight loss resolutions go unmet
I believe that one of the biggest reasons for this is because people are hard-wired to think a certain way. It’s their way of thinking that, until transformed, will continue to trip them up and keep their old habits in place.
Using willpower to go on diets or try to be more active rarely lasts for long.
What’s needed is to start with transforming one’s mindset to ensure consistency in the right habits and greater awareness of the thoughts that keep people stuck and repeating the same patterns.
Otherwise, everything from wanting instant gratification, giving into cravings, or waiting for the ‘perfect time’ to eat right or exercise will constantly get in the way and ensure the weight keeps coming back.
GET CONSISTENT THEN ADD THE SCIENCE
While mindset is essential for creating consistency and lasting change, it’s knowing what to do in the areas of nutrition and fitness that will drive the changes you’re looking for in your body, whether it’s to lose fat or build muscle. (You actually want both of these things. You’ll see why in a minute).
Most of us simply haven’t learned enough about these areas growing up, neither at home nor at school.
So, it’s not anyone’s fault. But if you’re struggling with weight it IS your responsibility to learn them.
The good news is, once you learn them, you’ll know exactly how to eat (what, when, and how much), how to train, and how to recover in order to keep yourself lean, strong, and optimal.
You’ll also be able to do it in a way that doesn’t take over your life.
I’m happy to say that I was able to discover the formula for balancing my health goals with my busy life, in minimal time. This allows me have a full life which includes running two businesses.
However, finding your unique formula to balance your health goals with your career and life takes a lot of time and effort to learn, research, and performa trail & error.
As mentioned, I did all this, but it took me a long time and investment in coaches, mentors, programs, and products.
If you value your time and want to get straight to your desired result of a permanent and empowering transformation…
…so you can boost your confidence, health, and quality of life…
…while avoiding health issues that can steal from your happiness and longevity…
…apply for a Total Transformation Intro Call to learn more about how I help professionals over 40 transform for good.
Below are the five steps for achieving a permanent body transformation, after the age of 40.
THE 5 STEPS REQUIRED TO TRANSFORM YOUR MIND AND BODY AFTER 40
Being a former executive (I worked as a Manager in Strategy Consulting at Accenture) I think in terms of simplifying things into frameworks and blueprints.
So I’m happy to end any confusion you may have about your own journey by sharing my blueprint of the five proven steps I use to to keep myself, and my over-40 professional clients, lean, strong, and empowered, year-round…
…without ever dieting, eliminating carbs, living in the gym or getting demotivated or stuck in a mental rut.
The steps below will help you to:
A. Upgrade Your Mindset
B. Accelerate Your Metabolism
These two improvements will help you consistently do the right things to get - and stay - lean, strong, and empowered over the long run.
STEP 1: ALIGN YOUR MIND
One of the biggest challenges people tell me they have is losing motivation after a short while and struggle to regain momentum. This is usually because they rely on willpower and try to ‘push through’ the journey.
This gets even harder when we try different thing and don’t see results, because it can demotivate us further.
To re-start motivation and actually make it last long enough to develop new habits, you have to shift your current mindset from one where you’re feeling defeating to one where you are consistently inspired.
There are many tools and exercises I’ve developed to help my clients stay motivated consistently. One is a proprietary ‘Mantra technique’ where we start off with a short mediation, and then I guide them to get deep into their hearts and come up with one word or theme - that’s very meaningful to them (e.g. ‘Be An Example For My Family’) - to remind them consistently ‘WHY’ staying their fitness and healthiest matter.
There are numerous mindset exercises you can do to shift your mindset and stay motivated, but one of the most powerful things you can do is stay present to your ‘why’. In other words ‘why’ being your healthiest and fittest matters.
Stay plugged into this, and it will inspire you ongoingly, creating an endless source of motivation for you to reach your goals and stay there.
STEP 2: OPTIMIZE YOUR NUTRITION
There have been tons of books written about nutrition, food, diets, and the like. Thus, it will be impossible for me to lay out in this post everything you have to do to nail your nutrition, but I will give you a little ’taste’ by guiding you on what ‘not’ to do. 😏
In short:
Don’t diet, starve, or do extended fasting (these things will only slow your metabolism)
Don’t go Keto (it’s not healthy for your cholesterol or your gut, nor is it sustainable)
Don’t fall for supplements, pills, or powders (most won’t work or make a minimal difference at best)
Don’t worry about doing cleanses or detoxes (your body already does this on its own)
Don’t be hard on yourself for eating poorly here and there (you can easily recover from a few off days)
Instead, eliminate inflammatory foods (what I call The 7 Deadly Sinful Foods), track your meals, and focus on WHAT and WHEN you’re eating, not just how much you’re eating.
These three things will go a long way to helping you lean out.
Getting strong is another story. That requires eating in a way that support how you’re training. That’s section is next.
STEP 3: TRAIN FOR STRENGTH
If your only goal is to ‘not be fat’, and you’re OK with being average, then you can probably skip this section.
Just do a bunch of walking or cardio and it should probably be enough.
But if you’d like to be strong - both physical and mentally - and enjoy the many benefits of having strength and muscle tone, including being great mobility, optimal day-to-day functioning, longevity, energy, sex drive, and looking great naked, then read on…
Everything gets better when you have muscle tone, including your ability to move, think, sleep, manage stress, have sex, keep a positive mood, and make decisions. Not to mention the emotional boost from feeling strong and confident, giving you the ability to command any room and shine at any meeting or presentation.
When strength training is done right, it improves your chances of keeping fat off the body and keeping you physiology at an optimal state.
Most people don’t realize that dieting hurts your key fat loss hormones, white strength training optimizes them.
The problem with strength training is most people either don’t know where to start, or they start but don’t get optimal results.
Many have turned to personal trainers to guide them, but just realize that training is just one of the five steps required for a permanent body transformation.
At a minimum, realize that training for strength is what you want vs just doing cardio to ‘burn calories’. Cardio has its place, and I do prescribe it to my clients each week, but it’s secondary if you’re looking to optimize your body vs just losing some pounds.
STEP 4: RESTORE & RECHARGE
My initial blueprint only had four steps to it, but the more I studied metabolism (eventually getting certified as a Functional Nutrition & Metabolism Specialist), the more I realized how important adding this step was.
Here, you are putting an emphasis on sleep and your ability to manage stress.
As far as sleep, did you know that just one night of poor sleep can slow your metabolism, increase cortisol (which breaks down muscle), drive up ghrelin (your hunger hormone), and spike your insulin (which stores fat)?
Imagine continuous nights of poor sleep, and you can see how this can really hurt your efforts to stay lean.
According to US News & World Report, ‘Roughly one-third of Americans are not currently getting quality sleep.’
Moreover, being overweight actually hurt sleep quality and this only perpetuated the vicious cycle.
The next piece here is the importance of managing stress from its many sources, both internal and external.
Chronic stress keeps our cortisol levels high, which can lead to adrenal fatigue, a slowing of your metabolism (via down-regulation of our thyroid), increase in inflammation, and host of other health risk factors including heart disease, insulin resistance and diabetes.
One of the hardest things for most people to overcome is self-induced stressors from past based fears. Things like perfectionism, people pleasing, and self criticism are patterns, that unless transformed, will continue to cause stress.
I work closely with clients to help them break these old thinking patterns to become not only healthier, but also happier and more at peace with themselves.
STEP 5: PERSEVERE & PREVAIL
If you complete steps 1 through 4 above, you will reach your goal of being lean and healthy.
But staying that way is another matter.
The potential for set back is always around the courner. Not falling back into old habits and regaining weight is a challenge that most people lose.
Which is why this last step is vital to keeping your body at its best, year after year.
The step is here to help you understand that overcoming life’s curveballs, circumstances, and setbacks is essential.
Typical life events like travel, social events, weddings, holidays, can all make it more challenging to not regain the weigh you lost.
Not to mention work demands (deadlines, job change, etc.) and life stressors (family matters, death, divorce, etc.) can all set you back and make it harder to fit in your health routine.
You have to come equipped with the right mindset and back up strategies for maintaining at least some kind of minimal health routine through these challenges.
You also have know how to get back on track quickly if you have a setback.
Succeeding here, as well is with steps 1 and 4, is highly reliant on developing the right mindset.
Knowing that this step is necessary, and being prepared for life’s challenges, is essential to staying lean and strong for good.
THE KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS IS INTEGRATING THESE STEPS INTO YOUR LIFE
I trust this post about the five steps need to get lean and strong after 40 has given you some insight into what it takes to achieve the confidence, health, and happiness that come from maintaining a body that’s lean, strong, and optimized.
While I’ve laid them out as simply as I could, integrating them into your life is easier said than done.
To find out more about how I work with professionals over 40 to help them shift their mindset and metabolism, and achieve what I call an ‘empowering transformation’ using the 5-step system above, feel free to apply for a complimentary Body Transformation Consultation with me or someone on my team.
