Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss whether strengthening one's willpower is the ticket to a good life, or if that actually is just setting you up for failure.
And later on, we discuss the continuing importance of strength training as one ages and how it must evolve as your body changes over time.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man whose takes are strong enough to erase any reasonable doubt. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, Are you ready to show us how this is all politics as usual,
[00:00:48] Speaker B: man? You can't keep doing this to me.
It's like, I'm proud of you for messing me up, and then I'm proud of me for remembering that first album. But, yes, keep you on your toes, man.
I'm ready for whatever you said about reasonable doubts.
Whatever it is, I'm ready for it.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: On your toes, man. All right. All right. Now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast app, doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on March 10, 2026. And Tunde, I recently sent you a piece from NPR that proposed that the common effort by parents to help prepare their kids for life, you know, to make good choices in life is to help them to develop and strengthen their willpower. But this approach might be misguided, actually, because when studies are looked at, and even studies that were done in the past on what they thought people had strong willpower actually was the ability for people to avoid temptation and keep themselves out of situations where temptation would hit, not necessarily their ability to resist it once the temptation hits. So our modern world is full of temptations in your pocket, temptations in your fridge and every corner store you walk by. It's all around us.
And that's the world we have our kids in, and that's the world for us. So this is something that leads us around in many respects. So what stood out to you in this piece from NPR about how when raising kids. And then also this is going to apply to adults, too. Willpower is really no match for these temptations, and you're going to have to find another way to deal with this stuff.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I would say that probably stuck out to me the most. The idea just.
I would say the change in attitudes by the research scientists about this topic on willpower, that stood out to me because I think we'll talk about some of the ways I deal with certain temptations. I think avoidance has.
Has always been part of My journey of things that could be tempting, but I'd rather not go there type of attitude.
And really, it's because, I mean, just as a human being, I guess from a young age, I understood that willpower can only take you so far and that probably not having certain things in front. I'll give you a quick example, because willpower is tough. So I've talked many times on this show about me having a heart attack now two years ago in 2024.
And one of the big culprits of it, because I have hereditary advanced artery disease. So that's one obviously culprit. But brown liquor and the way, I guess, bourbons and whiskeys have 50% alcohol and the way it's processed and refined, for some reason, my liver messes that up and causes it to create more cholesterol than when I drink, let's say, a vodka or a beer or a red wine.
So the way I handled that was not buying bottles or having it really in my house. But here's the thing. I was trying to slow down on that stuff prior to having a heart attack.
It was the heart attack that forced me to wake up and say, okay, now you gotta really get this away from you. You see what I'm saying?
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Well, because you were trying to slow down, but you would still keep it at the house, right?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Correct, yeah. And then I would still have a glass or two on the weekend, stuff like that. And so to me, that's what I mean by the example of, even though I knew something was not good for me, I still like to taste. And I like to think that I'm different, that it's not gonna affect me like everyone else. And then when I had a heart attack, it was like, nah, I'm not different.
I gotta get away from this stuff.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: As you have eloquently said before, sometimes people are human beings, too.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Only sometimes I was disappointed to find out I was one. I thought I could be one of these new robots, you know, I call El Musk. Hey, dude, I'm a robot, man. Hire me.
So, yeah, so that's an example of just how in my life I've learned that, yeah, if I really don't want to do something, I better not be around it.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: I'm with you, man. I'm with you.
I thought about this a lot because I learned.
I read a lot about the willpower and it being finite and how you have a certain amount of willpower, and then as you continue to draw on that, it becomes harder and harder and harder. And that's forget about if you're like, if you're drinking, for example, that lowers your willpower and inhibition anyway, but just if it's not something like that. And I look back at kind of my life and I'm like, okay. One interesting thing to me is that I do that with sweets, for example, is I try to keep sweets that I enjoy out of my house. And I think I got it from my parents, though, because, like, I know I'm not a candy person, but I like pies and cakes and stuff like that. And so, like, when I was younger, my parents, we, like, we would have maybe, you know, maybe on a Sunday once a month or something like that, or one every other every month or something like that. Or if we went to see grandma or something like that, there'd be a pie or a cake or some kind of dessert, and we'd eat it and then, you know, we'd finish it as a family and then that would be. That it wouldn't be. There wouldn't constantly be one at the house. And so I think I got used to that kind of ebb and flow because once you first go out on your own, then it's like, oh, I like this. I'll keep one here. And then you realize you're eating it more because it's there. And so I know for myself that's a big thing, is like, I don't want. I don't want to walk by something in my house a lot and eat it, you know, or excuse me, and walk by it and have to resist eating it, you know, and like, because I will want if I see it. And I'm like, oh, I want that. I want that. And I can only walk by, you know, so many times before it's like, all right, I'll make a plan. All right, I'm going to get it. I'm going to eat that after I work out. Or I'm going, like, I'm going to start making a plan in my mind. And so this really hits home with me. And then I try to raise my kids in this context, too. And which is the art article talks about is like, you have to try to keep these things, like, away because basically this is kind of how your mind works, where your mind can convince you over time that something's whatever you want to do. Your mind is really good at convincing you that that's okay to do whatever it is, you know. So it's like, oh, you know, I want to, you know, go party tonight. Well, you know, if it's an option, you know, you got a car or whatever, you can get there. Then over the course of a couple of the beginning at 2:00, you might be like, ah, no, I'm good. You know, be good, I'm going study, yada, yada yada. But then by 4 o' clock it's like, oh, well, you know, if I, if I just do this first, then I can make it do like this. Then, you know, oh, I can actually move some stuff around tomorrow. And then by six o' clock you got some other part. So you've made this whole plan that allows you to do what you wanted to do anyway. And so I think with these things of temptation, it works in much of the same way, maybe even faster because of the way. Because we're not even getting into the fact that temptations are stronger now. You know, like the allure of a screen and is different of a, of an iPad screen or, you know, whatever is different than the allure of cable tv, you know, so to speak, or the allure of. Because of all the scientists that work at big food. The allure of some processed food thing is different than the allure of, you know, a cherry pie that was homemade or something like that. And so, you know, this really hit home for me. But the advice to actually say, hey, no, you should not be, you should not try to sit there and focus on with your kids, trying to help them strengthen their willpower. That, that may actually be sending you the wrong way was really interesting to me to see that said so. So declaratively.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree. And that's why I said it was, it was an interesting. But the way it was so that you use the term declaratively, it makes me realize when I was, you know, digesting the information, I was like picturing like as if you're sitting a kid like on a chair or something. Like you said you got a piece of pie in the other room and you're watching them like this. Like, no, just don't get up. If you get up, you're in trouble, you know, like, like, yeah, that's not the way to do it, obviously. Right. In terms of trying to teach someone to kind of fight willpower. I think kind of what we talked about, you know, I'm thinking about things because as you said about food, it makes me think about me too. Like, it's funny, I used to hammer potato chips, man. Like, you know, just like Lay's chips and UTs and stuff.
I got a cupboard full of that stuff. I never touch it anymore. And I think part of it is.
I mean, when I was young, I used to eat a lot of that stuff. What I'm saying is now for. I've been eating well for enough years that when I do take, I'll cheat. Literally, like maybe once a month, I have a little bit of salt and vinegar chips, because I like those.
But normally I tried to do the cheddar flavor ones a couple weeks ago, and I just spit them out because I guess my palate is not used to anymore to kind of tell you this. It's so salty the way it's processed and all that.
So I think that's not a willpower example. That is the example that I was
[00:09:31] Speaker A: covered that in this piece. That was the piece I wanted to get you in, but I wanted to get to that part because what they talked about is how we present these things either to ourselves or to the kid. Like, if you're like, oh, if you eat your salmon, then I'll give you something good, then what you're doing actually is program. I'll give you, you know, a cupcake. Something good, a cupcake. Then you're programming the kid to believe or yourself in that if it's that. That the salmon is bad. And the other thing is the reward and good. Whereas you actually can make a conscious effort to program yourself or your kids that the.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: The.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: The healthier stuff, you can prepare it in ways that make it, you know, better and then also psych yourself up kind of speak that that's the. That's the treat also. That's a good thing too. And so what it really sounds like there is that you've divorced. You've been able to divorce in your own mind. The idea of that chip being you're, oh, if I was good all day, that means I get a chip, you know, or like. Or I have a bag of chips. Because you're like, that's not your reward. That's not associated with your dopamine anymore. Like, oh, this is my pleasure now. I made all my beans and rice, and now I get to have this.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: No, but that's an interesting point, because I guess what would be associated with my dopamine is the way I feel when I eat regular now, meaning the way I eat. Because that's the other thing is when I have done that, I mean, I haven't even had one of these binges in a long time, because I remember when I would do a binge and eat a bunch of ice cream or eat a bunch of These chips. Then I got a stomachache for the rest of the day. And, you know, and it's kind of like. It's kind of like me with my heart now. Like, I've, you know, drank in whiskey and stuff since, you know, I had the heart attack. But since I don't drink it a lot anymore, now when I drink it, it's different. Like, I'm like, damn, that shit's strong. How did I drink half a bottle back when I used to just drink this stuff regular? So I remember it was about a month ago, I drank a small glass of it, and I poured a second glass, took one sip, and threw it out in the sink.
Threw the rest of the drink out. And that's something I would have never done with bourbon two years ago, but it's just because I'm no longer used to it.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: I'm, like, asking me right now, man,
[00:11:32] Speaker B: yeah, no, I feel bad for having to admit that.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: What are we doing here?
[00:11:36] Speaker B: All right, I'll call you next time. You're gonna have the rest of the glass come over.
But no. So I think there is.
It's like that ebb and flow, you know, obviously, willpower. I'm sure someone can give us examples of where it's important. But I do think the idea of avoidance, and then, like you said, also the brain hack. Cause I'll say this, it's not food, but the way you just talked about a reward at the end of a hard day, that's how I deal with marijuana.
You know, I don't smoke at all in the day. I go bust my ass, work hard, deal with my business, and then, you know, and just to say it for the NSA and everyone listening, I have a medical marijuana card here in the state of Florida, so I'm legal nsa.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Man, you're doing this on a public podcast.
Anybody can see that.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, but I like to think. I like to think I'm special and don't. Oh, yes, yes, there we go. So.
But as my point is saying is that's an example of how I've conditioned myself that way. Right? Work hard and come home and you have you spark one up to relax.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: But that's conditioning, though, so to speak. But that is.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's conditioning. That's what I mean.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: So you could conceivably. And not say that you would, but you could conceivably make that be. Yo, that's. I'm going to have a coconut water there, you know, instead of a J, you know, so to speak.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: So.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: And I'm not again. But it is a mental.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: My wife wouldn't be happy because she would say I'd be too, like, on, I got to chill out. The coconut water wouldn't let me chill out.
My wife would divorce me in about three months if I stopped smoking. She'd be like, dude, you're climbing the walls. You're too neurotic.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Get out of here.
Yeah, that's a benefit for you.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: My marriage. My marriage. Therapy. That's what, marijuana.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: But I think that, but if you put those two together, though, I think it does paint a picture that actually you can use, you know, like, where one, to try to not have all of the things that you feel like you shouldn't do or think that you shouldn't do and not have all of those things be the things that you associate with your pleasure, your, your good time, your feel good, you know, like, try to have some feel good things set up. Things that are set up that are good for you too, you know, Like, I, it's interesting for me for this, like, my exercise, like, particularly my intense exercise, like, not, not when I take a walk or anything like that, but like, exercise, like lifting a weight, lifting weights or something like that gives me, like, I, I want that feeling. Like, that is. I, I, I'm happy on the days that I work out and I can lift weights because I'm like, yes, I get to have that feeling today, you know, and then some days when I wake up and I can't because, you know, I got to recover and all this stuff and I'm getting older, it's like, oh, man, I can't, you know, I might have to just do, you know, something else today as far as being active, but I can't do that. And so, like, I'm not saying that's, that's the only way, but there you try to have things that are good for you that you look forward to and that it's not all that, oh, the only thing I'm looking forward to is, you know, this piece of pie or this cupcake or something like that. And then on the second hand, to not rely on your willpower to get you through, because the willpower, like I said, it's finite. You know, that's been well established. But the innovation here, what they're saying here is it's not that it's finite and you can increase it over time. Maybe you can, maybe you can't. But the bigger success, the bigger intervention for success is actually to not have to draw upon it as much. So, so Instead of being in a situation where you have to use it a lot and you can build it up stronger so you can use it more, be in a situation where you don't have to use it as often. So if the more things that aren't an option, or I think about like this, create more friction between what you, the things that you don't want to be doing and what you're doing at the moment. So if that's just taking your phone and putting it in another room, you know, when you're trying to do studying or trying to do work or whatever, that creates more friction because then it's like, oh, well, I want to look at my phone, but. But if it's sitting right next to me, then of course I'll look at my phone. But if it's like I gotta go all the way down the hall and I gotta do this and that and I go up the stairs or something like that, then you're like, you know what, I'm just gonna stay here. Cause I don't feel like doing all the other stuff. So create more friction between the things that you're trying to limit and the things that you're doing at the moment. You know, it can be helpful as well. So I mean, I think that putting them together, you know, again, is something that, you know, something that you could use, you know, to try to make your life better. And then also keeping that in mind how you raise your kids. So any thoughts before you close it up?
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Just on a serious note, I know I sound like I'm joking around about the marijuana and all that, but on a serious note, it's a little bit to finish up on your theme there, that when I knew that I couldn't drink anymore and that was one of my vices, that's when I, I mean, it's not like I decided to start smoking more weed. I didn't. But what I realized was, you know, because I started reading about smoking marijuana and obviously smoking is not good either for your arteries and you know, it can damage your arteries in a way that it causes your body to send more plaques to try and fix the damage so into the arteries. So, you know, but part of it was me being a middle aged guy, you know, approaching 50, and realizing, you know what, I probably got 30, 35 years left in this journey. And I also want to enjoy myself. Like you said about, you know, if you have a cupcake once in a while, whatever someone likes. I do think it's important we live in the world we Know that there's processed food. We know that, you know, smoking is not good. But we got a lot of stress in our lives. And if something makes you happy in moderation. I'm not going to not do it with this idea because I'm not one of these people that's trying to live till I'm 500 years old. Like, I get it. I'm going to die at some point, and I don't want to be. I want to enjoy this journey. I don't want to be miserable because I went and had too many vices.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: I don't want to have another heart attack. I don't want to have negative health events happen that I could otherwise avoid. But also don't want to be miserable by not also relaxing in the way that I want to relax. So that's.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Do you have some control over the thought of how you want to relax is kind of the point.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's being proactive. Yes. About thinking about how to do that in a moment.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: So just have it all be vices and ways that you want to relax. But there's a word you said I want to. Oh, go ahead.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, no. Just. I got one last thing to finish, but go ahead.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Oh, okay. I want to get this out there. But you said moderation, and I want to clarify on that, because I think here's kind of where the rubber meets the road here. Does moderation really mean. And some cases it may, but moderation may not mean a little bit every day. So if it's like, hey, I love cake, you know, or whatever, moderation may not be. I eat cake every day, but I just eat a smaller amount. It may be that I do once a month, I get a cake and I enjoy it over two days, two or three days, and then I'm done, you know, for a while, you know, so, like, you're not. It doesn't become part of your routine, then. And then you also develop other things that you might enjoy. You find other things might enjoy that are that release, as opposed to saying, okay, I'm just going to do it in moderation. Because what happens a lot of times you do it every day, then inevitably, you know, and then you see this with drinking, you see this with a lot of things. Inevitably, a little bit becomes a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than you look up. It's like, oh, my God, what happened? You know, I thought I was doing it in moderation, and I'm not anymore.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: So look up and you have a heart attack.
But no. Yeah. Last thought is this. So hold on. This is my parting joke for the audience.
So my boy James is about a year, year and a half younger than me.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Something like that.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: I'm going to be 48 on Sunday of this week.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: So
[00:18:47] Speaker B: as I heard you talking about your issues with, you know, now that you're getting older and you got to take your recovery day and you can't work out those days and you're, you don't feel as good. I was going to say I'm going to start teaching my boy over here about what us middle aged guys do when we can't, you know, no longer doing all this when you no longer have such high teeth. So I put down a list. I'm gonna bring you to the shooting range. We're gonna go trap and skeet shooting. That's fun because you still get to see the clay pigeon explode. It brings that kind of alpha male part out of you. There you go. We're gonna start playing some golf.
We may start playing some pickleball.
So I'm gonna take my friend James and drag him into this middle aged. Middle aged situation. Yeah. So, so, so.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Hey, hey. I, I'm still, it's not going to replace my Lyft day as far as my feel good.
So. But no, we appreciate for joining us. We'll have a second part of this discussion coming up as well. So please join us for that as well and we'll talk soon.
Welcome to the Call. Like I see a podcast. I'm James Keys here with Tundeo Gonlana and for our second part of our conversation today, we. I Tunde, I sent you something about this the other day and. And this is this the. It was an article dealing with how you have to change your workouts as you go into your 40s and 50s, particularly your strength training workouts and looking at it from the standpoint of how your joints change your muscles and so forth. But it's not that you need to not strength train anymore, but just the kinds of things that you do has to evolve and has to take into account how your body has changes. So really what stood out to you or what was your biggest takeaway from the story about building and retaining muscle and strength training and in your 40s and 50s as a man who's kind of smack in the middle of that.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for that last part, in
[00:20:38] Speaker A: case you didn't know.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess I just told everyone my birthday's on Sunday, so, you know, and I'll be 48. So I'm right. Like you said, I'm right there.
So say. The first thing it made me reminded me is, I'm not 25 anymore.
Because that was the real one is, I guess, as we age.
And that's interesting, it's actually a serious comment.
As a man, I can't speak for women, but I say as a man, that was an NCAA athlete. I played basketball in college, and that was always athletic. I always worked out, and I always was a very athletic. As a younger man, Tonde, I think you're part of it is the psychology.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Well, Tunde, I think you're contractually required to say a D1 NCAA athlete, aren't you?
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Oh, they didn't have nil back then, so they didn't have contracts.
I just had to sneak food from the, you know, the school cafeteria.
Like, that's okay, I got you. Yeah, exactly. But no, but I think just the idea that as men, that's why I want to speak in that way.
And I'll be vulnerable here. It's scary to get old.
It doesn't feel good that your body's breaking down. Doesn't feel good that at this point, I can lift weights exactly like I remember lifting them 20 years ago, but I don't put on any muscle, you know, like that my testosterone is going down compared to, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So that's what I'm saying is because, you know, one of the things I'm reading here, he said, you know, did you lift too heavy? You know, you know, some of the negative things, you don't do enough cardio, all that. And when you age, and I think the lifting too heavy part is something I see a lot of men kind of my age, even a little bit older doing, because I think there's this desire in your mind to not want to believe that you do need to change how you exercise, that your body has changed. You're no longer that young guy. And maybe if you're in a gym, you look around, you see guys in their 20s and 30s all jacked up and doing this stuff, and you're thinking, man, you know, I can still compete. So to me, that's kind of the thing. One of the things that stuck out the most is when I was reading it, kind of digesting, like you said, as a man who's right here in this position of the 40s and 50s kind of age range, it's kind of reminding me of my own journey in this exercise and strength training, I guess, dimension, which is, I Don't like to think about it, but I can no longer perform in, in physically in strength training how I used to. It doesn't feel good. So.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Well, see that there, that to me is the rub, so to speak, is where you're trying to reconcile because yes, as you get older, you, your strength declines. Now, even if you're someone who's very active and you know, still does the train, does training, you know, does training. I still lift weights in a similar way that I did when I was 16, when I was 26, then I was 36 and you know, like where I am now, you know, like so. But I have, and this is out of necessity before I read this adjusted kind of like, I don't go up as high, I'll still go pretty high, but not up as high. I don't push myself to the same degree as I did then.
And so to really read underlying reasons why it's important to adjust and some of the things that, you know that you should consider adjusting. One of the things you pointed out, for example, was the heavy weights and like the premise of this piece, and we'll have it in the show notes, was that you could still build muscle as you age, but when you're younger, you're the psy. Okay, the way to build muscle, you lift heavy to build muscle, you know, so it's like, okay, but he's like, now as you age, though, while your muscles may be able to keep up to some degree, to a lesser degree, your joints, you know, so you actually, if you're lifting too heavy as you get older, you're putting strain on your joints that a younger person wouldn't even have. And so having that know how so to speak, can be very valuable to someone as you continue that journey because you might not recognize that, like you still say, I can, I can still put it up or whatever. Or as you said, kind of the, your environment around you, you might be in a gym and looking like, oh, I want to put it up like these young boys are putting it up. But that may not be the right approach at that age. But that doesn't mean that you have to get out the game all entirely because that's what I see a lot of times as well is like, well, I'm going to get out of the game entirely because I can't do what I used to do. Whereas what it is, is instead of doing, you know, real heavy four times, maybe you should do something that you can lift 12 times, you know, and then that be where you are and still be able to build the muscle, but reduce the strain on your joints a lot. So it was something. The thing that hurt me, though, I'll tell you this. You know, just from a personal standpoint, one of the things that I like to do, you know, I like the feeling it gives me when I'm done doing it, are the box jumps. You know, I really enjoy box jumps. And, you know, it was like, oh, no. As you get older, you got to stop doing the box jumps. I'm like, oh, no. I don't know if I can give up the box jumps. I. I'm not wearing a weight vest or anything. I'm just doing my body weight. But, you know, I can see, though, because it is a. It's an explosive motion, and the reason I do it is because I want to maintain explosiveness. But they're like, oh, well, maybe you got to do kettle swings instead of that. So different tweaks, and you don't read things and then change everything you do, so to speak. But you, you, you.
What it does is provide what something like this is. Provide different perspective that you can then incorporate into your own perspective. And what it isn't is one size fits all, Which a lot of times, like I said, discourages people because it's like, well, it's. Here's how you do it. And if somebody who can't do it reads that, then they're just like, all right, well, that's not for me. When maybe it still could be for you if you had a different. A broader perspective on what the options were.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's interesting.
More power to you. For box jumps, the hardest thing I do is walk on a treadmill on an incline.
That's a good thing to do. You stay with those box jumps over there with Mr. Young Guy.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Well, but see, I also, though. But you've had surgeries, though, that I haven't had, though, so it's a little different as far as being able to use my.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: I appreciate that, James.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Say what?
[00:26:44] Speaker B: I'll just say, I appreciate that. I'll just tell the audience, no, I'm just lazier than you.
Those surgeries, probably. I could probably still do it, but, yeah, I'm just not doing box jumps, bro. That's it.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: I tried to give you the lifeline, man.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Nah, man, I'mma walk my dog. That's what we do. I walk the dog for an hour. That's the cardio.
But that's why it's an interesting conversation, especially for us specifically, right, guys in our 40s.
I recognize when you gave us 16, 26, 36, that you admitted that we're probably at 46 right now.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: But that's okay.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: So I won't put you in the late 40s. I'll still say you're hovering in the mid-40s as I finished.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: I'm hanging in there, man.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: I'm hanging in there. Yeah, I'll officially be tipped into no more mid. By Sunday, I'll be late. But no, but I think that it's very interesting and I think that's why honestly, for both of us, we both like to work out, lift weights, kind of feel good, like you said about the feeling of exercise, how it makes you feel afterwards, stress release, all that kind of stuff.
And I know that we're having this discussion based on kind of this article as an entry to it, but one area that I felt very intrigued about, which wasn't it part of this article, was as we age, we know that how we strength train and recover changes.
But the other part that is important here is also nutrition. Right? Like as we age, what we can put in our bodies also, I mean, obviously we can put anything in our body, but how our bodies react maybe is how I should say it to. What we put into them changes. You know, our metabolism slows. Like we talk about, if our testosterone goes down, that naturally lowers our levels of our metabolism rate too. So that means as a man, the things I used to eat when I was 20, 25 and I could go to the gym and eat two large pizzas. Go to the gym and not still have an eight pack. If I eat two large pizzas now, I'm not going anywhere for three days and I'm definitely not going to have an eight pack.
So, yeah, if you could speak, I wouldn't mind getting your thoughts because I know you're very, you know, you take a lot of care with this and for yourself personally, like, what would you say to the audience, anyone who's listening to us saying, kind of guys, you know, I appreciate this transition of strength training as we age, but also how can I complement that with what I'm putting in my body? The nutrition side?
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's a good question because where you start with anything is always with the diet and what you put in your body. That's going to be a vast, that's going to be the vast majority of, of what you see and how you feel, you know. So in the same way. Well, I would say this, they're complimentary. And so in the same way that what you eat is going to be, let's say, how you're. If you haven't, and I'll use the analogy of an automobile, but that's going to be comparable to how you perform from an engine standpoint and how, you know, you put the fuel in and this is how good that that engine works. Based on that, if you put fuel with a lot of bad stuff in it, then the engine goes bad more quickly and you might have to get service or whatever where. But strength training, for example, would be more about how you take care of the wheels and the axles and actually the mechanical moving pieces of it. And so you have to do both, you know, so to speak, and strength training. And then I add on that, like the, like you said, the. The cardiovascular stuff, you know, getting stuff that. To get your heart moving and heart beating from time to time. And so as we get older, my experience, and then also just my research on this is that your body just becomes more. Less resilient. It becomes less resilient, more sensitive, you know, and that kind of thing. So. And you can feel that, you know, the same, like you said, you eat. You ate those pizzas before, and your body would just kind of, you know, like, chuck it, chuck it off and be ready to go again. And now it'd be like, oh, man, your body's like, man, what have you doing? What have you done to me? You know, type of thing. And so you have to be. If you have to be more conscious of, okay, well, if I want to perform a certain way, whether it be at work or whether it be being able to do something with my kids or whatever, then I'm going to have to do it from a dietary standpoint and make sure that I still have the motivation and the wherewithal to move around. But then you also have to take care of yourself physically so that you actually can move around and you're not popping a muscle every time or hurting yourself every time you try to do something. So I think it's really complimentary and it's something you should pay attention to. For me, the thing that's helped me the most is listening to my body. Like, really listening to my body. Now, when you're a kid, you don't really have to do it as much, but you listen to your body. Like, so if I eat something and it makes me super sluggish, then it's like, all right, well, you know what? I'm not going to. I'm either not going to eat that during the day, you know, I'm not Going to eat that till 6 o' clock at night when I don't have to do anything else or you know, like I'm just not going to eat it, you know. And then the same thing with my exercises, like, I'm very consistent with it, you know, like, but I am evolving them all the time because if I start feeling something in my elbow a little bit, then it's like, all right, well I'm not doing anything that's going to, that I'm going to feel that on for a few months because and this is talked about in the article, recovery takes longer, you know, like, and injuries, you know, can, can take longer to heal as well. Just normal recovery after workout. So for me, you know, it's like, okay, like recently I had my elbow was bothering me like in December. And so I just stopped doing any elbow bend stuff, you know, and I was working, working a lot on my, my lower body and you know, core and things like that, a little bit of shoulder stuff like that, but stuff nothing that required me to bend my elbow. I just cut it out for three months. But I didn't miss workouts. I just did something different. And then I, well, let me ask
[00:32:10] Speaker B: you happily just got back in, you
[00:32:12] Speaker A: know, like this month and I'm able to do the elbow stuff again.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: I got a quick question for you and then I know we'll close it out as you say that because I've been thinking the same thing. I mean, when you mentioned my surgeries, I mean for the audience, I got two ACL tears, torn Achilles, I got herniated discs in my back. I got a few issues. I got a torn shoulder. So one thing as I'm aging, I started taking supplements like collagen and creatine and certain things. And I know we're not here for you to sell yourself as a doctor, your intellectual property attorney, let me make that clear for everyone, you know, but as someone who finds interest in this personally, I mean, I know I'm not saying you may recommending to people listening, but would you say that things like those type of supplements, they may be helpful obviously of consulting with your medical professional for things like joints. Because like you're saying, I feel it's
[00:33:03] Speaker A: what's been your experience with like the collagen that you've taken?
[00:33:06] Speaker B: No, I just started it actually in the last week. So I think I was telling my wife like I'm going to do it for 60 days and then really try and giving myself an assessment of how I'm feeling because I started feeling More pains and kind of just, you know, those kind of cranks and kinks in my joints, in my ankle when I walk, my knee. So things I wasn't feeling a year or two ago. So I was just wondering if maybe my joints are deteriorating, you know, the collagen, the ligaments, the things holding the cartilage together, all that stuff.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: Well, you know, like the supplement industry and they're supplements, you know, so they're supposed to supplement with your existing diet and so forth. They're not like supposed to just, just cover up everything what they had. Like it's, it can be a piece of the puzzle, you know, but what. And there are things that are safe and effective, you know, like, I know like for example, my uncle had a lot of success with collagen, for example, and he's much older than you and he, he felt the difference in terms of his ability to move around all the time.
The, what the supplement industry wants you to do is to over rely on them, you know, whether you're getting the benefits or not. And because it's a for profit thing. There are benefits that can be had though for different things. You know, of course you always got to be very careful. You talk to, you know, health care, everything like that, but there are things you can do that you can consume to make things better. But what I found though, I will say this, and this is not any consolation really because it just like, and I still struggle with this. Like the basics though are the things that'll make the biggest difference. Like you take a walk every day, that'll make a huge difference for you. Here's the one that I would struggle with. You stretch every day. Like take time to stretch, do stretch motions every day. That makes, that'll make the biggest difference in terms of how you feel. More so than collagen. And that's not to say collagen doesn't help, but it's, it's almost like, I mean, and it comes back, I'll throw this in economic term for you. There's no free lunch, you know, like so a lot of times the things that make the biggest difference are the things that do require a level of intentionality and you know, the of thoughtfulness and time at least until, I mean, we're going to see what all these peptide things, you know, like they already got the GLP1s but then they got all these other peptides coming out. So we'll see once that happens. And a lot of times with stuff like this, and I know this takes us off a Completely different path. But a lot of things like that, like it seems like they're even with the GLP1s. Like there's been a lot of people having very good results on that stuff. You always, you never know what the trade offs are going to be, whether it be two, three, four, five years down the road. And so you are a guinea pig.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: There's side effects that may be able
[00:35:29] Speaker A: to help people as well.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Showing up. Yeah.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Say what?
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think, I think I was just saying there's side effects already with the GLP ones that are starting to be more discussed. You know that a negative side effect.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: That's the economics thing. There is no free lunch.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Basically.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Like, so there are gonna say there are trade offs for everything. And so, you know, usually the more you have to work for it, a lot of times the less like there aren't really any trade offs for stretching every day other than, you know, he's gotta make yourself do it. And that's not easy to do or taking a walk, you know, like there's not many negative trade offs. Now the walk thing, actually there could be some as far as impact, if, if you're carrying extra weight, then that can be harder on your joint. So there's a lot going on. And so it's not something that I think with all of the, the health and fitness advice, it has to. It's hard to just read it and then have a direct takeaway and say, this is what I'm going to do. A lot of times it's, you consume the stuff and you kind of do what you think works for you. And then you start slow and try to be consistent, which this is in the piece. Being consistent is the most important thing with anything.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Well, and I think it's also just as we finish out kind of back for me, it's also where I started in this discussion is really just understanding that you're aging, you know, your body is corroding and nature is going to win at some point. You know, death is batting a thousand.
You know, from, you know, Ponce de Leon to all these other people try to find, you know, the secrets of the fountain of youth, whatever, no one ever has. And so, and maybe that's by design, right? Like, you know, dying is part of the living process. So I think it's in the 30,000 foot. That's kind of how we got to look at this. Our bodies are slowly deteriorating as they were designed to do. And as we want to maintain a certain standard of either health or physical ability.
We just as like you said about an engine earlier on, or you could say in this case the whole car, if the car is getting older, you just got to give it a little more care and maybe care for it in different ways. When you've got a 23 year old car versus when the car was only six months old, so.
But the car can still run, you know?
[00:37:31] Speaker A: No, no, I mean, and that's, that's the thing. There's people with 60 year old cars, you know, running around, but they like, you know, they're taking care, they understand.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: They're not riding through salty snowy grounds and then just letting it sit on there forever. Like so, so, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's. I think what people want is their body. Like as you age and you understand it's not going to work the same, but they wanted to be able to do the stuff that they want to be able to do. And I think the biggest thing from that is that you're going to have to put stuff in in order to get stuff out. If you want your body to continue to, to be able to give you access to things that you want to do, then you're gonna. As you, the younger you are, the less you have to do about that. And it actually trains you in all the wrong habits, you know, because it's like, yeah, when you're 20, you don't have to do anything to kind of maintain what you are, you know what I'm saying? And, but then when you're 40 or when you're 50, you have to do stuff to get that same level of performance out. And so that's been my kind of realization over the past few years is like, okay, what, what does my body need? What do I need to do to stay balanced from a physical, from a mental standpoint? So I can go toss the football or kick soccer ball with my kids or do whatever, you know, so. Because that's, that's very important because I want to be able to do that stuff without pulling up lame every five minutes, you know, so, so yeah, but I think we can wrap from there. We appreciate Robert joining us on this episode, on this episode of Call It Like I See it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: I'm Tunde with Lana.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
