Introduction/Opening

May 9, 2026

Fit AF(ter) 45!

Train Smarter. Age Slower. Build a Body That Keeps Up and looks good on!

By Neil Anderson

Some Legal Stuff

Before you work out, it is recommended that you learn about your body and its limitations. In other words, start slow, with low volume and low weight, and progress slowly. If you doubt your capacity, you should slow down, form up, and/or back off until you learn how these workouts will affect YOU specifically. This may take some time.

If you have specific health concerns, be sure to clear your condition(s) with a physician before participating in our workouts, nutrition or other activities. Please feel free to write to us with concerns about how to apply workouts under your physician's care. We are also happy to field questions from your healthcare provider. admin@gppfitness.com

Acknowledgments

One of the worst things about having a conversation with me (phone, email, text, eyeball-eyeball) is the contents of those conversations often end up in front of others.

If this has ever happened to you and you've taken offense, please forgive me. I get that my one-sided presentation of our conversation is not fair, not remotely. And if it seems like I've belittled your POV by being sarcastic or overly simplistic in my review of our conversation–it’s NOT my intention.

Truth is, our conversation fascinated and intrigued me. To the point I sat down for what takes me hours to peck out some thoughts on it. Sometimes I'll stew on a subject for days/weeks/months and yes, even years, before writing down some thoughts from our chat. Though my comments may seem terse, they are usually only theatrically so. I've come to learn that pinning emotions to a point helps the medicine go down (now you'll be singing that all day. HA!).

Please understand I hold you in the highest regard. So do the folks who read about our conversation. We all know this one-sided POV reeks of chicanery. But, sometimes the points we discuss are helpful to others when painted in a new light, albeit sarcastic and simplistic. I've even heard the articles here have helped folks to change their lives. That's not because of me. It's all of us. Thank you for contributing.

The App

This book will teach you everything you need to know about getting healthy and fit over 40. Once you have all the understanding, it is my hope you will apply it by designing workouts, nutrition and motivation for yourself. Don’t worry, I haven’t left anything out. You’ll know everything I used to do the same.

However, there will be a fair number of you who just want the programming delivered daily. Cool. I got you. To get that, go grab the App that goes with this book. It’s called RWNDFIT. Hit up our website at www.gppfitness.com The App also has other cool features like, meal planning, meal tracking, body measurement tracking, photo tracking, BP tracking, sleep tracking, messaging and all the rest. Seriously, it has everything. It even integrates with your smart watch.

Workouts are delivered to you daily along with complete instructions, video demos, and workout tracking. It’s good stuff. It integrates with your smartwatch, Fitbit, Garmin and your Myfitnesspal App. When you download it, be sure to fill out your consultation form and especially collect your baseline data by doing measurements and photos (it’s all in the App and is so cool). Also, become familiar with the nutrition stuff. You can track your nutrition through the App if that is your personality. If you’d rather, the App will produce your nutrition plan for you, complete with photos, videos, recipes, grocery lists and tracking! You can communicate with us and with each other through the App. After you sign up, make sure you drop us a note in messages to say hi!

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Warm Up

Like our minds, our bodies get smarter with age—but they also get a lot less willing to put up with our bullshit.

There was a time when you could tell it to go harder, lift heavier, and do it all again tomorrow—and it would just comply. No questions asked.

Those times are over.

Your body isn’t an obedient soldier anymore. It’s a strategist. A risk manager. And if you push too hard, too often, it might play along for a while… but behind the scenes, it’s keeping score.

At first, it whispers. You’re more tired than you should be. Then it nudges. A sore knee. A tight shoulder. Something just feels off. Ignore that? Now it starts talking louder. Workouts feel heavier. Recovery slows. You feel beat up more often than not. Keep pushing? That’s when it stops asking. It’ll force the issue. Injury. Exhaustion. Burnout. Or something worse that doesn’t go away (autoimmune issues?) with a few days off.

Here’s where most people our age get it wrong. We think the answer is to push harder. Because that’s what always worked before. If something wasn’t working, we didn’t question the method—we questioned ourselves.

So we double down. More volume. More intensity. More effort. More shame. More self-loathing. We try to outwork the problem. And for a little while… It almost works. Now, you feel tough. Disciplined. Back in control. Until one day, it all catches up. And it always does. Because what’s breaking you now isn’t one bad workout—it’s the accumulation. Too much stress, stacked over time, with not enough recovery to support it. Your body isn’t failing you. It’s protecting you.

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I didn’t want to believe that either. In fact, I fought it. Hard. I was around 47 when my body started changing in ways I didn’t recognize. I had been training for decades. I had been active and competitive my whole life. I knew what I was doing. I had always been able to push through anything. Until I couldn’t. I was getting weaker. Slower. Everything hurt more than it should. And instead of adjusting, I did what most people do. I doubled down. I figured it had to be something I was doing wrong. Maybe I needed better nutrition. More discipline. Harder workouts. I didn’t want to believe it was age. It was easier to blame myself than accept that something fundamental had changed. At some point, I became so frustrated with how I was performing that I started hiding my workouts. I’d wait until everyone was gone from the gym before I trained. I didn’t want anyone to see it. The guy who had been doing this for decades—slower, weaker, in more pain than ever. People joked about it. “Do you even work out anymore?” I laughed it off. But I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I felt like my body had betrayed me. Looking back now, I can see it clearly. My body wasn’t betraying me. It was trying to protect me from the way I was training it.

Over the last 30+ years, I’ve watched this same pattern play out over and over again. Good, disciplined people—doing everything “right”—slowly run themselves into the ground. Not because they’re weak. Not because they lack effort. But because they’re using an approach that no longer fits the body they have now. And here’s the part nobody talks about. At our age, getting stronger is actually easier. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. Take someone in their 40s, 50s—even 60s—who hasn’t trained in years, plug them into the right strength program, and they’ll gain strength faster than most 20-year-olds. How can this be?

Maybe it’s because, as I said before, our bodies become wiser with age. Maybe the body knows it still has to contribute physically or risk being left behind by the tribe. It may not be built for chasing prey anymore — no more marathon hunts, or long days searching for food in the forrest — but it can still protect. It can still lift, defend, hold the line, brace a fallen tree, restrain a threat.

Evolution hasn’t forgotten us. It’s gifted us with a late-stage superpower: STRENGTH!

Long, punishing workouts? Not necessary. Beating yourself into the ground? Counterproductive. At our age, strength is the vanguard. Stimulating strength and embracing recovery is what we respond to best.

For us, less is more. Volume (weight+reps+sets) is the enemy. At our age we’ll get more done with less. Way LESS.

The unbelievable good news is, scientists have discovered that strength training (done right) is more functional for real life. It promotes health on every level. The stronger we are into our later years, the more our health markers improve — heart health, blood lipids, blood sugar regulation, bone density, mobility, balance, flexibility, brain function, even emotional stability.

After 40, strength isn’t optional, it is essential. Strength is one of the most powerful predictors of all-cause mortality — meaning the stronger you are the less risk you have of dying from ANYTHING. The weaker you are, well, you get it.

Gaining strength is a win-win proposition. And it’s MUCH easier than we ever thought it could be.

This book is about you realizing something important: Optimal health after 40 isn’t off the table — it just requires a more sophisticated approach to strength, training, nutrition and lifestyle.

Inside, you’ll learn more refined methods for building strength, health fitness at this stage of life. You’ll relearn proven techniques that worked for decades before they were buried by trends. You’ll gain a clearer understanding of nutrition as your body changes — and how to use more efficient workouts for better results. We’ll also discuss in detail all of the other factors that will contribute to better health (sleep, minimalism, tracking, meditation, stress reduction etc.)

This isn’t about starting over. It’s about getting back on track — with better tools, clearer intent, and renewed discipline pointed in a clearer direction. A direction pointed at OUR needs and OUR intents.

The RWND method gives people over 40 a new way forward — rooted in strength, guided by purpose, and driven by results.

And here’s the best part: It works exactly the way you’d expect it to.

You’ll become stronger. Leaner. More capable. And BTW this shit looks good ON!

So, I hope you’ll open your mind to some new ideas. Re-open it to some very old ones. And let’s redefine what it means to be strong, healthy, and capable after 45.

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Ch 1 - Understanding the Battle

May 8, 2026

What exactly is the battle at our age?

Ours is a battle of hormone control. We’ll fight this battle on three major fronts:

Gaining muscle
Decreasing inflammation
Improving hormone production, effectiveness, and efficiency

Gaining Muscle

The real villain of aging isn’t wrinkles or gray hair—it’s sarcopenia.

Sarcopenia is a big-sounding word defined as the “natural” loss of muscle as one ages. Before now, we have all been told losing muscle is the natural consequence of aging. And it is, but not on the level we’ve all been told. There is much we can do about the loss of muscle. In fact, science has shown untrained people in their 90s can grow muscle as fast, or even faster than kids in their 20s!

We are told inactive people will begin to lose muscle around the age of 30. If you do nothing to offset this, muscle mass will continue to decline by 3-10% per decade. It speeds up as you age.

If left unchecked, sarcopenia will rob our quality of life. Decreasing muscle mass decreases bone mass and the strength of our connective tissue (ligaments, tendons, etc.). When this happens, our nervous system also takes a hit. Keep this fact in the back of your mind. It’ll come up later.

What are the risks of letting sarcopenia run rampant?

It decreases metabolism, hormone production, balance, strength, immunity, independence, and much, much more.

It increases the risk of morbidity (death), diabetes, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, obesity, cognitive decline, and much, much more.

Yep. Eventually, we are going to face the effects of old age, but you and I will push it farther back than any generation that has come before. You’ll read about how to offset the ravages of sarcopenia later on. For now, you need to know sarcopenia is part of the battle and you and I can do some very cool stuff to prevent and slow its creep.

I should mention here that every bit of muscle you gain right now will stay with you further into old age. Think of building muscle right now like saving up for retirement. The more you have now, the more you’ll have later in life. I call this “strength banking.”

Decreasing Inflammation

Have you heard the term “inflammaging?” Now you have, and it’s a thing. If you live long enough and don’t do anything about it, chronic inflammation will become a pervasive feature of your life. Chronic inflammation is a low-grade, persistent condition that occurs in the absence of overt infection. Living in a state of chronic low-grade inflammation can do a lot of damage to your body. It represents one of the primary risk factors for a shorter life expectancy and a wide range of diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and joint damage.

Yep. These are big problems, but they really don’t tell the whole story.

For the above reasons alone it would suit you to manage inflammation at all costs, but research is giving us even more evidence that managing and reducing inflammation is paramount to our existence.

For example, pro-inflammatory markers in the blood and other tissues are often detected in high levels in older individuals. These predict the risk of cardiovascular disease, frailty, weakness, muscle loss, chronic disease, genomic instability, microbiota composition changes, auto-immune disease, and chronic infection. These markers are also associated with the death of motor neurons (the parts of the nervous system tasked with moving our bodies).

The decline of any part of the nervous system is cause for concern. Understand, every part of the nervous system is linked to every other part. If ONE part of our nervous system—like motor neurons—is affected by something detrimental, it has a ripple effect up-chain from the motor neuron and other areas of the nervous system are affected in similar negative ways.

Shit, that’s bad.

This means if we are losing motor neurons to muscle loss (sarcopenia), then we are losing other parts of our nervous system up chain since the entire nervous system is connected. Which parts? Ultimately, brain cells.

I don’t know about you, but the thought of losing my mobility is trumped by the thought of losing my ability to think and express myself. This makes losing ANY of it unacceptable.

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Improving Hormone Production, Effectiveness, and Efficiency

Exercise done right (along with proper nutrition and stress management) stimulates a powerful cascade of feel-good and performance-enhancing hormones and neurotransmitters. These include dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins, along with short-term increases in testosterone and growth hormone. Just as important—especially for women—exercise supports hormonal balance, including the regulation of estrogen, which plays a critical role in recovery, joint health, and overall well-being.

Exercise done wrong is particularly troublesome because the hormones it produces negate the good effects of exercise. Cortisol, the main product of bad exercise, is a catabolic hormone. Catabolic hormones break down muscle cells. You don’t need to be a trainer to know this sucks.

Female Hormonal Changes

For women, the hormonal story is even more dramatic. Female hormonal decline, particularly during perimenopause and menopause, involves a complex, systemic drop in multiple hormones—most notably progesterone and testosterone. As levels drop, women often experience increased joint pain, reduced collagen synthesis, and slower recovery from training. Along with this, increases in follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), leads to metabolic, cognitive, and cardiovascular changes. This makes intelligent programming—particularly managing volume, intensity, and recovery—absolutely essential.

We ended the section above (4 paragraphs above) with the line “losing muscle cells means losing brain cells.” I noted, “this sucks.” Want to know the only thing that sucks worse than that? When you lose muscle and brain cells, your hormones go to hell. After your hormones go to hell, EVERYTHING else goes to hell. What things? EVERYTHING. Name it. Immune system–shot. Mood regulation–screwed. Sleep cycle–gone. Metabolism–out the window. The list goes on.

Every last bodily system we hold near and dear to us is regulated by good hormones. Once those go–it all goes. Injuries and very serious diseases result. But here’s the thing–exercise done right has been shown to slow the decline and even prevent most of the serious conditions on that list.

“No prob, Neil, I’ll just supplement hormones,” you might say.

Try it. It might help, especially at first. But know this, you can’t just inject the hormones you are missing and hope for good things to happen. Your body needs to call for the hormones. Let’s take testosterone for example, and yes ladies, you need testosterone too. Protein synthesis (muscle growth) requires a dose of testosterone to make it happen. Testosterone increases the number of neurotransmitters, which encourages muscle and tissue growth. Testosterone also interacts with nuclear receptors in your DNA, which causes muscle growth.

In other words, building muscle makes your body “call for testosterone.” Your body will then create and use the testosterone because it has something it can do with it, namely make muscle, tendon and other connective tissues. However, if your body isn’t calling for testosterone to help it build muscle and you are still injecting it, your uptake won’t be as efficient. In essence, you’ll be wasting much of the injection since your body doesn’t need it.

Exercising the right way tunes up the hormonal system. It tunes everything up.

Remember, ours is a battle of hormone control. We’ll fight this battle by:

Gaining muscle
Decreasing inflammation
Improving hormone production, effectiveness, and efficiency

The WAR

The battle is one thing, but let’s never forget what the war is. Our war is against aging poorly. Our war is an outright rebellion against frailty, disease, and lack of mobility. Our war is against anything that will prohibit us from reaping all of the joys in life we desire. If we fight this war right, we will continue to live in ways that edify and inspire us deep into old age. We will gain all the benefits of a sound mind, body, and spirit. These things will help us continue to love our lives, love our people and always love our circumstances.

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Ch 2 - Challenges to Training At Our Age

May 7, 2026

I had a client once who was doing everything right. He was lifting. Getting his 6K steps. Eating well. Sleeping well. All of it.

Then, after a few weeks, he started adding more. Extra workouts on the side. Hitting everything I gave him—and then stacking more on top because he “felt good.”

Which, at our age, almost always turns into a train wreck.

For a while, he looked like a machine.Then the little things started showing up. Heel pain. A sore knee. A click in his shoulder. Energy dipped a bit. Nothing major. So he did what most people do.

He pushed harder. I mean… that’s what Rocky would do, right?

Six weeks later, he had a full-blown shoulder issue and could barely lift his arm above his head—let alone train.He was frustrated. Thought it was one bad rep. Maybe a form breakdown.I doubt it. His form was solid.

What broke him wasn’t one workout. It was the accumulation. Too much work, stacked over time, with not enough recovery to support it. His body wasn’t failing him. It was warning him.

He just didn’t listen.

That’s how training works at our age. The damage doesn’t always show up right away. It builds quietly… until one day it gets loud.

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When Challenges Become Obstacles

Let’s get something straight—after 45, your body isn’t broken. But it’s also not as forgiving as it used to be. You can still get strong. You can still build muscle. You can still perform at a high level. What you can’t do anymore… is train like an idiot and expect to bounce back by Wednesday.

Recovery slows. Stress accumulates. And the same workouts that used to build you can now quietly wear you down.

If you don’t understand what’s changed, you’ll think the answer is to push harder. That’s always been our go-to.

We’re from the generation where if something isn’t working, you “harden up” and “work harder.” And if that doesn’t fix it, you assume it’s you—so you pile on some shame, question your discipline, rub some dirt on it… and go even harder.

That approach works in a lot of areas of life.

Training after 45 isn’t one of them.

At this age, progress comes from training smarter, not harder.

And if you’re going to train smart, you need to understand the game you’re playing—because your body has changed, whether you like it or not. Ignore that, and you end up hurt, frustrated, or stuck.

Here’s what’s really going on behind the scenes:

Hormonal Decline:
Older adults naturally experience reduced levels of anabolic hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, and IGF-1, all of which are vital for muscle repair and growth. Elevated baseline cortisol may also persist, promoting a more catabolic state that hampers recovery.
Anabolic Resistance:
With age, muscle protein synthesis becomes less responsive to the stimulus provided by resistance exercise. This “anabolic resistance” means that older muscles don’t rebuild as efficiently as younger ones, slowing down overall recovery.
Impaired Satellite Cell Function:
Satellite cells are essential for repairing muscle fibers after damage. In older adults, both the number and activity of these cells decline, reducing the muscle’s capacity to regenerate effectively.
Chronic Inflammation (Inflammaging):
Aging is associated with a low-grade, chronic inflammatory state. This persistent inflammation can interfere with the normal healing process after workouts, prolonging recovery times.
Reduced Vascular Function:
Diminished blood flow and vascular health in older individuals can slow the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to muscles, further delaying the recovery process.
Oxidative Stress:
Increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) coupled with a decrease in antioxidant defenses contribute to oxidative stress, which can impair muscle repair mechanisms.
Connective Tissue Degeneration:
Tendons and ligaments lose elasticity and hydration with age, and collagen turnover slows. This makes them less resilient to load and slower to recover than muscle tissue. As a result, connective tissues often become the limiting factor in training, increasing the risk of overuse injuries and prolonging recovery timelines.
Reduced Nervous System Recovery:
The central nervous system becomes less resilient with age, particularly under high-intensity or high-frequency training. This can lead to prolonged fatigue, decreased force production, and delayed recovery even when muscle soreness is minimal.
Sleep Quality Decline:
Aging is often associated with reduced sleep quality and duration. Since deep sleep is critical for hormonal regulation and tissue repair, impaired sleep can significantly slow recovery and reduce training adaptation.
Decline in Mitochondrial Function:
Aging reduces mitochondrial efficiency, impairing the body’s ability to produce energy at the cellular level. This can lead to quicker fatigue during training and slower recovery between sessions.
Loss of Motor Units:
With age, there is a gradual loss of motor neurons and motor units, particularly those responsible for high-force contractions. This reduces strength potential and can impair coordination and force production.

Nothing here says you can’t get healthy, fit and strong. It just means, as I said earlier, you can’t train like an idiot anymore.

This is where most people get it wrong. They feel slower, more tired, more beat up… so they double down and do more. More volume. More intensity. More punishment.

That’s exactly backwards.

At our age, more is not better - better is better. Better sets. Better execution. More/better recovery.

You’re not chasing exhaustion anymore. You’re building capability.

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Ch 3 - Living Well (a position stand)

May 6, 2026

Who needs a position on “living well?”

We do.

I knew a guy once who spent nearly twenty years (so far) trying to “get in shape.” Every summer it was the same thing: “This is the year.” This is the year he’d finally lose the weight. Finally get lean. Finally feel confident enough to take the trip, take his shirt off at the lake, ask the girl out, go hiking, try something new, live a little. But what he really meant was, “This is the year I finally allow myself to live.”

And that’s the trap.

Somewhere along the line, for him (and for a lot of folks I’ve worked with), fitness stopped being about living well and became about looking a certain way. He spent so much time preparing to live that he never fully stepped into his own life.

Meanwhile, the healthiest people I knew weren’t the shredded ones obsessing over mirrors and macros. They were the ones out doing things. Traveling. Laughing. Carrying grandkids. Swimming in cold lakes. Dancing badly at weddings. Building gardens. Hiking mountains. Showing up for the people they loved. Fully living inside the bodies they had. That’s when it hit me: the point was never to look like you live. The point was to actually live.

And so it is time for a position stand on LIVING WELL.

Living Well - A Position Stand

You have only one body. You can choose to live in it or continue to die in it. If you decide to live in it, I say LIVE WELL. Eat delicious food. Have great adventures. Give love. Be loved. Do all you ever dreamed of without being limited by failures of self.
Life is about being happy. It’s about doing the things you love. It’s about showing up for yourself the people you care about.

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Ch 4 - What is the Goal?

May 5, 2026

Goals matter. Reasons matter. The goal of RWND fitness is: To achieve “Optimal Health.”

Optimal health comes from balancing all 8 aspects of health: mental, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, financial, environmental, and physical.

Optimal health is about reaping all the joys of life while avoiding the pitfalls. What joys? All of them. What pitfalls? Mainly preventable ones.

I believe the only worthy reason to exercise and eat right is so we can lead richer, fuller lives. Lives not limited by low capacity or self-induced disease.

I really should leave this chapter with that last paragraph. That is all that needs to be said about the goal of working out at our age. But … it’s a lot more fun to poke at the alternatives.

For example, some have the goal of competing on a bodybuilding stage at our age.
You know—the pursuit of looking phenomenal for exactly 7–12 minutes under hot lights… while being dehydrated, in your underwear, depleted, hormonally sideways, and one cramp away from a full-body lockup. - Yeah, that's peak health.

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Or take marathons.

Because nothing says “I respect my joints and connective tissue in my 40s and 50s” like pounding pavement for 26.2 miles… repeatedly… while praying your toenails hang on and your hips forgive you.

But hey—you got the sticker for your car.

Long-distance cycling?

Fantastic if your goal is to develop world-class endurance in a seated position… while your upper body slowly forgets it was ever invited to the party.

Don’t skip arm day. Just skip arms entirely.

Heavy powerlifting?

Now we’re talking. Load the bar until your eyeballs feel like they might exit your skull… grind out a rep that technically counts… and celebrate the fact that you can still pick up something you’ll never actually need to pick up in real life.

Functional.

I’m (mostly) not saying these pursuits are bad.
They take discipline. They take grit. They take a certain level of obsession that, honestly, is admirable.

But let’s call it what it is. They are sports. And sports don’t care about your health. Many will sacrifice health for winning/status.

And somewhere along the way, a lot of people confused sport with health.

Optimal health doesn’t care how much you can squat for one rep. It doesn’t care how lean you look under stage lights. It doesn’t care how far or how fast you can go until your body starts breaking down.

Optimal health cares about capacity.
It cares about resilience.
It cares about whether your body actually works—day in and day out—without constant negotiation.

Can you get up off the floor without thinking about it?
Can you carry what life asks you to carry?
Can you move, bend, reach, climb, and recover… without paying for it for the next three days?

That’s the game.

If you want to take that body—one built on strength, balance, mobility, and durability—and go run a marathon, or step on stage, or chase a total… go for it. Just don’t build your entire life around something that slowly takes those things away from you.

Start with optimal health. Earn the right to do the other stuff. Because at our age, the goal isn’t to prove how hard we can push. It’s to make sure we can keep going.

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Ch 5 - Optimal Health

May 4, 2026

One of the most disappointing days of my career was the day I learned the definition of health. I foolishly imagined simply looking up the word health might be the starting point for some troubled soul to start down the path to mental, spiritual, and physical bliss. That’s healthy, right?

health /helTH/ noun

the state of being free from illness or injury.

I had higher expectations. Before I learned its definition, I thought it would be more descriptive, more meaningful, more … helpful?

Welp, I was wrong.

How could such an important word have such a lack-luster meaning? How is it the meaning of health, something so important to each of us, can’t be used as the key for unlocking all of the secrets of healthy living?

This troubles me. Nay, blows me away! How does this definition help? Who thought of it? Is there a manager I can talk to?

As a farmer's son from northern Utah I figure I’ve done my share of mundane repetition. If you’ve ever hauled hay by hand or fenced miles and miles of property line, you know what I’m talking about. I refuse to put more effort into a chore than is absolutely necessary. And the thought of trying to improve health without clearly understanding it feels like an exercise in futility. I believe the lack of a clearly defined vision of “health” has become the first foot in the grave for most folks in their healthy journey. Due to this fact and since you can’t rewrite a definition of something, I propose a NEW goal for those of us over 40 along with its own definition.

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New Goal = Optimal Health

Optimal Health /ˈäptəm(ə)l/ /helTH/ noun

The state of being free from illness or injury while achieving perfect balance in eight unique and distinct aspects of one's life. The eight identified aspects of health are as follows: mental, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, financial, environmental, and physical.

How’s THAT for a starting point for becoming healthier? Look, I get this opens a can of worms. Now we have to define what each of the aspects are. Also, we have to agree there are only eight aspects of healthy living. Are there more? Are there fewer? Are some of these redundant?

These are good questions. I’m glad we are asking them. It’s about time someone did.

Over the years, I’ve become convinced there are only 8. Once, I was giving a speech on “Optimal Health” at a conference of my peers. It was the first time I had ever presented it outside of my gym. During the questions & answers portion of the speech a lady stood up and commented, “Sexual Health should be a thing.”

I thought about it. Eventually, I disagreed with her. I told her I felt “Sexual Health” would be a blend of Emotional, Social and Physical Health. Some might even argue, depending upon the type of sex one has, “Spiritual Health” might exist somewhere in there. A debate ensued! It was a magnificent, lengthy and involved Debate. A dozen expert health and fitness professionals weighed in. Some said the list was too lengthy (example: mental and emotional health were the same things - they are wrong.). Others said it wasn’t long enough (some proposed “hygenic health” and “public health” - also, wrong).

My general rule for how to know a thing is “spot on '' is when many sides disagree on multiple issues, but none of the issues are “generally” disagreed upon - it’s money! We have discovered a thing that will be for the collective good.

The list has changed a little over the last 12 yrs. More about this later, and that’s OK. When it comes to the components of “Optimal Health” I don’t feel the need to be right about it. It’s fine if I’m wrong, but the list can’t be wrong. So, after you learn about the “8 Aspects of Optimal Health,” please feel free to contact me about any changes you’d make. Any thoughtful answer that adds to the collective will be debated and considered. I welcome this, because if we get it right, we can all GET RIGHT.

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Ch 6 - The 8 Aspects of Optimal Health

May 3, 2026

It’s tempting to think of health as a physical thing. We picture the epitome of health as someone running down a beach, sun-kissed, swimsuit-clad, and ripped as hell. But after more than three decades in the fitness industry, I can tell you something uncomfortable: some of the healthiest-looking people I’ve ever known had the least healthy lives.

I knew a guy once who was absolutely obsessed with his body. He couldn’t walk past a mirror without pulling his shirt up to check his abs. From the outside, most people would’ve called him disciplined. Dedicated. The picture of fitness.

But behind the scenes, his life was falling apart.

There were steroids (LOTS). Stimulants. Opiates. He could never sleep normally. He was too big. He was so large he had developed sleep apnea in his mid 20s. He struggled to hold jobs because of bad decisions, exhaustion, and a terrible attitude toward life. He had children he wasn’t allowed to see without court supervision. Most of the time when I heard from him, he needed money to repair or fuel his beat-up old car so he could get by another week.

The last time I spoke to him, he was calling from jail. He needed bail money and nobody would help him anymore. His family had finally reached the point where they were just… done.

But man, he had abs.

That experience stuck with me because it forced me to ask a serious question: if a person can look that physically fit while every other part of their life is collapsing, then what exactly is health?

I learned that health is not ONLY physical.

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At First There Were Three

In the beginning, my understanding of health had only three elements: mind, body, and spirit. These were the basic elements I learned in school and the same basic framework most people know. But even then, I felt like something was missing. The mind, for example, is treated like one category, but aren’t there different aspects of the mind? Isn’t emotional health different from intellectual health? If so, wouldn’t the path to improving emotional health look different from the path to improving intellectual health? I believe it would.

Over the years, I’ve come to believe that a person can only become “Optimally Healthy” after achieving balance in eight unique and interconnected areas:

Mental Health.
Emotional Health.
Social Health.
Spiritual Health.
Financial Health.
Intellectual Health.
Environmental Health.
Physical Health.

The point of understanding the 8 Aspects of Health is simple: once you recognize these areas exist, you can finally begin improving them deliberately. Once you understand that mental health deserves every bit as much attention as physical health, your decisions begin to change. Your priorities begin to change. Your life begins to change.

And that’s the secret.

Most importantly, remember this: you can only become “Optimally Healthy” after achieving balance across all 8 Aspects of Health.

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Ch 7 - Mental Health (1st Aspect)

May 2, 2026

By the summer of 2021, I wasn’t mentally well. Most of us weren’t, right? Global pandemics can suck it. I didn’t realize I wasn’t doing OK. Looking back, I can see the signs, but when I was in the middle of it - nope.

In the beginning, nobody understood Covid-19 or what its potential for mental and physical harm would be. The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, at one point, predicted as many as 5 million Americans might die from it within the coming year. Due to this kind of sensationalized reporting, there was pandemonium in my town. This news caused everyone to run to the stores and buy up everything on the shelves. Hoarding was commonplace. Every staple of life was on backorder or NOT available. It seemed apocalyptic. Stores stayed like this for months. It was truly surreal and the stress of seeing this happen was traumatic.

I didn’t take the “pandemic talk” seriously at first, so I was a little late to the prep game. That meant no stockpiles of toilet paper for me. No stockpiles of rice. No stockpiles of canned fruits or vegetables. Like many who didn’t take it seriously, my stress went through the roof at the thought of trying to feed my nine person family without access to the resources we relied on weekly.

I really couldn’t imagine things getting worse. Then they closed the schools. “Holy shit,” I thought. “Now it is getting real - and worse!”

Then, they closed our business. Our tiny gym was considered “high risk”and “non-essential” because of the potential for close personal contact which increased the potential for spreading the virus. Our 10-year-old gym was a small business. It had provided our family a comfortable enough living, but there was never much excess. The thought of three months without a paycheck was insurmountable in my head. Not to mention the thought of not seeing all of our friends every day was equally unbearable. More about that later.

In the wake of the tumultuous events of 2020 and 2021, it's clear that many of us faced unprecedented challenges to our mental well-being. The global pandemic disrupted our lives in ways we never could have anticipated. Looking back, the signs of my own struggles are clearer now than they were in the midst of it all. It's a common human experience to underestimate the toll that stress and uncertainty can take on our mental health.

The pandemic introduced us to fear, scarcity, and isolation. The anxiety that arose from uncertain news and empty store shelves is not something easily forgotten. Those moments of panic, the nagging despondence, they all left their mark. But acknowledging our struggles is not a sign of weakness; it's a sign of strength. It's a reminder that we're all human, and that our mental well-being matters just as much as our physical.

As a trainer, I'm well aware of the importance of rehabilitating injured body parts. Just as we give our physical injuries time to heal, we need to do the same for our minds. Prioritizing mental health should be as normal as going to the gym for a workout. The stigma that has surrounded discussions of mental health is outdated and detrimental. Talking openly about our struggles reduces the shame and normalizes seeking help.

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If you find yourself grappling with your mental health, remember that seeking assistance is a sign of courage, not weakness. Fuck the naysayers and critics; they're trapped in an old way of thinking. The world is evolving, and so should our attitudes towards mental health. It's crucial to understand that taking care of your mind is just as important as taking care of your body. Don't hesitate to reach out for support. There are professionals, friends, and resources available to guide you towards a healthier state of mind.

How to Improve Mental Health
(Without Pretending You’re 25 Again)

Let’s not overcomplicate this.You don’t need a 10-step morning routine, a silent retreat in the mountains, or a personality transplant. You need a few things done consistently… and done honestly. Start with this:

Sit still for a few minutes.
Not scrolling. Not “checking one thing.” Just sit there and breathe.
Call it meditation if you want. I don’t care what you call it.
What matters is this: can you be alone with your thoughts for five minutes without needing an escape hatch? Most people can’t. That’s the problem.
Write your thoughts down.
Not for Instagram. Not for anyone else.
For you.
Because when your thoughts stay in your head, they tend to lie to you.
When you put them on paper, you can finally see what’s real… and what’s just noise.
Move your body.
This one you already know.
But here’s the part people miss—movement isn’t just for your muscles.
It’s one of the most reliable ways to change your state.
Bad day? Walk. Lift. Sweat a little.
You don’t think your way out of a funk—you move your way out.
Create something. Anything.
Draw. Write. Play music. Build something in the garage.
We weren’t built just to consume.
And yet that’s all most people do now—scroll, watch, repeat.
Creation is therapy. Always has been.
Stop mainlining bad news.
You weren’t designed to process the world’s problems 24/7.
Constant negativity isn’t making you informed.
It’s making you anxious.
Set a boundary. The world will still be there when you check back in.
Practice gratitude… even if it feels forced at first.
Yeah, I know—it sounds cheesy.
Do it anyway.
Because your brain is already wired to find what’s wrong.
Gratitude is how you train it to see what’s right.

None of this is revolutionary. That’s the point.

Mental health doesn’t usually fall apart because you’re missing some secret technique.
It falls apart because you’ve drifted away from the basics… and stayed there too long.

Come back to them.

Do them imperfectly. Do them consistently. That’s enough.

BTW, today, my mental health is stronger — not because I eliminated stress, but because I built capacity for it. I don’t avoid my stressors, I embrace them. Just like the body, the mind doesn’t improve through avoidance. It improves through intentional work, honest recovery, and time.

Mental health isn’t something you achieve. It’s something you train — for life.

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Ch 8 - Emotional Health (2nd Aspect)

May 1, 2026

Emotions are what give meaning and flavor to the world around us. Our ability to give value and meaning to our interpretation of the world around us is governed by our emotional health.

In the summer of 2017, I was hired to help design and build a health club in Salt Lake City. I proposed a club design way out of the ordinary and for the first time in my career, the owner gave me a budget and said, “Do it!”

With that, I designed what was (to my knowledge) the very first hybrid health and fitness club in the USA. I took all the elements of a regular commercial gym and combined them with a highly successful garage gym concept. It was a smashing success. At least for some folks. For some of the regular, more traditional commercial gym folks, well, that was a different story.

On our first day of operation, I was teaching a GPP class on the main floor. GPP is the style of training I do in group settings. I hybridized the gym which meant I was conducting classes on an open floor in the middle of a busy commercial gym. It was ELECTRIC! The atmosphere and the music was pumping. There were roughly 20 participants in the class and we were going for it. In GPP classes, we use specialized equipment like barbells, KBs and dumbbells. The bars are reinforced and the weights are rubberized. It is common to drop bars and weights when using this setup. That was one of the things making the atmosphere so electric! Weights were dropping all over the place. To me, when weights are dropped like this, it’s like symbols crashing at the end of a great rock song! I loved it. I thought everyone did. Turns out I was wrong.

In the middle of the class, from across the room came a furious, booming voice, “CAN’T YOU PEOPLE CONTROL THE WEIGHTS?!

I ignored this. I was busy coaching and didn’t want to stop to explain myself. I figured he’d watch for a few minutes and connect the dots himself.

NOPE.

A few minutes later, I looked up to see a giant storming toward me. He was furious. Red-faced and frothing at the mouth as he continued to yell at me, “IF YOUR PEOPLE CAN’T CONTROL THEIR WEIGHTS, THEY NEED GET OUT OF THIS GYM!”

I tried to explain to him how it works in this new style of gym. I tried to help him understand, but he couldn’t control himself. He had let himself become too angry. He was even shaking. He went on and on. He yelled and cursed at me over and over. He yelled and cursed at one of the ladies who was standing there trying to calm him. He stormed into the office and yelled at the manager. He yelled at the front desk staff. Ultimately, he quit the gym and demanded a refund.

His uncontrolled emotions didn’t just affect his day, his emotions affected everyone within earshot of his outbursts. The girl standing closest to him turned white and went from smiling to terrified.

Humans are emotional beings. Our emotions, especially the negative ones (fear, anxiety, rage), were likely beneficial in early evolutionary times. Our strong emotional responses to dangerous and potentially dangerous situations (think, leopard attacks) made it possible to thrive as a species against much stronger predators. Without these strong emotions, humans would never have made it off of the savannah. We are lucky to have them, since even today, there are times where they can keep us safe. The problem is, lack of control of our negative emotions can lead to poor health. Not just for you. It will affect everyone within your emotional reach.

Keep in mind, our emotions aren't just some random spices thrown into the soup of life. They're the very essence of our experiences. Suppressing them isn't the answer; it's about learning to dance with them. We need to give ourselves permission to feel without judgment, and that's where emotional health comes in. Coping well with feelings, whether they are positive or negative, is healthy and noble. But this takes practice. Emotional health isn’t something you fix once and forget about. It’s something you manage daily—like brushing your teeth, except way more people ignore it.

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How to Improve Emotional Health

Write it out.
Get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. No filter, no cleanup. Just dump it. Most people aren’t overwhelmed because life is too hard—they’re overwhelmed because everything’s stuck in their head with nowhere to go.

Breathe on purpose.
When things start to spike, slow it down. Take 10–15 real, intentional breaths. This isn’t woo-woo—it’s control. You’re buying yourself a moment so you can respond like an adult instead of reacting like a grenade.

Sit still for a minute.
You don’t need a meditation app and a candle. Just sit. Be quiet. Notice what’s going on without trying to fix it. That space between you and your emotions? That’s where control lives.

Use music strategically.
Stop letting your mood pick your music—flip it. Build playlists for where you want to go emotionally, not just where you are. Music is one of the fastest ways to shift your state if you actually use it on purpose.

Check in with yourself.
A few times a day, ask: “What am I feeling right now?” Most people don’t do this… and then wonder why things blow up later.

Learn what’s actually going on.
If you don’t understand your emotions, you’re always going to feel like they’re running the show. A solid place to start is by reading “The Body Keeps the Score” Bessel Van Der Kolk. It’ll change how you see stress, trauma, and why you react the way you do.

Take care of your body.
This is the part people want to skip—but it’s the foundation. Eat real food. Move your body. Sleep like it matters. Your emotional state isn’t separate from your physical health—it’s built on top of it.

Remember, emotional health isn’t a one-size-fits-all deal. Just like your fingerprint, your emotional journey is uniquely yours. Emotional health isn’t something you “arrive at.” It’s something you practice. Daily. Quietly. Imperfectly. And the better you get at understanding your emotions, the less controlled you become by them.

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Ch 9 - Social Health (3rd Aspect)

April 30, 2026

Humans are social beings. The ability to socialize and communicate with each other is our main evolutionary strength. In my career, I have seen nothing so powerful or as predictive of success as surrounding oneself with a like-minded and supportive community. There is just no substitute for the benefits we gain by being a part of a community.

The GPP Gym and RWND group is a tremendously kind and supportive community. The individuals who comprise this community are renowned for their thoughtful participation in each other’s success. I feel fortunate every day to be a part of it. However, when I first created my gym, I had no aspirations whatsoever of creating a community. I was a personal trainer. In my mind, great trainers exist only to create marvelous programming aimed at improving fitness. That was my sole purpose.

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Trainers are nerds about this. We love the physiology and biomechanics of exercise. It is all that is important to us. In the old days, if you’d have hit me up about my thoughts on “community” I would have scoffed at the idea. I would have thought of community as nothing more than a byproduct of great programming. In my mind programming was key. I mistakenly thought great programming was all one needed to become as fit and healthy as they’d like.

Back then I wore the tremendous effort and time I put into programming as my most noteworthy badge of honor. It's all I talked about. It's all I wrote about. It's all I thought about. Then something happened.

One morning at the 0930 class I was introducing the workout and showing movements to folks, mostly ladies, preparing for the workout. This particular group of ladies had been coming to the gym for several years and they were, by and large, in phenomenal shape. Many of these 30+ year old mothers with busy lives were capable of astonishing feats of physical strength and endurance. Most could do multiple sets of full pullups, heavy overhead squats, bodyweight deadlifts for numerous reps, and the like. They also carried exceptionally low levels of body fat. I assumed they were the ones who would enjoy hearing about the rudiments and fundamentals of the workout I was explaining. So, I went into detail. As I do. I was in full nerd mode as I was explaining some theoretical hypothesis having to do with programming design when one of the moms rolled her eyes, threw her head back and cried out loud, “We. Don’t. CARE!”

They all clapped.

I wasn’t as embarrassed as I should have been. I was just stunned. How could they not care? How is it, these incredibly fit humans don’t care about the scholarly fundamentals of program design? How did they even become so fit in the first place if they weren’t constantly dissecting the principles of movement patterns and the chemistry of nutrition? I really couldn’t wrap my head around it.

After the workout, I cornered the girl who spoke up. “I'm sorry. We all hate your lectures. None of us care. We come here to get a great workout, but mostly to socialize. This is the only time of the day when I get to see my friends.”

And there it was.

Humans need social contact. Eyeball to eyeball is best. When humans approach and engage each other within touching distance we are gifted with the wonderful effects of a hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin is called the love hormone because of how happy it makes us feel during human contact. It can be a real problem for our health if we don’t get this. It can be a real boon to our health when we do.

Social scientists will tell you the biggest determinant of longevity and a healthful life is our ability to create and maintain social bonds and be a part of a supportive community. Did you know people with weak social networks are 50% more likely to die young? They are also more likely to suffer from diseases. Nasty ones like, Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer, and lower immunity. One of the worst punishments a human can experience is social isolation. Self-imposed social isolation is no different.

Steps to Improve Your Social Health

Social health isn’t complicated… but it does require intention. Here’s where to start:

Get Face-to-Face
Texting isn’t connection. It’s maintenance.
Make time to actually be around people—talk, laugh, train, share space.
(Yes… joining a place like GPP counts 🙂)

Do Things With People
You don’t build relationships sitting at home “thinking about it.”
Join something—classes, groups, teams, anything that puts you around like-minded humans.

Listen Like You Mean It
Most people aren’t listening… they’re just waiting to talk.
If you want better relationships, actually hear people. That’s where connection lives.

Give Your Time
Volunteer. Help. Show up for something bigger than you.
You’ll meet good people fast when you’re all pulling in the same direction.

Use Social Media… Don’t Let It Use You
Social media is a tool—not a substitute for real life.
If it’s replacing real conversations, you’ve gone off track.

Be the One Who Reaches Out
Stop waiting for invites.
Plan the dinner. Send the text. Set it up.
Strong social circles don’t happen by accident.

Be Willing to Open Up
Surface-level effort gets surface-level results.
If you want real connection, you’ve got to let people see you a bit.

In a world where we're more interconnected digitally than ever before, the essence of human connection is still rooted in the power of face-to-face interaction. We often overlook Social health. This is a mistake. Having a healthy social life is the secret ingredient. Our ability to form and maintain genuine relationships isn't just a "nice-to-have" feature of life; it's an essential pillar of well-being.

Looking back at the journey of creating my gym, I came face-to-face with the surprising realization that even the most dedicated fitness bad-asses weren't there solely for, what I considered, “marvelous program design.” Haha. They craved more than sets and reps; they yearned for human connection. It was the camaraderie, the shared laughs, and the bonds formed through sweat and struggle that truly fueled their tremendous health.

Social health isn't just about the oxytocin-driven "feel-good" effects of human touch—it's about something deeper. It's about being part of a community, whether that means finding kinship in a physical space or joining a virtual tribe through the wonders of technology. We've discovered that weak social networks are like a silent poison. It’s poison that kills slowly. But the beauty is, we possess the antidote—connection.

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Ch 10 - Spiritual Health (4th Aspect)

April 29, 2026

Living a spiritually healthy life means living a life full of meaning and purpose. It means living in harmony with your own values and with the values of like-minded people you’ve surrounded yourself with. According to many, spiritual health brings the most joy of all other aspects of health.

I’ve always envied folks who find deep meaning and comfort in the belief of something that cannot be quantified scientifically. For me, it used to be hard to believe in something which cannot be seen or heard with my physical senses. But experiences I’ve had raise some fairly important questions. Questions like: Are we able to measure every aspect of human experiences? Do we even know all of the human senses?

I’m not sure we do. I pose a case in point.

There is a phenomenon that happens too frequently at my gym to be dismissed as utter coincidence. I’ve been pointing it out so often, for so many years everyone who comes to the gym knows about it, laughs about it, and looks for it. They all agree it’s super weird, but none who have witnessed this phenomenon would deny it happens.

It seems people who are like-minded function in like-minded ways. I’d go so far to say it appears we are all connected somehow. There are a lot of ways this manifests itself I could tell you about, but the most interesting manifestation of this phenomenon is how people dress. On many days, folks who come to work out at our gym at the same time of day will be dressed the same. For example, Kristen and Hillary are workout buddies. They both come to the gym around 0900. Too often to be a coincidence, they’ll show up at exactly the same time, wearing exactly the same outfit. Like, they’ll arrive within 1 minute of each other wearing the exact same shirt, from the exact same store, in the exact same color. They’ll even be wearing the same color of pants. But that’s not the weirdest thing. They’ll meet at the door and laugh at each other for a minute, then they’ll walk into the gym to see 7 other people wearing the same color combinations.

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Coincidence right? I don’t think so. I mean, what are the odds of 9 out of the 12 people in a room wearing the same color combinations? Maybe it’d happen once, but this phenomenon happens almost every day. And it’s different with every class time. Like, one class will be wearing all black and gray. The next class will all have camo pants and purple tanks. The next class will all be wearing blue shirts. I’m not kidding you. It’s weird.

So what’s my point?

My point is there is obviously a connection between people we aren’t fully aware of on a conscious level. We can’t name it. We can’t measure it. And even though scientifically this phenomenon doesn’t officially exist - it’s there.

This pans out doesn’t it? Billions of people worldwide attribute feelings of connection, deep meaning and comfort to phenomena that doesn’t yet scientifically exist, right? Can they all be wrong?

Steps for Improving Spiritual Health

Spiritual health isn’t about religion—it’s about meaning. It’s about feeling connected to something bigger than your daily to-do list.

Here’s how you build it:

Slow Down and Reflect
Take a few minutes each day to think. What do you actually believe? What matters to you? What kind of person are you trying to become? Most people never ask—so they drift.

Create Quiet on Purpose
Meditation, breathing, prayer, sitting in silence… doesn’t matter what you call it. Just give your mind a break from noise long enough to hear yourself think.

Get Outside (Regularly)
Nature has a way of putting things back into perspective. Go for a walk. Sit in the sun. Look at something bigger than your problems.

Practice Gratitude (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It)
Write down a few things you’re grateful for every day. This isn’t fluff—it trains your brain to see what’s working, not just what’s missing.

Do Things That Actually Matter to You
Not what looks good. Not what gets likes. What feels meaningful. If your daily actions don’t line up with your values, something’s off.

Find Your People
Surround yourself with people who are trying to grow, not just survive. Conversations matter. Energy matters. Choose wisely.

Be a Decent Human (Consistently)
Kindness. Empathy. Patience. Not just when it’s easy—but when it’s inconvenient. That’s where the real work is.

Here's my take: not everything's meant to be dissected under a microscope. There's a vast, uncharted territory—let's call it the non-physical realm. It's where spirituality touches each of us individually. Some folks find it within church walls, while others seek it in the quiet whispers of meditation or the embrace of nature.

When we nurture spiritual health, we are charting the universe within. It's where we find and nurture our core values. That’s where we can find clarity and peace of mind. And guess what? It’s not just good for US; it ripples outward. On some level our choices, our actions and our intentions are all interconnected. I believe this. Suffice it to say, I believe what’s good for you, is ultimately good for me. That means we all benefit. I’m down with that. I hope you are too.

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Ch 11 - Financial Health (5th Apect)

April 28, 2026

Poor financial health can deteriorate our ability to take care of ourselves, become educated, find work, maintain relationships and plan for our future.

By winter of 2020, like many around the world, our business was failing. The pandemic was particularly rough on our tiny gym. Right off the bat, we were forced to close our doors for 4 full months. For the next six months we were limited to only 6 people per hour. Our 10 year old gym was decimated. We lost 50 members in the first week. Most of them were older and when the CDC warned that older members of society were most at risk of dying from COVID-19, most of our clients over 50 were gone. Losing fifty members wouldn’t do much to the mega-gyms in our area, but our membership numbers always hovered around 150-200 members. 50 members quitting was a very big deal and was an extremely big hit to the gym financially. We were used to 20-30 members coming at a time. Scheduling a workout became a nightmare for our clients. Most of our members found this inconvenient. Many showed support and were generous beyond measure. Many more quit.

Struggling financially caused us to work extremely hard. Those hours weren’t productive. This caused me to stress out, think badly of myself and work even harder. This went round and round until, eventually the wheels came off.

Linds and I held the gym together by a thread until the summer of 2021. But then something broke inside of me. I just snapped.

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At the time, I had been going through a bit of a revival of my soul. I had been studying spirituality and advocacy for a couple of years. Sparked by the equality movement in the summer of 2020 I became convinced I needed to speak up and start voicing my support of injustice as I saw it. Problem was I didn’t know how to get involved. Plus I never really had the guts to jump into the fight before.

All at once, I found the guts. Suddenly, in the summer of 2021 I decided to become a voice in the race for equality.

Let’s just say I wasn’t the most eloquent advocate. My choice to speak out added to the financial unraveling of our gym.

My very public actions alienated people. Alienating people caused relationships to end. These were relationships I cherished. Some of these I’d fostered and cared for over 20 years. Despite my apologies and attempts at reparations many of my cherished relationships were abruptly and unceremoniously ended. This had an even more damaging effect on my psyche and the gym. I lost 44 friends that day. Our gym lost 44 members and a lot of good will in the community.

I’m not sure why I allowed myself to be such an ass. All I can say is, poor financial health has far-reaching consequences. Financial instability can be a severe source of stress and is likely to show up negatively in many facets of our lives.

How to Improve Your Financial Health

Let’s keep this simple—because complicated is usually what got people into trouble in the first place.

Know Where Your Money Is Going
If you don’t have a handle on your cash flow, nothing else matters. Sit down and map it out—income, expenses, everything. Most people aren’t broke… they’re just unaware.

Kill the Bad Debt First
High-interest debt is financial quicksand. Credit cards, especially. Attack it aggressively. Every dollar you free up here is a dollar that can actually start working for you.

Build a Real Safety Net
Life happens—cars break, bodies break, jobs change. Have 3–6 months of expenses set aside so one bad month doesn’t turn into a bad year.

Make Saving Automatic
Don’t rely on willpower. Set it up so money moves into savings, retirement, and investments without you thinking about it. Boring wins here.

Invest Like You Plan to Live a Long Time
Because you probably will. Learn the basics or get help—but don’t sit on cash forever. Time is your biggest advantage, even starting later than you’d like.

Stop Trying to Look Rich
This one stings a little. Most people stay broke trying to impress other broke people. Live within your means. Quiet wealth beats loud spending every time.

Check In Regularly
Your finances aren’t “set it and forget it.” Review them. Adjust. Stay engaged. What worked 5 years ago might not work now.

Leading a healthy, happy and secure life inarguably has financial elements so we must pay close attention to it. I’m paying closer attention to my financial health these days. It has helped. The gym is bouncing back and our future looks much brighter than it has in a few years. I have become a better advocate too. For me, I have learned positivity is a much more effective way to affect the changes I'd like to see in the world and in my community.

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Ch 12 - Intellectual Health (6th Aspect)

April 27, 2026

Intellect is the ability to learn, reason, create, know and understand.

You can’t know it all, but every little thing helps, right? I believe our intellect holds the key to the limits of our own development and life satisfaction. Becoming educated either formally or informally and following other intellectual goals and pursuits contribute to our lives substantially. This is especially true of health and fitness.

In the late 90s, I worked at a very popular and large gym in Northern Utah. Every day around noon the gym would slow down and one particular guy would come in for his workout.

You could tell he was a bit out of his element. Often he’d wear dirt encrusted boots over his soiled and greasy jeans. I hate when people wear jeans to the gym. It’s not a fashion thing (who’d take fashion advice from me?). Rivets on jeans rip vinyl seats. So do belt buckles, so do dangling multi-tools - he was wearing all of them. The first time we pointed out his belt buckle ripped the bench he was lying on he seemed genuinely sorry, but it didn’t stop him from doing his next set.

His workouts were - strange. He had a thing with his neck. It’s all he worked on. He’d come into the gym several times per week and walk down the rows of exercise machines trying to do things the machines weren’t designed to do using his head and neck. For example, you are supposed to sit on the leg extension machine and put your legs behind the pad then lift the pad by extending your legs out in front of you. He’d kneel down beside the machine, put the side of his head on the pad where your feet are supposed to go, and push it around with his head using the muscles of his neck. He’d sit there on all fours, head on the footpad doing head/neck exercises for sets of 50-60 reps. Then he’d walk over to the cable machine and try to hold the handle of the cable under his chin while he did chin-tucks. Dozens of them. The weirdest one I saw was where he padded a barbell in a squat rack, stood underneath it placing the top of his head in the middle of the barbell, then stood up with it trying to balance it on top of his head. He’d do a set where he stood there balancing the barbell, shaking incredibly, for 20-30 seconds then put it down. Then he’d pack on more weight and do it again. The dude could pick up an enormous amount of weight on his head.

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After weeks of watching him do this, I decided I’d hit him up about it. While his workout didn’t make much sense to me, maybe I was missing something.

I had a really nice conversation with him. Such a nice guy. He said he really admired people with thick necks and profound jawlines. He said he was rather embarrassed by his comparatively skinny neck and weak jawline. He explained a friend told him working out would help with this. So he joined the gym.

I asked him “why only do neck stuff?” He said he was really happy with the rest of his body. He didn’t think he needed to work on anything else. I asked him if he was open to some other points of view on this. I even offered some training. He said, “No, thank you. I think I’ve got this.” With that, he gave me a wry smile and he was off to the next neck thing.

There was so much I could have done to help this guy. Turns out, I wasn’t the one missing something. It was totally him. Thick necks and profound jawlines from lifting weights come as the result of heavy compound lifts. Lifts like squats, deadlifts, presses and pull ups. Working the neck directly isn’t very effective for building neck muscles. This is because it’s hard to apply direct resistance to the head, which is why he was on all fours at the leg extension machine. People who work their necks usually do so as a type of therapeutic or preventive program. My dude needed a little more knowledge and I was sad he wasn’t open to it.

How to Improve Intellectual Health

If you’re over 40 and not actively sharpening your mind… you’re drifting. And drift is the enemy.

Here’s how to stay dangerous:

Stay Curious
Start asking better questions. Why does this work? What don’t I understand? Curiosity keeps your brain young—and most people lose it because they stop using it.

Never Stop Learning
You don’t need a classroom. Read. Watch. Study. Take a course if you want—but don’t confuse “done with school” with “done growing.”

Read Outside Your Bubble
If everything you read just reinforces what you already believe… you’re not learning—you’re hiding. Mix it up. Different viewpoints force your brain to work.

Think, Don’t Just Consume
Stop blindly accepting information. Question it. Break it apart. Decide what actually makes sense. That’s where real intelligence is built.

Create Something
Write. Build. Draw. Teach. Creating forces you to organize your thoughts—and exposes what you don’t actually understand yet.

Have Real Conversations
Talk to people who think differently than you. Not to win—but to understand. That’s how your perspective expands.

Clean Up Your Inputs
Your brain is only as good as what you feed it. Less junk content. More substance. Be intentional with what you watch, read, and listen to.

All of our thoughts and decisions are influenced by our experiences, academic knowledge, creativity, general knowledge and common sense.

Intellect truly holds the key to the limits of our own development. In this case, had my new neck-flexing friend understood more about the limits of his weird programming, he’d have gotten a lot more out of his workouts. He likely would have actually accomplished his goals. Predictably he didn’t. He went away after a few short weeks after our discussion, his neck none the thicker.

You can’t know everything, but every little thing helps, right? Maybe the best thing to know, is the fastest way to improve the intellect is simply to know there is always more to know. It appears to me, with intellectual development, it’s not always about how much you know, instead it’s more about how much you don’t. French philosopher Albert Camus probably said it best. He said, “An intellectual is one whose mind watches itself.”

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Ch 13 - Environmental Health (7th Aspect)

April 26, 2026

Embarrassingly, this extremely important aspect of health was the last one to make the list. Considering the state of our planet this seems about right, doesn’t it?

A few years ago I attended a fitness retreat in Essex, Massachusetts. Essex is a charming little New England town about a half-hour north of Boston. It’s known for seafood, tourism and antiques. My wife and I had an unforgettable time there. Every morning we’d have our coffee on the steps of the quaint shingle-style inn, then take walks through the mossy forests down to the bay at low tide and wade through tidal pools. If you’ve never been there you really must go. It was beautiful and, for a country boy from the high desert mountains, it was momentous to see the lush greenery and diversity of life in the Essex bay.

The retreat was held in an adorable bed and breakfast where the owners and management of several gyms throughout the Boston area met to discuss the state of their gyms, their staff and the fitness world in general. It was a truly remarkable three days.

It was remarkable because the main owner of the gyms was a former hippie who moved from Salt Lake City to Boston in the late 60s to get more involved in the civil rights movement. Since the 60s, like most baby boomers, he left his nonconformist roots in the dust to become a ragingly successful capitalist. However, he hung on to certain aspects of his former free-spirited beginnings, like loud shirts and rollerblades. He was also a very active environmentalist.

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What struck me most about the retreat was how environmentally conscious and aware the New Englanders were. We carpooled everywhere, doubled up in rooms, recycled everything, and left no trace when we were out in the forest. At one point in the retreat, we discussed the environment in ways I had never fully considered. Since it was a fitness retreat the speaker's related environmentalism directly to health in all ways.

That weekend sparked the thought in me that “environment” must be on the list of “8 Aspects of Health.” What I learned since that weekend was that our environment has three major components.

The human component - is composed of individuals, families & communities.
Nature component - which is air, water, land, and all living things.
Human-made components - which is a combination of many things both natural and human-created, like buildings, parks, bridges, roads, etc.

We are products of our environment. If any aspect of our environment is polluted, this will be reflected in our personal health as well as the health of our community. For example, if our human environment is polluted by toxic negativity then our personal health will suffer. If nature becomes polluted, either by us or other natural elements, our personal health will suffer. If human-made components like power lines, dams and roads overpower the natural elements of the earth it creates imbalances in the environment and our personal health will suffer.

How to Improve Environmental Health (Without Becoming a Full-Time Activist)

The goal isn’t perfection—it’s awareness and better choices.

Conscious Consumption
Start paying attention to what you bring into your life—food, products, even information. If it’s low quality, toxic, or disposable… it’s probably costing you somewhere.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (In That Order)
Recycling is fine. But the real win? Buying less junk in the first place. Use what you already have. Most people don’t need more—they need less.

Simplify Your Daily Habits
Use less water. Waste less energy. Cut down on single-use plastics. You don’t need to overhaul your life—just stop being careless with it.

Get Outside—Regularly
Walk. Hike. Sit in the sun. Touch grass (literally). Your body and brain still expect nature… even if your lifestyle forgot.

Be Part of Something Bigger
Join a cleanup. Support local efforts. Care about your community. Environmental health isn’t global theory—it’s local behavior.

Think Before You Choose
How you get around. What you buy. Where you spend money. These decisions add up fast. Start acting like they matter—because they do.

Clean Up Your Space (and Your Circle)
Clutter drains you. So do negative people. Build an environment that supports your health instead of quietly working against it.

Often we underestimate the importance of the environments we live in. Sometimes the smallest change to our environment can have a major impact on our positivity and outlook. I once had a client tell me she became successful with weight loss by making her bed each morning. She claimed the simple act of organizing her environment by making her bed set her on track to making more healthy changes throughout her day.

Even the smallest changes to any of the three components can have an exponentially positive effect on our own health and the health of society. I challenge you to commit today to discover different ways of organizing and cleaning up the environments you live in. Becoming more environmentally conscious and making even the smallest healthy changes to our environment will pay dividends to our future and to, perhaps, just as importantly, to future generations.

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Ch 14 - Physical Health (8th Aspect)

April 25, 2026

Physical health is the conduit.

Physical Health covers a lot of different areas. It covers your nutrition, fitness, measurements, body composition, etc. Really, anything having to do with the body itself should be considered part of your physical health.

Physical health is special because all points of health intersect here. There is something inside of each of us that innately understands this. We all know tying a physical act with a mental or spiritual pursuit helps us grasp or command the mental or spiritual intention more fully. For example, why do we look up or to the side when we think deeply about something? Is the physical act of looking up really necessary to the thought process? It’s not, but linking a physical act (looking up) to a mental task can help with the mental task. Humans do this a lot. It is very natural.

The first time I encountered this was 25 yrs ago. I was a personal trainer at an affluent gym in Salt Lake City. I had been hired by a very successful litigating attorney. He told me in our initial consultation he needed to lose weight for an upcoming trial. I understood the whole weight loss thing for the obvious health reasons, but why for an upcoming trial?

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“Juries don’t like fat lawyers. They think fat lawyers are lazy and dishonest. If I lose the weight they’ll like me and trust me more explicitly.”

This blew me away. It was the first time I ever connected the thought that a physical appearance might somehow convey a mental capacity like honesty or an intellectual capability. It was also apparent to me he was hoping to use his physical appearance as an indirect means to strengthen his financial future. If he won the case he’d, no doubt, strengthen his position in the firm. Winning would improve his standing with his professional colleagues and ensure he’d get the biggest cases. Improving physical health as a means to improve his financial health was new to me. Remember, I was a total health nerd. Back then I couldn’t think of another damn reason to work out other than to improve fitness and health. But it turns out this isn’t so rare. It happens a lot, with more things than most people realize.

Here’s another example. Once a lady told me she was joining the gym so her husband would look at her “THAT way” again. In other words, she wanted a romantic connection with her husband. She wanted him to want her the way he did back when they were first dating. She imagined if she looked the same way as she did after high school her husband might be more interested in her. This was going to be difficult because as a mother of 4 who was in her early 40s things will have permanently changed for her physically. This is neither bad nor good. It just is. Not to mention, I knew it wouldn’t really matter. I know her husband personally. He worships her body. There is no way her thought of getting into better shape originated with him. And even if it would have come from him, her problems were way bigger than attraction issues. In any case, hers was clearly NOT a physical pursuit, she was looking for an emotional connection with her husband. This is an emotional and social pursuit. So why then was she gravitating toward a physical aspect of health to gain non-physical benefits?

I believe the physical aspect of health is the conduit to improving all aspects of health. I believe we all know this inherently. It’s why we naturally gravitate toward the physical. Humans intrinsically understand the more senses involved in a learning process, the faster and more completely we will master that process.

The principles of learning are universal. Therefore, the skills and abilities we learn to improve our physical health will be the same as the skills and abilities needed to improve all other aspects of our health. It’s why we gravitate toward the physical.

For example, to improve your physical health you need to complete daily, consistent reps of an exercise over and over. Not too few. Not too many. Wouldn’t this principle apply to our emotional health? Wouldn’t the experience of completing daily, consistent reps of exercises like making eye contact while speaking, help to improve my emotional health in the same way?

Here’s another. In order to improve my physical health, I have to learn to progressively overload my physical body in a way that initiates physical improvement. Not too little, but not too much. Wouldn’t learning to progressively overload my capacity for putting myself into unfamiliar social situations help me to become a more familiar and dependable member of my community? I am an extreme introvert. I hate social situations. My instinct is to avoid people and parties at all costs. Social situations cause me extreme stress. My initial instinct is to avoid them, but avoiding social situations makes me lonely. This causes me even more stress. This is a never-ending loop. I learned to cope with my crippling social anxiety by learning to become accustomed to the stress. I started small, by only socializing with individuals. From there, I progressively overloaded my capacity for interacting with people by expanding my social circle to couples and small groups. Over the years, I’ve become better at social interaction. I’ve become better at putting myself in social situations and also better at handling the social interactions I’ve put myself into. This took progressive overloading.

Learning to use our physical body to improve other aspects of our health is the fastest and most complete way to learn the skill we are seeking. It’s why many of us default to exercise when trying to get back on track after life throws us a few curveballs.

Remember physical health is special because all points of health intersect here. The act of tying a physical act with another less tangible aspect of health (mental, emotional, social, spiritual) helps us learn. Using a physical act to learn a less tangible aspect of health helps us learn that aspect faster and more completely than if we didn’t use it in the first place.

Exercise and using our physical bodies is magic. Increasing our strength, endurance, and ability to move increases our physical health in all of the most important ways. This is invaluable for all aspects of our health.

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Ch 15 - Minimalism

April 24, 2026

We are minimalists.

Minimalists care primarily about efficiency and effectiveness.

We refuse to do one more rep of one single exercise than is absolutely necessary to accomplish our goal of optimal health.That said, we realize nothing worth having comes easily. Therefore we are committed to doing whatever is required to get to optimal health.

Our approach is unique in the health and exercise world. Most programs are concerned with seeing how much people are capable of doing. We find this silly, misguided, and believe it wastes time, intent and effort. Truth is, NOBODY CARES about the highest achievements one can accomplish inside of a gym.

I can prove this. What is the highest bench press ever recorded? Most people don’t know. Do you? Who performed that bench press? Who did he take that record from? What was the highest bench press before?

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Funny so many of us seem to place such high importance and emphasis on a thing like “hyperfitness” that has no demonstrable importance or meaning in our lives. If NOBODY knows the highest bench press in the world, then it’s not important to most people. Why then are so many people spending so much time, intention and effort (like I foolishly used to do) to accomplish something so unimpressive/unimportant? It’s baffling.

Does this mean we shouldn’t bench press, squat or deadlift? No. All of these exercises are essential to our optimal health, especially when done right. We need them. We should do them if we can. But we should do them in a minimalistic manner. In ways that enhance our lives, NOT in ways that diminish our lives.

Remember, we know great functional capacity is useful only OUTSIDE of the gym. That’s where most of us find our true passions and purposes. The gym’s job is to give us the energy, strength and vigor needed to succeed in pursuits we have deemed important, such as being an attentive spouse, an engaged parent, a more creative and productive businessperson, a better employee, or a more inspiring boss. The gym’s job is to give us more energy to be happier and more cheerful, more active in our grandchildren’s lives, and to worship in the ways we feel are important. All of it and more in an unlimited fashion. This should be determined only by ourselves and not dictated to us by self-imposed limits on health or capacity.

Get in the gym, get your health and vigor then get out. Don’t waste time doing more than is necessary.

Maybe you are thinking “Minimalism is just an excuse to do less.” LOL. Anyone who would think this has never done one of our workouts. However, if you think this, I invite you to take the “ONE PRIDE BUCK” challenge. Here’s how that goes. You bring your bad-ass self to Centerville, UT and dazzle us all with your hardcore excellence. After you’ve signed all the appropriate waivers and such, Linds and I will lead you through one of our average workouts. We’ll even film it! After you kick ass and have shown us all how pathetic we are, I’ll stand corrected and pay you ONE single PRIDE BUCK. I will hand this to you with my forever respect and adoration. 🙂

We don’t cut corners. Remember we are here to usurp all we can from our lives without being held back by self-imposed limits on our capacity.

Yes, we will do all it takes in the gym, but NOT ONE THING MORE. Instead of doing more reps in the gym, I say we do more “reps” in life. Do them where they count. Do reps where it can benefit yourself, your family, your loved ones, your community, your country, and your God. There is no doubt the energy you put into these more important things will come back to you in more meaningful, important, and joyful ways.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”

- Henry David Thoreau

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Ch 16 - The RWND Motto

April 23, 2026

“Without Strength, You’ve None to Give”

Let’s never forget the things that matter most to us now. Most of us start out with modest goals. We want better health. We want more energy. We’d like to show up better for our people. We’d like to look a smidge better, which is subjective and can change.

Then the fitness world has ways of drawing us in. Just being a part of it exposes us to more meaningless pursuits.

The fitness world would have us believe dumb shit like, “Six-pack abs are paramount,” or “you can never be too thin,” or “she who exercises hardest, exercises best.”The longer we are exposed to the fitness world the more negative the hold it seems to get on us.

The fitness world builds its substantial profits in two main ways: (1) They prey on our insecurities by constantly telling us we aren’t good enough. (2) They make us believe our only worth is in the subjectively defined (and constantly changing) “beautiful body” we are building in the gym.

Insecurity and vanity are the two worst reasons to eat right and exercise.

Loving our bodies and loving life gives health a deeper meaning, which makes succeeding with health more attainable. Strengthening our bodies helps us to strengthen others. Giving the benefits of our health to others makes those benefits more impactful and longer lasting for all involved.

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Ch 17 - Sleep More

April 22, 2026

Want to know what Olympic athletes, Ironman winners, strongmen and the winner of Mr. Olympia have in common? They don’t work rotating night shifts.

My friend Danny has worked overnight shifts for years. She’s a nurse. Like, for 20 years she’s been doing this. She’s also a mother, so she has to get kids to school in the morning. Right about the time she should be getting into bed to catch up on her sleep, she has to get kids ready and get them out the door. When the kids were young, she had to be back to school within a couple of hours to pick them back up. Then back to school a couple of hours later to pick the older kids up. Then it was soccer, dance and any other activity they were involved in. Not to mention she had to find time for her workout somewhere in there. Not long after she gets home from running kids around from activities, her husband is getting home from his job and it is dinner time for the family. She has a very traditional marriage and loves to cook for them. After dinner comes homework, then a little later it’s bedtime for the kids. About the time she puts them down, it’s time for her to start her shift on the phones.

Danny does get sleep though. What she finds herself doing is catching sleep wherever she can throughout her day. But that’s not how sleep works. Gaining the healthy benefits from sleep requires 6-8 hours of downtime - in a row! She usually only gets about 3-4 hours sleep in a row.

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Danny is a tough chick, but over the years this sleep schedule has taken a toll on her health. Thank god she has taken the time to add exercise to her daily task list, otherwise her medical issues could be much worse. Messing with your body's natural circadian rhythms is one of the worst things you can do for your health. We’ll talk more about these health complications below, but first let’s cover circadian rhythms.

Circadian Rhythms

We all have a built-in biological clock. It does more than you’d think. Among other things it controls:

wakefulness
sleep
metabolism
heart rate
blood pressure
body temp
etc.

Our biological clocks are set to a circadian rhythm that cycles every 24 hours. If we disrupt this cycle by just a smidge, like 1-3 hours, we'll feel it. Some of us feel it immediately. Others of us get a lag of several days, or even weeks. Throwing your body out of its normal rhythmic patterns is known to cause problems.

We know the part of your brain where circadian rhythms live. It's in your suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). That's in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus seems to be fairly important to your health in that it regulates stuff like body temperature, fluids/electrolytes, hunger and hormone production. I'm not saying you couldn't get healthy without help from the hypothalamus; but if you were to fry the damn thing by screwing up your circadian rhythms hard and often, you might struggle a bit.

The other thing we know is your SCN is connected to the retina of your eye. If it is dark, the SCN tells your body to secrete melatonin and make you peacefully sleepy. If it's light, the SCN inhibits melatonin production. Hint: if you are having trouble sleeping please ponder on the "darkness" thing you just learned.

In the winter (assuming you live far from the equator), your SCN has developed a strange way of adapting to the longer periods of darkness. It produces melatonin in two stages. The first stage happens within a couple hours of sundown. Ever notice you get sleepy earlier in the winter? The second happens around 4 a.m. In the middle of these stages, there is a natural period of restful wakefulness. But there is a problem. In the developed world we don't go to bed earlier in the winter like our ancestors did. Instead of following our natural rhythms, most of us are just barely turning in right around our period of "restful wakefulness."By not turning in earlier when the first melatonin is released, it becomes more difficult to go to sleep.

Not getting enough sleep or enough of the right kinds of sleep throws us out of our natural circadian rhythm. This can be one of the reasons why (for some of us) our fitness goes to hell. It is also likely a contributing factor to weight gain, irritability (who doesn't get a little pissy about gaining weight?) and general lethargy. It can also be why so many of us get sick and depressed.

Therefore, here is one of the most important keys to attaining good health and fitness: Don’t let your circadian rhythms get too far out of whack. If they do, get back on track ASAP.

Problems with not getting enough high quality sleep

Memory problems. Lack of high quality sleep affects short term and long term memory. During deep sleep (REM) is where your brain forms memory and learning patterns.
Creativity and problem solving go out the window.
Emotional problems. Aren’t we hot tempered and moody enough? Lack of sleep is a leading contributor to anxiety and depression.
Weak immune system. Sleep is your frontline defense against infections that cause colds and flu.
Car accidents and accidents at work. Lack of sleep causes lack of focus.
Increased risk of diabetes. Lack of sleep causes your body to produce stress hormones like cortisol. Cortisol production increases blood sugar levels in the body. This can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Weight gain. Once again, stress hormones. Cortisol increases hunger and decreases satiety.
Decreases testosterone. Yep, stress hormones again. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone. This means it breaks down healthy tissue. It does this, in part, by suppressing testosterone and its effects. This lowers sex drive and vitality - in all people.
Increases risk of heart disease and stroke. Sleep deprivation increases inflammation. Inflammation is one of the leading causes of heart disease and stroke.
Lack of recovery - from workouts, life, ect.

The takeaway? Get on a sleep schedule. Get more high quality sleep. Shoot for 6-8 hours. You need more if you are active, stressed or older.

10 Tips for getting higher quality sleep after 40 (regulating circadian rhythm)

Go to sleep at the same time each night.
Get up at the same time each morning.
No caffeine after noon.
Have only 1 glass of wine in the evening. It has a calming effect. 2 glasses undo this calming effect.
Do not eat within 2 hours of bedtime.
Limit fluid intake close to bedtime.
Do not exercise within 2 hours of bedtime.
Dim the lights 1 hour before bedtime (dim amber colored lights are preferable to blue or white lights).
Develop a pre-sleep routine which decreases stress and activity (read books, listen to calming music).
Don’t lie in bed awake. If after 20 min you haven’t fallen to sleep, get up and do something calming, like reading or listening to calming music.

Humans can die faster of sleep deprivation than they can die of starvation. If you get less sleep than you need you’re just killing yourself slowly. He or she who wears 4 hours of sleep per night as some badge of honor, it’s time to re-think that. It’s time to take your health more seriously. Sleep deprivation (ie. slowly killing yourself) will wreak havoc with your body, mind and spirit. It’s unsustainable. If you pull it off short term, you’ll be lucky if you only experience temporary disruptions to your mood, memory or health. Long term sleep deprivation is dangerous and its side effects can be permanent.

Dieting and exercise don’t make any sense if you don’t get proper amounts of sleep. The fastest thing you can do to improve your health, like today, is to start getting enough high quality sleep!

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Ch 18 - Meditation

April 21, 2026

Stress is a bad thing. We all know this. The problem is, most of us over 45 aren’t taking deliberate steps to do anything about it. This is a mistake. If left unchecked, stress can become chronic and cause many serious health problems, including:

Depression, anxiety and personality disorders
Heart disease, high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks and stroke
Obesity, eating disorders
Menstrual problems
Loss of sexual desire

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My First Meditation Experience

I had the weirdest experience once. It was a meditation experience. I’m not sure why I tried meditation since I was positive it wasn’t going to help. Meditation isn’t typically a 40+ thing, but it did help. It changed my life. It opened my mind to possibilities I had never imagined before.

I was going through a rough patch. Recently divorced. Broke as hell. Hungry. Wasn’t seeing my kids as often as I wanted. Love those damn kids. Missed them. Wasn’t sleeping much. I slept in the loft above my friend’s garage, but I pretty much lived out of my car. I kept everything in it. When it got stolen I lost almost everything. During this time I felt as lonely, worthless and hopeless as I have ever felt in my life.

To calm my mind, I worked a lot. I’d get up around 04:45 every morning, get ready and drive 35 minutes to get to my gym where I’d work until about noon. To try and get on top of things, I took another job at another gym 35 minutes across the valley in the opposite direction. I had to be there at 1pm and stay until 8 every night. Rough hours.

On top of all of this I’d caught a bug. This slowly turned into pneumonia. Now I was sick, depressed, overworked and desperate as hell.

On the way home from work one night, I was driving by a semi-famous yoga studio in my area. The place was packed. A sign said “Meditation Event Tonight.” I’m not sure what came over me. I hit the brakes in my rental, crossed four lanes of traffic, spun around and dipped into the parking lot.

“Are you here for the meditation event?” the quirky looking tattooed lady with blonde beaded hair asked with a smile.

“Yep.” I felt like an imposter. I was an imposter. She knew it too.

“Have you ever been to a sound-bath meditation?”

“Well, no, but I have meditated before.” I hadn’t. I didn’t want to lie, but I felt like she was trying to disqualify me. I wanted to pass the test.

“Sir, this is a TWO HOUR meditation event.” She did a metaphorical mic drop and turned her back on me.

“Do you guys take cash?”

“Sir,” She sighed. “Most people have to work up to two-hour meditations. This is an advanced class. Maybe you’d be happier if you came back to our beginner series?” She pulled out a schedule and started pointing to boxes and lines with a pencil.

“I’m good. I want this one.”

She was frustrated with me but sold me a ticket. Triumphantly, I walked into the large room only to stand there dumbfounded and embarrassed. Everyone, like 100 people, had gear. By gear I mean, they had pajamas, blankets, floor padding and multiple pillows. I had nothing.

I asked the super authentic looking couple to my right if they knew where I could get a pad and pillow. The nice lady pointed toward the wall. With that, I was able to grab a pad, blanket and pillow from the extras the studio had lying around.

Like I said, the place was packed with people. Bodies everywhere. The only spot left big enough for me to spread out was right down in the front. I was cool with that.

The stage was as awesome looking as you’d imagine. There were uniquely carved and decorated bowls made of wood, crystal and metal sitting on elevated platforms. They were in all different sizes and colors, many with elaborately decorated and carved decorations. There were lots of drums. Some were huge, some tiny. There were also lots of shakers, some of them were tambourine looking noisemakers, others were dried up gourds with white seashells and colorful beads draped over them. The gongs were the coolest, especially the large, brass colored one. It must have been 4-5 feet in diameter. Couldn’t wait to hear that one shake the air. All of this was sitting on top of multiple, traditional looking red and yellow Persian rugs which were backed by hanging tapestries with “ohm” signs and “peace” signs woven into them. Classic stuff!

Then the lady came out. She absolutely looked the part. Dark dreadlocks flowing out from under a knitted, colorful beanie. She had a long, dry, sun-weathered face. Beads and stones draped around her neck and on her fingers. She wore light colored flowing robes and colorful scarves.

She walked out meekly, palms pressed together, head bowed. She sat down cross legged and hit the big gong right off the bat. Money! Then she hit a few of the bowls. I was close enough to them I felt my skull vibrate. Awesome. She said only one thing all night. It was this:

“If you are lucky enough to get a vision tonight, go with it. Go with it as far as you can.”

Ok?

Three minutes into the session I knew I had made a mistake. The chick was chanting, gonging and drumming her heart out. Meanwhile my ADHD had just checked in and I was already bored as shit. No way was I going to make it through two whole hours of this. I looked up toward the back of the room. There were several dozen people between me and the door. I’d have to interrupt the entire class and step over the top of them if I wanted to go. I was stuck.

Shit.

Maybe I could just take a nap. I was pretty tired anyway. I laid back and surrendered to the moment.

As I laid there, I started to drift deeper and deeper into my breathing. Then something cool happened. The lady started playing one of the bowls in a long continuous tone. It vibrated so loud it made my throat tickle and my skull just behind my ears was vibrating. Such a weird feeling. It helped me relax. I fell deeper and deeper into my breathing. As I was lying there relaxing with my throat and ears vibrating, the deepest, most violet light I have ever seen came on.

“What a cool effect,” I thought to myself. It must have been right above me, it was so intense. The light changed colors with each different sounding bowl. From purple it turned blue, then green, then orange. After a few minutes of this I became super curious about how they were doing this. As it turned deep red, I popped my eyes open to see the light. There was nothing. No light. What a coincidence, they turned it off at the exact time I opened my eyes. Weird. Back to relaxing. After a minute the colors came back. Opened my eyes. Nothing, again.

“What in the hell was going on? How are they doing this?

Eventually I stopped trying to figure it out and just went with it. So glad I did. I went on a ride. That night I transcended. I saw things. I did things. I understood things like never before.

It was such a beautiful experience. Maybe it’s not a story I could tell to folks near my age, though. They wouldn’t believe it. If it hadn’t happened to me I wouldn’t believe it either.

This experience came to me at a dire point in my life. Had it not been there for me that night, I’m not positive I would be here today. It also came to me at a very pivotal time in my career. It has helped give me strength and calmness of mind to pursue a very different direction with my future.

What I learned most from this experience is there is another side of life that warrants attention. The attention we spend on calming and controlling our inner selves is as critical to our health as anything else we can do.

The inner self can best be reached and influenced through calmness and quiet meditation. In the quietness of your calm mind is where you will find many answers. It’s where you transcend above the more primal thinking. It’s where you may wander around in pure cerebral thought not marred by negative emotions. That’s the most productive, meaningful and helpful type of thought.

Just like exercise, meditation should be done every single day. Just like exercise, start small with a minute or two then slowly build up.

Mind clearing is the goal. A solid minute of a clear mind will work wonders for body and soul.

To clear the mind and begin your first meditation session try this:

Sit comfortably or lie down.
Close your eyes.
Take several slow deep breaths. No fewer than three.
On your last breath, inhale deeply and hold it.
Acknowledge thoughts and feelings as you let them drift by.
Hold it.
Hold.
Now let it out slowly.
Keep pushing it out.
Keep pushing …
Now hold.
5…4…3…2…1… Hold …
Now breathe in!

Feel that rush? Those are endorphins; actual drugs. People pay for that shit. BTW, you just meditated. You just improved your health! Repeat this as often throughout your day as necessary.

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Ch 19 - Love Yourself

April 20, 2026

I know some of you are going to hate this chapter. A lot of people our age do. I challenge you to read it anyway. If you can jibe with it, it can help to keep you on the path. Not your cup of tea? No problem, friend. Just glance it over so we can all be on the same page.

Health isn’t about …

Health isn’t about how you look. It’s about how you love. It’s about loving life, loving our people, and loving our circumstances. But none of this is even possible without first learning to love ourselves.

Folks our age aren’t very good at loving ourselves. We learned instead to beat the hell out of ourselves. To gain fitness at our body’s expense. We patterned this after our heroes. Remember Rocky hoisting a log over his shoulders and running through hip-deep snow, in immense pain seemingly against his own will? That was the kind of stupid stuff we revered.

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Unfortunately, I’ve watched a lot of people our age beat the hell out of themselves trying to become fit. There was a time when this worked, but these days you do it at the expense of health. The wrong workout is the fastest way to ruin your health.

Years ago I was forced to watch an egregious case of this. I don’t remember her name. I do remember the exact numbers. She was 5’5 and weighed 102 with a BF% of less than 12% (extremely unhealthy for most females). She was a mom of four VERY little ones. Every day she would relentlessly do an hour of step class followed by an hour on the StairMaster. ROUGH!

One day she came to see me. She asked, “Can you help me learn to lift? I need to boost my metabolism and finally lose this fat.” She grabbed her hips. There was nothing there. Not even muscle. “Plus my doctor said I need to lay off my foot while it heals. So I figured I’d better start weightlifting since it’s lower impact.”

It was no surprise she was wearing an orthopedic boot. Somehow, in my town, exercising your way into a microfracture of the fibula is a status symbol in the gym.

Congratulations?

I told her I would love to help her, but to do that I’d be reducing her exercise time and increasing her healthy calories. She smiled at me with a look that was equal parts “bless your heart” and “go make tender love to yourself.” Energetically, she said, “This sounds great!” then set an appointment for the next day.

She ghosted me.

She thought she had found an exercise hack. The hack was beating the hell out of herself until her body began to look like the images of females she saw in the magazines and movies.

But she was already all the way there. Actually, beyond. What the magazines and movies didn’t reveal to her was the cost of getting there. Without kindness toward herself, her body would temporarily comply, but only at the expense of her self-esteem, her energy, and her health - thus, the boot.

Since we aren’t big on the expression of love for ourselves, “beating the hell out of ourselves” is tempting to us. It’s our unique way of exercising.

Don’t do it.

When was the last time you worked out just to feel the movement? Just to “feel the flow”? People over 40 don’t really do this. If we are going to work out, we believe we have to get MAXIMUM effect. Anything less than our greatest effort, to us, is unworthy.

As we get older, despite our best intentions, this leads to skipping workouts more and more due to fatigue, soreness, and injuries.The negative effects of overtraining–a LOT more inflammation and damage–show up faster now. The pain causes us to skip more workouts. Skipping workouts makes us weaker and more unhealthy. This cycle spirals downward forever.

The cure for this is more love. Love for ourselves and love for our bodies. Love for the experience of becoming healthy and fit. No hacks. No gimmicks. Just pure enthusiasm for loving life, loving our people, and loving our circumstances.

No need to view our bodies as an enemy to be brutally hammered into submission. Instead, we should view our bodies as a blessing. We should view movement as poetry. We should see exercise as a flow of energy between the spiritual and temporal. This way of thinking puts us in touch with our truest selves and opens us to immeasurable joy. At 40+, this is the ONLY way lasting health and fitness can be found.

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Fit AF(ter) 45 - Train Smarter. Age Slower.

Introduction/Opening

Fit AF(ter) 45!

Train Smarter. Age Slower. Build a Body That Keeps Up and looks good on!

By Neil Anderson

Some Legal Stuff

Acknowledgments

The App

Table of Contents

Warm Up

Ch 1 - Understanding the Battle

Ch 2 - Challenges to Training At Our Age

Ch 3 - Living Well (a position stand)

Ch 4 - What is the Goal?

Ch 5 - Optimal Health

New Goal = Optimal Health

Ch 6 - The 8 Aspects of Optimal Health

Ch 7 - Mental Health (1st Aspect)

Ch 8 - Emotional Health (2nd Aspect)

Ch 9 - Social Health (3rd Aspect)

Ch 10 - Spiritual Health (4th Aspect)

Ch 11 - Financial Health (5th Apect)

Ch 12 - Intellectual Health (6th Aspect)

Ch 13 - Environmental Health (7th Aspect)

Ch 14 - Physical Health (8th Aspect)

Ch 15 - Minimalism

Ch 16 - The RWND Motto

Ch 17 - Sleep More

Ch 18 - Meditation

Ch 19 - Love Yourself