Common Sense Fitness Hacks for Busy Men

Common Sense Fitness Hacks for Busy Men

[00:00:00] Your health is the most important asset you have, but it's also the first thing you give up as a man. Now I get it. You get busy. Life happens. Mortgage payments, rent, car payments, kids, dogs, jobs. You got all these bills to pay. I get it. It's easy to lose track of when you're trying to make time for everything else.

I was a full-time personal trainer with my own company and my own business, and I'll tell you my go-to for more time was to give up my own health even though it was my own job. Despite what a lot of YouTubers like to show you or say, a lot of influencers like to try and tell you you don't need to spend hours in the gym to be healthy and fit.

You don't need a bunch of customer special equipment. You don't even have to go to the gym for it, to be honest. You don't need to get coordinated enough later in life to jump rope. Hey, shout out to all of you who remember jump rope for your heart, right? You don't even really have to give the coordination to.

Do yoga unless you really want to. So with all [00:01:00] that in mind, gentlemen, in this episode, we're gonna show you how to rebuild your health as a busy man because we know you are, and I got three reasons why you actually should. Number one, you're never gonna reach your other goals without your health. You have to maintain your health and fitness to at least some extent to reach the rest of the goals that you have in your life.

Number two, you can't show up for the people you love and care about without your health. You have to be. In a certain level of health and fitness to show up for the people that matter to you. Number three is what most people really miss is self-respect for you. I know so many men who actually hate themselves when they look in the mirror.

They're disgusted by what they see because they remember when they were healthier and fitter and they absolutely hate the man they look at in the mirror. They look at themselves and consider themselves loser and that kind of mental disrespect for yourself. Will actually really sa sabotage the rest of your life.

So if you've been struggling to maintain or regain your [00:02:00] health because you got busy in life and you just feel like you can't do it, and you figured out that there are too many gurus telling you the wrong crap, this is the episode for you. Since all your health and fitness starts with a good night's sleep, we're gonna check in with our sponsors over at MyPillow real quick because they got a special offer for my listeners.

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By the way, guys, welcome to the Driven Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men. I'm your host, Brent dLAN, and we help men go from living to thriving purpose field, intentional lives. Now, we all have our favorite fitness YouTubers or influencers, whatever you want to call 'em. I don't really know what you call 'em.

Some days I'd followed Jeff Cavalier over Athlete X for years, and the guy has kept me functional through some pretty gnarly injuries because. He is a physical therapist and a professional trainer to Major League Baseball, to the WWE E, the guy who works with some of the top [00:05:00] athletes in the world. I also follow guys like Mark Bell, Josh Bryant, Brian Al, Sue, Stan Efforting, and others.

Now, you may not know those names. I'm a meathead. I love those guys. But you have your own list of people you follow, either on social media or on YouTube. For fitness goals, and I don't know who they are and I'm not gonna badmouth any of them, but the majority of them make it all much harder than it is.

All of them are great, but some of these people seem pretty unreachable because you don't have a professional cook working for you necessarily, or you don't have two hours a day to spend in the gym. You don't get paid to take care of your health. But I told you, even as a personal trainer with my own company.

I still struggled with getting busy and putting off the things I knew I should do to take care of my health. When I got busy, giving up my health was the first thing that went when I had other things I saw more important. So part of that [00:06:00] issue that we face with like YouTube and social media is we have to define what fitness really is, and this is where YouTube and social media has really screwed people up.

Really define it. Fitness is not defined by who can lift the most. It's not defined by who has the biggest muscles or who has the best time on a run, or who can do the most thrusters in under two minutes. I'm not a CrossFit guy, so I don't even know all the things you guys do there, but we've turned the sport part of fitness into the definition of fitness, and this is what is confusing everyday.

People who just wanna take care of their health. Fitness generally refers to the overall condition of your body encompassing physical health, with the ability to perform various aspects of not only sports, but also occupations, and more importantly, daily activities like carrying your groceries from the car, things you do every day, getting on and off the couch.

I've worked with [00:07:00] adults who have given up that health over the years. I spent some time working with an adult who was recovering and I had him doing squats onto his chair as part of his recovery after major surgery because his upper body had gotten weak over the years. He was having to use his arms or sometimes get on the floor to try and get up at all out of a chair.

So we were working on squats because it transfers, it's how you actually sit down. I know if you have kids, they like flop down, but it's how real people actually sit on nice furniture. So this. Moves forward. It's not all about sports, it's all about our daily lives. You need to shake the idea that becoming fit and healthy requires visible abs because that's less than 3% of the population.

I think I'm good. It's good. You're good. Or having Bo 5% body fat because the majority of people will never see that, and it doesn't [00:08:00] mean you can still run a six minute mile. Or do endurance sports like, you know, some cross country race, like some of the guys on YouTube. So what does real fitness look like for a busy individual?

Well, real fitness is being able to get through every day without being excessively tired just because you lived your normal life. Fitness is not carrying excessive amounts of weight on your body that damage your body over time. Fitness is being able to run and play with your kids or your dog or your friends for a little while and have some fun and get outta that normal routine.

Fitness is not having health issues linked to unhealthy lifestyles, like excessive weight or high levels of sugar, um, things like that. Fitness is feeling good every day. Now look, I'm 45 and I have racked up some major injuries through my life. I've broken my spine twice. I've fractured skull, torn a rotator cuff.

Pecs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [00:09:00] blah, blah, blah. There's wear and tear, and so feeling good I understand becomes relative, but there is the damage. You live with feeling good, and there's getting through life feeling good, right? You shouldn't feel like dog crap every day. Fitness is parking at the back of the parking lot at a major store and going in and shopping and coming back and walking back after your car and not being wiped out from a daily task.

Fitness is being able to exert yourself for something special, like playing with your kids or p playing that pickup game with your friends or going and doing that thing like helping your buddy move, carry a bed. If you're one of my friends and you have stuff to move, please don't call me. I'm so tired of that.

People call me because they don't know a lot of other people who are fit enough to actually carry their crap when they're moving, which is sad. Sad [00:10:00] fitness is being able to unload your car outta the grocery store and load in the groceries after a Costco hall and not wanting to die. Okay. Fitness is everyday life.

If daily life is hard, then your fitness is not where it should be. Just going from your day-to-day life should not put strain on you because it's every day. Now you are a busy guy. I get it. You work umpteen hours. Guys, I was just talking with a friend of mine. I, I spent three years working 60 hour weeks, six days a week, 10 hours a day.

I spent three years doing that at one point in my life. I understand busy. I know some of you have two jobs. I know some of you have jobs where you work 12 hour days, seven days a week. Hey, that's my life. I get up at 4:00 AM and I work 17 hour days, seven days a week. I understand busy. I also understand that your life is not gonna function correctly if you don't take care of your health [00:11:00] and fitness at a basic level.

And that's what we're talking about. We're not talking about you becoming a jacked bodybuilder. We're talking about you not feeling like dog crap in the end of your day because you are not in that bad of a shape. Now, we don't have to, now that we don't believe that lie about fitness equals those hard body calendar models that let me tell you, they only look like that during the shoot.

Now that we don't believe that lie, and we're actually talking about real fitness in your life, this gets really easy. Okay? Step one, and this is the hard part, we have to apply. Common sense. Common sense. What do I mean? Well, common sense seems to be a dying thing in this world. So let me spell this out, and if I'm insulting you, I'm not trying to insult you.

But I am shocked at how many people ignore the things they already know. You don't need a guru to tell you what you should [00:12:00] eat. If you're looking at this episode thinking, I'm gonna tell you, this is the workout routine you should have, and this is the diet you should be on. Look, I can have those conversations all day.

That was my life. However, that's not what we're doing here. We're applying common sense because this is all, most people need. Applying common sense to the way you live your life. On some very basic things will absolutely put you back into a health and fitness of a normally healthy individual. Common sense.

You don't need some YouTube nerd to tell you what to eat, right? Bait. Let's apply some basic common sense. Fast food is poison common sense. I've seen some really disturbing. Disturbing reports over the years of things they found in fast food processing plants. Guys, it's poison. It doesn't rot. You wanna watch YouTube?

Go watch that. YouTube. That's terrifying. Fast food. Being left out for a [00:13:00] year and, and not molding or changing is freaky. Okay? Avoid heavily processed foods. Heavily processed foods are poison. Sugar is poison Doritos and beer. Some of my favorite things in the world, guess what? They're not healthy. But you already knew that.

You don't need me to tell you that You don't need some other, yep, you whatever you wanna call us nerd on the internet telling you this. You already know that common sense. You are smarter than that. You are smart people. I know that 'cause smart people listen to this show. Beer and Doritos, while Tasty are not healthy.

Coffee That is more filler than coffee is not coffee. It's candy. It is coffee flavored candy. My kids like coffee flavored ice cream. See it's candy. If it's got more [00:14:00] calories than normal coffee because you got so much filler in it, it's no longer coffee is candy. Oh my god. Starbucks should not have 700 calorie drinks.

What the hell? Coffee. Coffee has zero calories. Now, for all of you who don't drink black coffee, you'll get there. It seems to be phases for people. It's really funny. I started with black coffee, then I went to cream and sugar. Then I went to just the flavored creams. Then I went back down to just cream.

Then I went back to black coffee eventually. But for all of you who want something in your coffee, right, I'll give you an extra 40 calories. That's that's a. A teaspoon of half and half. Okay, there you can have your cream. By the way, powdered creamer is flammable. It's poison common sense. This is common sense.

You know these things. You don't [00:15:00] mean me to tell you, but why am I telling you why? Because people ignore their common sense. Out of an addiction to sugar and processed crap. Clean your fridge out. Eat whole foods. Shop that outer ring of the store. Okay? Meat, eggs, raw dairy, fruit, vegetables. If you're a fruit vegetable person, and preferably straight from the butcher are the farmer's market.

Drink water. Don't eat after five or 6:00 PM. It screws up your sleep because your body's trying to digest and it screws up your calorie processing because you're not burning any calories other than your base metabolic rate, and so it automatically stores it as fat besides screwing up your sleep. If you are sedentary, that means sit most of the day and don't have a lot of activity in your life.

Eat a lot less because you're not burning the calories. [00:16:00] This is not rocket science. Common sense. If you are sedentary, move more. Take the stairs, park on the outside of the parking lot, walk where you can get a steady standing desk or a treadmill desk. I don't have a treadmill disc. This desk I set at is a Husky.

It's a Home Depot Husky work bench. It's 48 inches. It has a manual crank. It costs a fraction of what a standing desk does. With the little automatic buttons, I just have to crank mine up manually. But I got me a standing desk because I needed to stand more and move more. This is a fraction of the cost.

Go get one. At Home Depot, make a habit of moving before work and after work. If you set at a desk all day, stop sitting on the couch when you come home and continually to be more sedentary. Stop Netflix and chill. Unless you are doing calisthenics or walking on the treadmill while you [00:17:00] do it. My sister, she likes to watch Netflix while she's on the treadmill.

She sets her pace, so she has to keep moving. All right, I'll go for that, but move more if you are sedentary. Take breaks when you take your break at work. 'cause you are required to take a break, walk on your breaks. I used to, I worked in the corporate world. That's where this all started for me, is I got up and I started taking walks on my break, and I started taking walks on my lunch break.

Why? Because I was getting too fat. I was too sedentary, I was eating too much junk and I was sitting too much. Common sense. Look guys, to get bulky or shredded, you need weights and a strict diet To become healthier, you just need to eat less, eat smarter, and move more. We make this too hard. It's not really, step one is so much as it's the only step [00:18:00] that actually matters.

That's all you need to be fit and healthy. That's it. That's it. That's it. Eat less, eat smarter, move. A lot more common sense guys. It's common sense. That's why it's common sense is not common these days, but you are smart men. I know so many men who are so busy. I've got a friend. He works like a dog. He takes meetings while he walks since he works remote anyway, or even when he's at his office over in Seattle, he goes for walks with his boss or his coworkers when they're discussing something and they walk around the facility, they work at, get up and move.

It is not hard. You don't need some fancy guru. You don't need some fancy diet. You have to get the basics down first [00:19:00] after you have gotten some common sense back in your life. Common sense. Move more, eat smarter, eat less after you've got that common sense in place, I promise. Just that common sense alone will help you look better naked.

It'll help you decrease your health risk. Expon at an exponential level, guys. I don't know that you have to walk 10,000 steps a day. I know that's a really popular number on social media and YouTube these days. Is it ideal? I guess the experts think walking 10,000 steps a day is ideal. I also don't know a whole hell of a lot of people who manage to do it because they spend too much time in a sedentary lifestyle.

Now guys, I have walked two miles a day every day for months on end before, and guess what? Two miles is not 10,000 steps. I don't care what they say. Maybe I just take really long stripes. Maybe if [00:20:00] you're short two miles, it's 10,000 steps. But I walked two miles every morning for for a very long time. Did I hit 10,000 steps?

Well, by the end of the day, if I did that first thing in the morning. With the collective steps from my normal day on top of that two miles, I usually got pretty close, but not always. So I don't know that you need to walk 10,000 steps when you're not even walking. Three, if you're only walking two or 3000 steps a day because you're sedentary in your job and your lifestyle, just try getting to five or six.

Start there. Common sense. Common sense will help you look better naked. It will decrease your health risk exponentially because for every like 5,000 steps you walk your health risk on so many diseases drops radically. It will make you feel better, it'll give you more energy, and it will extend your life with just these common common sense that's [00:21:00] not so common these days.

And I can't seem to say with just these common sense steps. You can radically change your lifestyle. You can become more healthy, more fit, all while you're already busy. Look at every situation and figure out how you can move more. Make smarter food choices. Get rid of the junk you eat and eat less common sense.

People can't sell this. So they lie about what fitness really is. Fitness is how you go through your day every day. You should not be worn out and tired by the end of a normal day from that day because you do it every single day. So it shouldn't be making you tired still. You're not getting enough sleep, you're eating crappy food, you're eating too much food, and you're not moving enough.[00:22:00] 

Add some water. That's the answer, common sense. But that doesn't sell. So they make shit up. So you think you can't do it without their help. You don't need me to hold your hand to help you get healthy and fit If you want to get super strong or work on being like jacked, lean and ripped, yeah, I can, I can teach you how to do that, but you don't need me.

Are anybody else to be healthy and fit? As a busy man, I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are extremely busy. I know I'm extremely busy. I know you are extremely busy, but that's not an excuse to die early because you gave up your health and fitness when it really is simple to fix that one little issue.

We don't do it because the other part is fun and [00:23:00] addictive. The beer and Doritos taste great and is fun and addictive, all the chemicals in them. If you really wanna get strong and go past just fit and average health, you can go further, but start with just fit and healthy. I'll be glad to talk specific diets, workout programs, routines with you all day long.

Just start with being fit and healthy. You can't walk 10,000 steps a day. If you're only walking 2000 steps a day right now, go to five. When that becomes easy, go to seven and keep adding it. Common sense will get you to fit and healthy because you already know you shouldn't eat at McDonald's. You shouldn't drink a bunch of beer and eat a bunch of Doritos while you're sitting on the couch.

You already know that you're smarter than that common sense. Just start with fit and healthy, and then you can go from there. So how do we apply [00:24:00] this? Easy answers for you guys? Okay, number one, make the changes easy. Take the junk food, take the bag of the burritos trash. Okay? Get rid of the junk food out of your house.

It's really hard to eat junk food when there's no junk food in your house. If you got kids, I understand the pain. I got a lot of junk that I won't eat, that my kids eat, and it's tempting so I understand the pain. But get rid of the junk food. Teach your kids how to eat healthy by your example. Preplan your meals, meal prep.

I used to meal prep my entire week in one day. Park further away. Put lockout timers on things like your television and your phone that keep you sedentary and not moving, right? Make the change easy. Number two, gamify it. Make it fun, make it a challenge. There are apps like streaks, which I, I didn't get my phone plugged into the computer guys, so if you're watching, you can kind of see it on your screen.

I'll hold my phone up. This is an [00:25:00] app called Streaks. It is completely customizable. Program where you can set your goals, set how often you wanna do things, and click the button and go, yay, I did it. Yay I did it. And it tells you and it racks up your streak. And somehow this gamification actually helps people a lot.

I got streaks to try it out. I'm not endorsed by them. I'm not connected with them. I got 'em to try it out. It is actually kind of fun to get those streak going. You're like, like, woo. I did some it traps in that dopamine thing or something. Okay. Gamify making progress. Create that custom checklist. Knock it out every single day.

Put it in your schedule. Treat this like it's actually important, okay? Treat it like you would your job? Give it importance. If you're gonna go for a walk, put it on your calendar. Every single day is non-negotiable. If you're gonna walk more, put it on your calendar. If you're going to come home and move for a while and not watch television at a certain time, fine.

Put [00:26:00] TV time on your calendar and make it less than usual and agree. You're not gonna watch TV until then. Put it on your schedule. Putting it on your schedule, writing it down makes it real. Four step. Celebrate the wins. Reward yourself with something small that doesn't derail your progress. That doesn't mean cheat mails.

I don't believe in cheat mails. Cheat mails are stupid. This whole thing that you need, a cheat meal is ridiculous. Okay? So give yourself a bonus when you get a big enough streak on your good habits. Get yourself a new audiobook on Audible or something. Something you can listen to while you're moving.

Okay? And number five, normalize it. Tell your brain this is the standard if you put it on your calendar. If you gamify it to where this is what you're doing, it will actually become a standard and start to recognize the other stuff is something strange. I don't even think about going to fast food places anymore.

Do I still love Wendy's [00:27:00] and Jack in the box? Yeah, more than I'd like to admit. Do I eat there very often? No. A couple times a year. Make it easy for you to think that this crappy processed food is the weird thing. I've gone through Wendy's several times now and been like, now I'll wait till you wanna get home.

'cause I don't want any of that now. It's taken a while. It's been a process, but I've actually started getting my brain to go. And it weighs the cost and goes, you know, I don't, I don't want that. I want some real food. I don't want this stuff in my body. It makes me feel sick because I've been eating healthier for long enough that now it actually makes me feel gross.

I feel lethargic and sick when I eat that stuff. So make the other stuff weird and make good choice is normal for you. If you can do those with this. Basic common sense approach, common sense with these five trips to help make it actually [00:28:00] work in your life, you will become fit and healthy. Like I said, fit means that your normal life is just fine and you got, you got extra photos.

Tip, if you're really strapped on for, strapped for time, strapped on. If you're really strapped for time. Guys on the MOA issue, I. Try imploring, employing a force multiplier like a ruck sack or a weight vest. That was actually the step two of my journey. Once I started walking more and moving more, I hit a point where I knew I wasn't going to be able to run at work.

I couldn't get that sweaty. So I started, I bought myself a weight vest and started because I couldn't go farther or faster in the timeframe. I had to go for my walks at work. So I got a weight vest. I wore it while I was doing that same walk. I increased the requirements of what I was already doing.

Force multiplier, getting healthy and even fit is [00:29:00] not rocket science. You're not Elon Musk catching a booster rocket. It really is just plain common sense, common sense. It is stupidly simple and obtainable, and you can absolutely do it. I know you got a lot on your plate that you're busy with. This does not have to be something that makes that more difficult or makes it more of a struggle for you because it is all common sense stuff.

Now, if in all that busy you're struggling with connecting with people in your life in meaningful ways because you are busy building instead of connecting, then message me directly on Instagram or go to my website, purpose-driven men.com. There's a bubble in the corner where you can message me directly.

Let's talk. My relationship Titans program can help you connect meaningfully with the people in your life much more effectively, much more meaningfully in 12 weeks or less. Guys, we can change the way you connect with the people that matter the most. [00:30:00] I know so many men who are so busy climbing the corporate ladder, trying to provide for their families that they did a lot of damage to the connections with their families, and we gotta work that back.

So let's talk about my relationship Titan for this program. See if it's the right fit for you. If not, I've got some friends I can send you towards them. Let's get the relationships that matter most back in your life on the right track, gentlemen, take control of your health. Don't eat like a child. Move more.

It really is that simple common sense. Less trash, better food choices, move more. I promise. You're gonna start filling these changes actually very quickly. Internally, you won't see the weight come off as fast as you want it to because the weight never comes off as fast as you want it to. But just making these common sense moves will fit into your busy schedule and they will compound very quickly about the way you feel internally.

You'll notice that before you notice the weight coming off, [00:31:00] but it will absolutely change your life, and then you can take further steps from there if you decide that's what's right for you. Compound all these common sense choices about moving more. Eating less and eating better. Make sure you're getting a good night's sleep, and if that's something you're struggling with, be sure to check out our episode.

Mastering Sleep. The Secret Weapon Champions, if you've missed that last week, and I'll have a link for that down in the show notes are on the screen if you're on YouTube or Rumble. Guys, there's no reason to let your health and fitness suffer because you can't show up as the man you wanna be. If you do.

I know you're busy, but I promise you can fit it in because it's all common sense. Be better tomorrow because of what you do today. We'll see you on the next one. The Driven to Thrive broadcast, purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving. Purpose filled intentional lives.

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