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Fighting 40
Forty. That's where society generally sets the bar for the onset of old-manhood. It's
slightly arbitrary, but we can't deny that athletic ability starts to precipitously decline
somewhere around the fourth decade. Things in general just don't seem to work as
well as they used to.
The only choice is to bravely soldier on, hoping against all evidence that perhaps you
can eke out some kind of anemic joy from the remainder of your feeble, creamed-
corn eating days.
Of course, there might be an alternative. You could say no to alleged decrepitude. You
could fight. You could decide that you're going to do everything you need to keep
functioning as the giant horse-testicled man you've always been. If so, this guide can
help.
Training
In fact, I get sick of guys asking how they should train now that they've hit forty. You
don't have to train lighter or less frequently, let alone join one of those weight-lifting-
in-the-pool classes held at your local Y. Do the rest of the stuff below and you won't
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have to change a damn thing about your training, except maybe paying a bit more
attention to recovery.
As distasteful as it may sound, consider enrolling in yoga classes. Or, you might
instead consider Tai Chi, Jiu Jitsu, or even ho-hum stretching and foam rolling.
Regardless, pick one, grit your teeth, and start doing it. The true measure of
someone's youthfulness is often how well he moves.
Hormones
As you get older, desirable hormone levels often start decreasing and undesirable
hormone levels often start increasing. It's nature's way of giving you the finger.
Primary among these diminishing hormones is of course testosterone.
Not only will it help you look and feel younger, but low testosterone has been
implicated in heart disease. A meta-study published in the Journal of the American
Heart Association looked at over 100 testosterone studies and reported that low
testosterone was associated with a host of possible conditions:
Signs that your hormonal low fuel light is flashing include an inexplicable rise in body
fat, loss of muscle tone, an inability to make progress in your workouts, a faltering or
non-existent erection, difficulty in concentrating or a waning memory, depression, a
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lack of "appropriate aggressiveness" (being forceful or assertive when the situation
calls for it), and premature codgerdom in general.
It doesn't stop there. Erectile function suffers. Waistlines grow thicker. It becomes
harder to put on muscle. And, most seriously, high estrogen significantly increases the
risk of flat-out dying.
When researchers monitored the estrogen levels of 501 men with chronic heart
failure, men with estradiol (the most "potent" form of estrogen) in the normal range
(between 21.80 pg/ml and 30.11 pg/ml) had the fewest deaths during a three-year
period. Men with the highest levels (above 37.99) had 133 percent more deaths
during the same period.
However, the men with the lowest estrogen levels (below 12.90) fared the worst as
they experienced 317% more deaths. Clearly, estrogen levels play a big part in the
health of your ticker, in addition to the health of a whole lot of body parts, body
systems, and body functions.
These chemicals are found in foods, adhesives, fire retardants, detergents, drinking
water, perfumes, waxes, household cleaning products, lubricants... virtually
everywhere.
Although we don't know the exact scope of damage caused by these chemicals, we
have seen widespread reports of biological anomalies in both animals and humans in
the last couple of decades (mutations, indeterminate sex organs, lessened fertility,
more people listening to light jazz, etc.).
Furthermore, there's plenty of evidence that these chemicals are a part of all of us.
Researchers found that 75% of the samples taken from 400 adults contained
significant levels of industrial xenoestrogens, whereas 98.3 percent of samples
contained DHT and its derivatives.
Shop organic
Store your food in glass (not plastic) containers
Don't let plastic wrap touch your food when microwaving
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Use "all-natural" laundry detergents and household cleaners
Use "all-natural" skin care and personal care products
Avoid most plastics when possible, and don't drink from bottled water that's
been exposed to the sun for any length of time.
12 – Avoid phytoestrogens.
While xenoestrogens are man-made monstrosities, phytoestrogens occur in plants.
Xenoestrogens accumulate in adipose tissue, while phytoestrogens are metabolized
and booted out of the body relatively fast. As such, they're not nearly the problem
that xenoestrogens are.
Still, you generally don't want too many of them around as they resemble estrogen
molecularly and can act like the real deal. Phytoestrogens are also found in various
foods, but most notably in soy and soy protein. Avoid these products when you can.
Calcium d-glutarate is also a capable estrogen fighter in that it helps the body
eliminate estrogen before the body reabsorbs it. You can find tangible amounts in
grapefruit, apples, oranges, and the same cruciferous vegetables that are also rich in
indoles.
However, these fruits and vegetables can't singlehandedly regulate whacked out
estrogen levels. At best, they should be regarded as estrogen "shifters" that can affect
the amount of estrogen metabolites in your favor. By the same token, you should
avoid foods that shift the amount of estrogen metabolites against you, like soy
products.
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Mitochondria are tiny organelles, which, as you can tell by the word, are kind of like
teeny-tiny organs. Their main function is to power the cell. Without mitochondria,
your eyes wouldn't have the energy to track across this sentence. A cell can have one
lonely mitochondria or as many as hundreds of thousands, depending on its energy
needs.
Metabolically active cells like liver, kidney, heart, brain, and muscle have so many that
they may make up 40% of the cell, whereas other slacker cells like blood and skin
have very few.
Mitochondria also control when a cell lives and dies, a process called apoptosis. If
enough cells commit apoptosis enough times, it's like a butcher slicing up a pound of
salami – slice by slice, the salami, or in our case, the liver, the kidneys, the brain,
immune system cells, even the heart, lose mass and effectiveness. Hence the diseases
of aging.
The hardest hit organs are those that are generally mitochondria-rich, like muscles,
the brain, liver, and kidneys. Specific mitochondria-associated diseases range from
Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, various vaguely diagnosed muscle weakness
disorders, and even Syndrome X.
Take a look at heart patients, for instance. Generally, they have about a 40% decrease
in mitochondrial DNA. And, as evidence that mitochondrial deficiency might be
passed down from generation to generation, the insulin-resistant children of Type II
diabetics, despite being young and still lean, had 38% fewer mitochondria in their
muscle cells. Mitochondria dysfunction has even been shown to predict prostate
cancer progression in patients who were treated with surgery.
Clearly, mitochondria play a pivotal role in the genesis of a host of maladies, and
maintaining a high degree of normal, healthy mitochondria could well eliminate many
of them.
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Diet and Nutrition
Likewise, avoid meals that are all carbohydrate or carbohydrate and fat. That means
those days of a bagel with a schmear of cream cheese are gone. If you insist on a
bagel, have it with lox, or turkey, or an egg sandwiched between the sides of the
bagel.
If you have a salad at lunch, make sure it comes with plenty of chicken. Dinner should
consist of steamed or grilled vegetables liberally doused with olive oil and
accompanied by 4 to 6 ounces of meat (fish, beef, chicken, pork, etc.).
You're likely going to need a quality protein supplement to augment your intake. Opt
for a combination of casein and whey like Metabolic Drive®. And don't skimp on the
price. When it comes to protein powders, you often get what you pay for. By the
same token, though, don't bother to buy protein powders that come laced with
dubious ancillary supplements. Just stick to basic protein.
Place a few scoops in water or milk and drink as needed to hit your protein goal. Have
a serving or two mixed with milk at bedtime so that you build lean tissue all night
long.
18 – Eat lots of protein just before, during, and right after a workout.
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Amino acids, including branched chain amino acids (BCAA), supply up to 15% of a
muscle's energy needs during a workout, but use of BCAA can increase by up to five
times, depending on the intensity and the duration of exercise.
If you don't supply the protein through diet, your body cannibalizes your muscles.
You can halt the cannibalism, though, by ingesting the right type of protein before,
during, and after a workout. And, if you spare muscle protein and negate protein
degradation, you set the muscle up for regeneration and remodeling, otherwise
known as growth. The best way to do this is to sip a high carb/high protein drink like
Plazma™ before and during your workout.
And while most people know the value of consuming another high carb/high protein
meal after a workout, it's important that you do it within the first hour or two post-
workout.
It's not much different today. A boxed food is generally made of highly-processed
carbs and they're what cause a good deal of the obesity in this country. Stay away
from them. Buy whole, fresh foods if possible.
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Consider dairy products, specifically low fat or skim milk. They take out the fat, but in
order to preserve the creamy texture, they add in powdered milk, which contains
oxidized cholesterol. Similarly, removing the fat also removes the fat-soluble vitamins,
which then have to be added back in. And when you drink them, these vitamins aren't
even absorbed unless you ingest some fat with the milk! So yes, drink whole milk, or
at least 2% milk, but not too much as it's calorically denser.
Likewise, traditional bread is made from flour, water, yeast, and salt, but something
like Sara Lee's "Soft and Smooth Whole Grain White Bread" has about two-dozen
chemical ingredients in it. So stop eating weird "Frankenfoods."
23 – Eat sauerkraut.
A good part of the way you think, feel, and function is based on your gut, or more
accurately, the bacteria inhabiting your gut. As such, we need to help both populate
the gut with bacteria while also doing something to feed those same bacteria. Enter
sauerkraut, which is made by allowing a mixture of shredded cabbage and salt to
ferment for several weeks.
Adding just a little bit to your diet every day might help nearly every aspect of your
health, from digestive health to heart health to skin health. Only buy the refrigerated
stuff. Just make sure you don't cook it, though, because that kills the good bacteria.
If you insist on attempting to fulfill your gut-bacteria needs with yogurt, at least avoid
the stuff with sugar as it feeds competing bad bacteria. Buy stuff that doesn't look
totally industrialized and taste-wise is pretty much indistinguishable from a Dairy
Queen Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard. You know, eat stuff that your great-
grandmother would recognize as yogurt.
24 – Screw multivitamins.
Multivitamins in supplement form, taken as a way to fulfill pre-determined nutritional
requirements, don't work. Not a lick. Research proves it.
For one thing, they use a one-size-fits-all philosophy. They're all based on a bell curve
and while they may hold true for a 150-pound municipal worker named Phil who lives
in Akron, Ohio, they might not hold true for sweaty athletes, bigger (or smaller)
people, or you.
There are also so many possible interactions. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble
and as such are best taken with food. Iron shouldn't be ingested with coffee or tea
because tannins interfere with absorption. Likewise, iron interferes with the
absorption of zinc and copper. Vitamins A and E can counteract K.
And then there's the problem of phytates, which are compounds found in whole
grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds. They're problematical in that they interfere with the
absorption of trace minerals. In regions of the world where phytate consumption is
high but consumption of meat and seafood is low, you see epidemic mineral
deficiencies that manifest themselves as developmental delays, mental deficiencies,
dwarfism, and hypogonadism.
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Lastly, multivitamins are made without seeing the big picture. Science has established
that there are pretty much 24 essential vitamins and minerals and it's easy to see how
some simplistic, two-dimensional thinking would lead to the assumption that you just
have to isolate these substances, stick them all in pills, and feed them to the world.
However, we've seen that it usually doesn't work. People don't get healthy or stay
healthy from ingesting multis. Maybe, just maybe, these nutrients aren't supposed to
be isolated and taken by themselves. Maybe they need to be taken in whole food
form to be truly effective. Maybe the nutrient needs to work in conjunction with some
(or maybe even all) of the micronutrients and phytochemicals intrinsic to the whole
food source for it to work.
29 – Pop Resveratrol.
This compound may or may not directly extend lifespan; we're just not sure yet.
However, it can protect us from insulin resistance and heart disease, along with
working as a potent estrogen antagaonist and aromatase inhibitor. Take about 1800
mg. per day.
Inflammation is thus running rampant through our bodies and the best way to stop it
is to cut down on the omega-6's and to start swallowing those beautiful amber fish oil
gelcaps. Take up to 12,000 milligrams of a combined DHA/EPA formulation (such as
Flameout®) once a day.
32 – Take CLA.
Conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, is a fatty acid found in high quantities in grass-fed
beef. Since most of us don't get much grass-fed beef, we're likely deficient in this
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important fatty acid. Numerous studies have shown it to be a potent cancer fighter, as
well as playing a role in normalizing blood pressure, fighting cardiovascular disease in
general, and helping with osteoporosis, inflammation, and even body composition.
Take about 1,000 mg. a day (products that contain the two isomers of CLA are the
best).
33 – Eat liver.
Organ meats are the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. Learn to eat them.
35 – Rely on Curcumin.
Curcumin is one of those supplements that sometimes seems too good to be true
because the stuff does everything. It helps enhance cardiovascular health, reduces
body fat, relieves pain, kills multiple types of cancer cells, and reduces estrogen levels,
among other things. Take about 1,000 mg. a day for general health, more, as needed,
to alleviate pain. Make sure you use a formula that's employing additional food
technology to make it more absorbable, though.
36 – Use Superfood.
This product is the thinking man's alternative to multivitamins. It consists solely of 18
nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables that have been dessicated, pulverized, and
stored in a pouch. As such, Superfood contains all the nutrients, vitamins, minerals,
and phytochemicals intrinsic to the fruits and vegetables it's made from. Take two
scoops a day.
The latter achievements, and the possibility that it does help with the former,
convince us that it merits inclusion in your health prescription. Make sure you buy a
product that was manufactured using the "supercritical C02" method. Take between
160 and 320 mg. a day.
38 – Consume iodine.
People who live by the ocean usually aren't deficient in iodine because they
presumably get plenty of seafood. Not so for landlubbers in Kansas. Years ago,
practically everybody who lived far away from the ocean was deficient in iodine, so
the Morton Salt Company started putting iodine in their salt. Iodine deficiency
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became a thing of the past.
However, with more people using exotic sea salts (which often lack sufficient iodine),
not eating salt at all because of some doctor's recommendation, or subsisting solely
on restaurant food (most of which don't use iodized versions), iodine deficiencies are
back.
That's too bad, because iodine is crucial to human health. If you have dry skin or have
trouble staying lean, you might be deficient. The same might be true if you have
mysterious fatigue or suffer from unexplained autoimmune diseases or depression.
The nutrient also plays a pivotal role in heart disease and various types of cancer. The
RDA is a mere 150 mcg. a day, but take up to 6 to 12 milligrams a day if you suspect a
deficiency.
Related:
The Complete Guide to T Replacement
Related:
9 Ways to Live Longer and Look Better Naked
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