Your 401(k) for Aging: Muscle

The Most Powerful Thing You Can Do to Thrive in A Sick Society

“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger

If I could hand you one golden lever for thriving after 40, it would not be supplements, detoxes, or some overpriced gadget collecting dust next to your treadmill that has become a very expensive coat rack.

It would be strength training. Building muscle. Getting stronger.

And I am not here to dunk on the trendy stuff. Red light therapy. Cold plunges. Cleaning up seed oils. Wearables. Supplements. Some of that can help. Some of it is even awesome.

But most people lose the forest through the trees.

If your health was a retirement plan, gadgets and hacks are like optimizing credit card points for wealth. Nice. Fun. Not nothing.

But building muscle is your 401k with a 10 percent employer match. That is real wealth. It compounds. It keeps paying you back in energy, metabolism, resilience, confidence, and independence.

After 40, life is not a wellness retreat. Sleep is not always perfect. Stress hits harder. The food environment is engineered to spike cravings. Work pressure, debt, relationships, and adult chaos do not exactly scream optimal lifestyle.

That is why muscle matters so much.

Muscle gives you margin. When sleep is short, stress is high, and nutrition is not perfect, muscle acts like a shock absorber. It helps you stay resilient instead of sliding into fatigue, cravings, inflammation, joint aches, and that quiet surrender of I guess this is just aging.

Here is the nerdy truth. Strength training hits multiple root causes at once. Metabolic dysfunction. Insulin resistance. Chronic inflammation. Frailty. Bone loss. Mood decline. Cognitive drift. This is not one benefit. It is a cascade.

It is the closest thing we have to a Swiss Army knife for aging well.

Let’s get into why.

1) Sarcopenia is real, and it’s not just “getting smaller”

Starting as early as your 30s, we begin losing muscle over time if we don’t fight for it. That age related decline is part of what we call sarcopenia, and it’s not just cosmetic. It’s function. Power. Stability. Independence. [1]

Even worse, aging tends to hammer your Type II (fast twitch) fibers hardest. Those are the “save you when you trip” fibers. The “jump, catch yourself, move explosively, protect the joints” fibers. When those fade, people don’t just get weaker. They get more fragile. [2]

Strength training is the most direct way we have to preserve and rebuild those systems.

This is why I say: after 40, strength is not vanity. It’s survival with style.

2) The Metabolic Cheat Code After 40: Build Muscle, Beat Insulin Resistance

This is the part that changed the way I think about health.

Two books did more to rewire my brain than almost anything else: Ben Bikman’s Why We Get Sick and Peter Attia’s Outlive. Bikman, especially, gave me brutal clarity. He helped me see insulin resistance not as a niche “diabetes problem,” but as a central driver behind a huge chunk of modern chronic disease. And he made something else painfully obvious: skeletal muscle isn’t just for strength or aesthetics. It is one of the most powerful metabolic tools we have. Muscle is a glucose sink, and building it is a direct attack on insulin resistance.[3]

Now zoom out.

We are getting sicker, faster. Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, obesity, and metabolic dysfunction aren’t rare anymore, they’re everywhere. And the trend makes perfect sense when you look at what changed: we eat more ultra-processed foods and refined carbohydrates than ever before, we move less, and we sit more. When you chronically flood the bloodstream with easy-to-overeat, rapidly absorbed carbs (often packaged in UPFs), you create the exact environment where insulin has to work overtime. That isn’t a mystery. That’s physiology.

Attia has a metaphor that sticks: each of us has a different sized “bathtub” for fat storage. As long as the tub has capacity, we can store energy relatively safely (mostly subcutaneous fat). But once that tub fills up, the overflow doesn’t just disappear — it spills into places it was never meant to go: visceral fat, liver (fatty liver), muscle, and even the pancreas. That “spillover” is where the real danger begins, because it’s tightly linked to insulin resistance, inflammation, and metabolic dysfunction.[20]

This is why two people can look different on the outside but have very different risk on the inside. Some people can store more subcutaneous fat before they spill over. Others have a smaller capacity and hit the visceral/fatty liver stage earlier. Same modern food environment. Different storage limits. Same predictable biology once the spill starts.

Peter Attia calls the major killers of modern life the Four Horsemen: cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and type 2 diabetes related metabolic disease.[20] Different headlines, same ugly theme: metabolic dysfunction and chronic inflammation sit underneath a lot of it. That’s why this section matters. When you build and use muscle, you’re not just improving aesthetics. You’re pushing back against the biology that feeds those Horsemen.

Here’s the pathophysiology in plain English, with just enough nerd to be useful:

After you eat, carbohydrates are broken down into glucose in the bloodstream.
Insulin’s job is to move that glucose out of the blood and into tissues, especially skeletal muscle (and the liver), so it can be used for energy or stored as glycogen.
When muscle is trained and insulin sensitive, glucose clears efficiently with less insulin required.
When muscle is undertrained, inactive, or shrinking with age, your capacity to dispose of glucose drops. The pancreas compensates by secreting more insulin to get the same job done.
Over time that becomes hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance: higher insulin, impaired signaling, more fat storage, more inflammation, and more metabolic chaos.[3]

This matters because skeletal muscle is a primary site for glucose uptake and disposal after meals. A large portion of insulin-mediated glucose disposal happens in muscle, which makes muscle a central organ for metabolic control.[4,5]

Now here’s the unfair advantage that makes strength training feel like a cheat code:

Exercise increases GLUT4 activity and expression in muscle. GLUT4 is a transporter that helps move glucose from the bloodstream into the muscle cell. Training upgrades the “doorway” glucose walks through, which is a major reason resistance training improves glucose disposal and insulin action over time.[6]

So muscle doesn’t just make you look better.
Muscle changes where glucose goes.
That changes insulin demand.
That reduces overflow pressure on the system.
That influences whether energy gets stored safely or spills into visceral fat and the liver.
That changes inflammation.
That changes risk.

And it ties directly into Bikman’s core message: when you improve insulin sensitivity, you’re not just chasing weight loss. You’re stabilizing the metabolic foundation that influences everything upstream and downstream.[3]

That’s why strength training isn’t just “a workout” after 40. It’s a strategic move against the biggest threats to healthspan and lifespan.[20]

3) Muscle is an endocrine organ

This part still blows people’s minds, and honestly it should, because it flips the whole story.

Most people think muscle is just aesthetics. Something you build to look better in a T-shirt. Something optional. Something for gym people.

But muscle is metabolic gold. And after 40, it is one of the closest things we have to a true cheat code.

Here is the wild truth. Muscle is not just tissue. Muscle behaves like an endocrine organ.

Meaning, when you contract muscle, it does not just move weight. It releases chemical signals that talk to the rest of your body. These signals are called myokines, and they influence systemic inflammation, insulin sensitivity, lipid metabolism, and even brain function.[7]

Let that land for a second.

When you lift, you are not just training arms or legs. You are sending a message to your entire system that says, upgrade. Adapt. Get more resilient.

In everyday terms, strength training does not just change your body. It sends a full body signal that says, function better.

Some myokines help regulate inflammatory pathways. Others influence how you burn fat and handle blood sugar. Some are part of the muscle brain cross talk story, influencing cognition and mood biology.[7,8] The science is still evolving, but the direction is clear. Muscle communicates. Muscle protects. Muscle upgrades the system.

And this is where Dr. Gabrielle Lyon deserves real credit.

She has been one of the clearest voices pushing a muscle first framework when most of healthcare still treats muscle like a side character. Her message is blunt, but it is needed. We are undermuscled and metabolically compromised, and the answer is not just more meds or more cardio. The answer is building and protecting the tissue that keeps you capable.

Lyon’s framework, muscle centric medicine, is not about being jacked. It’s about metabolic science. It’s about recognizing skeletal muscle as a primary organ of glucose disposal, a major regulator of insulin sensitivity, and a driver of healthy aging through strength, function, and resilience. It’s a clinical strategy disguised as a fitness message.

And she did not pull this out of thin air. Her book Forever Strong is built on decades of protein and muscle physiology work, and she gives real respect to the scientists who helped shape her approach, especially Dr. Donald Layman. Layman has been a major voice on dietary protein, leucine, muscle protein synthesis, and the idea that muscle is not optional tissue, it is metabolically active tissue with powerful downstream effects. That academic backbone matters.

It shifts the focus from obsessing over the scale to improving what actually drives body composition and health after 40. Muscle is the tissue that handles glucose, supports insulin sensitivity, protects against frailty, and gives your body the capacity to stay leaner with less suffering. When you frame the problem as undermuscled, the solution becomes obvious. Build and keep the tissue that makes you metabolically resilient.

That is real body composition. Not just a smaller number. A stronger, healthier body.

I have to address this because I know a lot of women are turned off by Gabrielle at first. I get it.

A lot of women are turned off by Gabrielle at first, and I get why.

She has a highly curated look, and it reads as enhanced. Honestly, she can look like she has a Snapchat filter on all the time, with the whole Botox, filler, perfectly polished vibe. And when real people are trying to get healthy in real bodies, that kind of aesthetic can feel less like inspiration and more like a curated fantasy. It pulls attention away from what actually matters, building strength, protecting your metabolism, feeling good in your own skin, not funding a plastic surgeon’s next vacation.

So yes, the skepticism is understandable. But do not throw out the science because you do not like the packaging.

Because the point is not to look like Gabrielle. The point is to use the same lever she is advocating for. Build muscle. Keep muscle. Let it do what it was designed to do.

Protect your metabolism. Protect your brain. Protect your bones. Build real confidence. Keep your independence.

That is the payoff after 40. That is why muscle is metabolic gold.

Strength training protects your frame: bones, joints, and the ability to keep living your life

After 40, the goal isn’t just to live longer. It’s to stay dangerous in the best way. Capable. Independent. Hard to break.

Because here’s what nobody wants to admit: the real threat isn’t getting a little softer around the middle. The real threat is slowly becoming the person who can’t do things anymore. The person who avoids stairs. The person who “doesn’t trust” their knees. The person who turns down trips, hobbies, and pickup games because their body feels fragile.

Strength training is how you push back.

It loads your skeleton in a controlled, progressive way that helps preserve bone and supports connective tissue.[9] It builds the muscles that stabilize your joints, improves movement mechanics, and reduces that creeping “everything hurts” drift that convinces people to stop moving… which is exactly when the real decline begins.[9]

This is the stuff that keeps you out of the frailty spiral.

Because frailty isn’t some random lightning strike. It’s a slow slide: less muscle, less bone, less balance, less confidence, less movement, more pain. Then one weird step off a curb or one slip on ice becomes a life changing event.

Falls are one of the biggest threats to independence as we age.[6] And the people who age best aren’t just “thin.” They’re strong. They’re stable. They can produce force quickly when life surprises them. They can catch themselves. They can get back up. They don’t move through the world like they’re made of glass.

That’s what strength training really buys you after 40: not just a better body, but a more reliable one. A body you can trust. A body that lets you keep living your life instead of managing your limitations.

Your brain benefits too: strength training is mental therapy with plates

Strength training isn’t just physical therapy for your body. It’s often mental therapy too.

And not in a fluffy “exercise is good for you” way. In a real, measurable, research backed way.

Resistance training is associated with meaningful improvements in depressive symptoms across many populations, and the effect is not small.[10] That matters because after 40, a lot of people aren’t just battling belly fat. They’re battling low energy, low mood, chronic stress, and that quiet feeling of, “I’m not fully myself lately.”

Lifting fights back on multiple levels.

Biology: contracting muscle releases signals that influence the brain through muscle brain cross talk (myokines and related pathways).[8] You’re not just building tissue, you’re sending a systemic message that says, adapt, recover, become more resilient. That’s one reason consistent strength training often improves mood and mental clarity.

But honestly, the psychology might be just as powerful.

Strength training gives you proof. Evidence. Receipts.

You walk into the gym anxious, stressed, or doubting yourself. You do hard things on purpose. You keep promises to yourself. You lift more than last month. You get stronger. And your brain starts to internalize a new identity:

I can handle hard things.
I don’t fold under pressure.
I’m building myself on purpose.

That confidence doesn’t stay in the weight room.

It follows you into work conversations. Into relationship stress. Into the moments when life tries to overwhelm you. Because when you know—deep in your nervous system—that you’re strong and you train like someone who’s strong, you stop moving through the world like you’re fragile.

So yes, lifting changes your body.

But it also changes your mind. It upgrades your mood, your resilience, your sleep, and your self trust.[8,10] And for a lot of adults after 40, that mental edge is the real transformation.

Muscle is Pain Medicine, Not Just Aesthetics

I need to hit this head on, because this is where people get stuck.

I get it. We are programmed for meds, injections, and surgery. They are fast, insurance covers them, and they require almost no effort from the patient or the provider. In a system that rewards speed, that matters. But pain usually is not a quick fix problem.

Here is a truth that calms a lot of fear: arthritis and degeneration are pictures. Pain is an experience. They can overlap, but they are not the same thing. That is why research shows many people with no back pain still have disc bulges, degeneration, and other findings on MRI, and those findings become more common with age. [26] Knees are the same story. MRI features that look like osteoarthritis show up in a significant chunk of people with no knee symptoms, especially after 40. [27]

So if you have been told your scan looks rough, so your pain is inevitable, that is not the whole truth.

Strength training does not sand down arthritis or magically fix bones on an MRI. What it does is upgrade the support system around the structure. When you strengthen the muscles and tendons around the knee or the spine, you improve control and mechanics, you spread load better, and you increase capacity so normal life stops feeling like a threat. That is why I call muscle pain power. Your joints are not meant to do life alone. They are meant to be supported.

Now, about the quick fix lane.

Steroid knee injections can help short term, but the benefit is often modest and fades fast, which is why people keep going back for more. [28] Most clinics limit how often you can do them, and a common practice is to space injections out by about three months in the same joint. [29] That is not arbitrary. It is risk management. In a randomized clinical trial, people who received repeated knee steroid injections over two years had greater cartilage volume loss than the saline group, with no meaningful pain advantage. Less cartilage, same pain. [30] And if someone is heading toward a knee replacement, injections too close to surgery can raise infection risk, which is why many surgeons avoid injections within about three months of arthroplasty. [31]

This is exactly why I had the conversation with my mother in law, Linda. She had knee pain and did what most people do, injections, then more injections, until she hit the point where they did not want to keep doing them. When I explained that PT is often the first move, not the last move, she looked confused. Like most people do. Wait, PT is after surgery, right. Wrong.

In a major randomized trial, physical therapy beat a steroid injection at one year for pain and function in knee osteoarthritis. [32] Linda did PT. Her knee pain was mostly gone, her quality of life improved, she moved more, and she even lost some weight because her knee stopped making movement feel like a threat.

That is the point. Injections can turn down the alarm. Strength and PT rebuild the support system that keeps the alarm from going off as often.

And this ties right back into the theme of this whole blog. Muscle is more than aesthetics. Muscle is metabolic power. Muscle is pain power. Muscle is the tissue that keeps you capable.

If you want, I can also give you a shorter version that is tighter for attention spans, and a longer version that sounds more like a chapter.

What Strength Training Is Not

Myth 1: Lifting makes you bulky (and why your brain is being lied to)

This one refuses to die.

You don’t accidentally become a bodybuilder. Visible muscle takes years of consistency, adequate protein, and real recovery.

For most people, lifting creates the look everyone claims they want: lean, athletic, and strong. And as Sal Di Stefano emphasizes, properly programmed resistance training is the foundation for that “toned” look people chase with endless cardio.[11]

Now here’s the problem: social media has poisoned the reference point.

A lot of what people imagine when they hear “bulky” is a highlight reel of genetic outliers, people whose entire life revolves around training, and yes, sometimes the “extras” nobody wants to talk about. Greg Doucette is obnoxious as hell, but he’s dead on about this: genetic potential is real, and the spread is massive. Some people are high responders. They pick up a weight and look jacked in months. Others have to grind for years to build the same amount of muscle. That’s not laziness. That’s biology. Training response varies a lot between individuals, and genetics plays a meaningful role in where you start and how fast you adapt.[12–15]

And let’s be blunt: elite bodybuilding and fitness competitors are not “normal.” They are the top 1% genetically for muscle building, structure, proportions, and recovery. That’s why they’re elite. It’s selection bias in human form. Then stack on the reality that a lot of the most extreme physiques online are not built naturally. Anabolic steroids and other PEDs can dramatically change muscle gain, leanness, and recovery. Controlled research shows supraphysiologic testosterone increases fat free mass and strength, and the effect is amplified with training.[16,17] That doesn’t mean everyone is using drugs, but it does mean a lot of what you’re comparing yourself to is not an honest yardstick.[18]

And this is where I get a little fired up, because it’s stealing people’s confidence.

We’ve got normal adults doing the hardest thing, showing up consistently in a world that pushes junk food, stress, and exhaustion, and then feeling like failures because they don’t wake up looking like Hemsworth, Arnold, or a fitness influencer with a camera angle, perfect lighting, and maybe a pharmacy in the background.

That’s backwards.

Just because you don’t have the genetic potential to look like Hemsworth, Greg Doucette, or Arnold doesn’t mean your efforts aren’t paying huge dividends. Stop comparing yourself to elite outliers and start comparing yourself to you.

And this is bigger than aesthetics.

Even if your arms never look like a Marvel poster, your muscle is still doing the job that matters most after 40: improving insulin sensitivity, increasing glucose disposal capacity, lowering visceral fat risk over time, reducing chronic inflammation, protecting bone, stabilizing joints, and making your body more resilient when life gets messy.[1,3–9]

If you’re stronger than last year, moving better, sleeping better, more insulin sensitive, carrying less visceral fat, more stable mentally, and more confident in your body, you’re winning. If you don’t wake up with a shredded six pack and huge arms, it doesn’t mean you aren’t “jacked” in your own way. It means you’re building the version of strong that actually matters: capable, resilient, and hard to break.

That’s the real transformation. And it’s available to almost everyone who stays in the game.

Myth 2: You Do Not Need to Train 7 Days a Week to Get Results

You do not.

I train a lot because I love it. But you absolutely do not need my volume to get profound benefits.

Here is what the research says in human terms. Major guidelines and position stands commonly recommend resistance training around 2 to 3 days per week for most adults to build strength and muscle effectively. [12] Meta analytic data suggests training a muscle group at least twice per week can be beneficial for hypertrophy compared to once per week, especially when volume is not equalized. [13] Even very old adults can get significantly stronger with progressive resistance training, which is one of the most hopeful findings in all of exercise science. [14]

The part people love to hear

Two full body workouts per week can be enough to change your life.

Sal has said for years, from coaching real humans not fitness robots, that two solid resistance training sessions per week can deliver plenty of results for the average person, especially when the alternative is doing nothing because “I can’t do the perfect plan.” [15] And the research world has been moving in the same direction with minimal dose resistance training data. Evidence suggests even one weekly session can improve strength in beginners under certain conditions. [16] Minimal dose resistance training strategies can improve strength with small time investments, which matters because time is the number one excuse people use to never start. [17]

Progressive overload does not mean ego lifting

Let me add something that needs to be said, because this is probably why so many people are intimidated by strength training, and it honestly infuriates me. The internet makes it look like strength training equals ego lifting, and if you are not built like a powerlifter moving a mountain, you do not belong. That is backwards.

Progressive overload does not mean you need to squat, deadlift, and bench a shit ton of weight. You are not training to impress strangers. You are training to build muscle, protect joints, and stay capable.

Progressive overload just means the work gradually gets harder over time. That can look like adding five pounds. It can look like one more rep. It can look like better form, deeper range, slower tempo, or shorter rest. Small upgrades count.

The goal is not a 400 pound back squat that gets you hurt and benched from life. The goal is repeatable training you can do for years, because that is where the real transformation lives. And consistency is way more powerful than ego lifting. Always.

Now I am going to say something that might sound like a brag, and I do not mean it that way, I am saying it to hammer the point home. My son Aydan is 22, and he has told me more than once that I am the most jacked guy he knows, especially considering I am 52. That is not because I am out here throwing ridiculous weight around.

I rarely do anything heavy. I do not back squat. I do not barbell deadlift. I do not even flat barbell bench press. And if I did, it would not be heavy.

What you will see me doing is dumbbell incline bench press. Step ups with dumbbells. Single leg RDLs with light dumbbells. I do these with intention. I treat each rep like practice. Like I am trying to own the movement, not survive it. As Sal Di Stefano says so well, you train like you are practicing to perfect the movement, not throwing weight around willy nilly.

I have seen the opposite up close too. After undergrad and track, Aydan started strength training and did what most guys do at first, ego lifts. Loading plates. Half rep back squats. Chasing numbers. And surprise, he was always dealing with little aches and pains.

Then he got smarter. More unilateral work. Step ups. Split squats. Controlled reps. Lighter weights with real range and clean form. He made far more progress with less pain, and he ended up putting on about 15 pounds of muscle. That is next great point.

Newbie Gains: The Best Part of Starting

If you are on the fence, this is your sign.

Newbie gains are real, and they are the most fun season of strength training because your progress is loud. You will usually see more change early on than you will later, even with a simple plan and not crazy weights.

Here is why it happens.

In the first few weeks, a lot of the strength jump is your nervous system getting smarter. You learn how to recruit more muscle fibers, coordinate the movement, and stop leaking power. Research has shown early strength gains are heavily driven by these neural adaptations, not just new muscle tissue overnight. [34,35]

Then, as you keep showing up, actual muscle growth starts adding to the story, and that is when your body begins to look and feel different in a more obvious way. [34]

This is why I love this phase for people who feel behind. You get quick wins. Those wins build confidence. Confidence builds consistency. And consistency is the whole game.

And here is the best part: you do not need ego lifting to get newbie gains. You need controlled reps, a few good movements, and a plan you can repeat.

Start now. This is the season where your body rewards you fast for simply showing up.

Maintaining can be about half of building, sometimes even less

This is one of the most freeing truths in fitness.

Building muscle is the hard season. Maintaining it is the easier season. Once you have earned strength and muscle, you do not need to keep doing the same volume forever to hold onto it.

In older adults, research shows you can retain neuromuscular adaptations even when training volume drops substantially, like moving from multiple sets to a single set per exercise over time. [18] And work on training dose suggests that strength, in particular, can be preserved surprisingly well with reduced volume, even though hypertrophy may be a bit more volume sensitive as we age. [19]

Translation: if it takes you 2 to 4 days a week to build, you can often keep most of it with 1 day a week for a short season when life gets real.

That is the beauty of strength training after 40. You can run a hard push for a few months, build a stronger engine, then shift into maintenance mode without watching everything evaporate. One solid full body session a week, done with real effort and smart exercise selection, can be enough to keep the signal alive until your schedule opens up again. [17–19]

That means travel weeks, busy work stretches, family chaos, sleep disruptions, even those seasons where motivation is low do not have to mean starting over. You are not losing everything. You are holding the line.

And psychologically, that is huge. Because it turns strength training into something sustainable for real adults. Not an all or nothing identity. A lever you can pull harder when you can, and keep lightly pulled when life is heavy.

The goal is not to live in the gym. The goal is to build a body that does not fall apart the moment your schedule does.

This is why strength training is sustainable after 40. You can run it in seasons.

Build season: more volume, more progress.
Maintain season: less volume, same intensity.
Life chaos season: bare minimum, still do not lose the foundation.

You do not need a gym addiction. You need consistency, and the confidence that maintaining takes way less than building. [18,19]

Myth 3: You Need Hours of Steady Cardio to Get Lean and Athletic

I get why this myth sticks. Steady cardio feels productive. You sweat, your watch lights up, and you walk away thinking, I did the thing.

And if you love running or spin, I am not here to take your joy away. Keep it.

But if you are over 40 and time is limited, making high mileage your main tool is often a lower return on investment than strength training plus walking. Sal Di Stefano has been saying this for years in a way I agree with: if you want to look athletic and feel capable, strength training is the foundation, and cardio is a tool, not the identity. [11]

Here is the part most people do not understand, and it is why they feel like they are doing more and getting less.

Cardio is great at burning calories in the moment. Your body is also great at defending itself after.

When you ramp up steady cardio, your body adapts. It gets more efficient at the same pace, so you burn fewer calories doing the same work. Then you feel pressured to run longer or push harder to get the same burn. At the same time, hunger tends to rise, cravings get louder, and fatigue creeps in. That fatigue often reduces your everyday movement the rest of the day without you noticing. Less walking. Less standing. Less casual movement. That drop in nonexercise movement can erase a big chunk of the calories you thought you earned on the treadmill.

That whole pattern is metabolic compensation. More effort, less net payoff, more hunger.

And after 40, it can get even worse because recovery is not as forgiving. When you stack lots of medium hard cardio on top of modern life stress and imperfect sleep, cortisol stays elevated more often, recovery gets worse, hunger gets louder, and the compensation loop gets even stronger. Then people do the most predictable thing ever: they eat more without realizing it. Not because they are weak. Because biology is doing biology.

This is also why you really cannot outrun a bad diet. A long run can burn a few hundred calories. A couple of hyper palatable snacks can erase that in five minutes, and the hungrier you are from training, the easier it is to blow past your target without even trying.

I am not anti cardio. I am pro strategy.

What most people call steady state usually lands in Zone 3. Moderately hard. You can talk in short phrases. Heart rate roughly 70 to 80 percent of max. Some of that is fine. The problem is when it becomes the whole plan, because the compensation loop starts running the show.

So here is the better play after 40.

Use walking as the base, lift 2 to 3 days per week with progressive overload, keep your daily movement high, and keep the cardio you love but dose it so you finish fresh, not cooked. Mark Sisson’s north star is simple and hard to beat: move frequently at a slow comfortable pace, lift heavy things, and sprint once in a while. Born to Walk doubles down on walking as the base for longevity and metabolic health, which is exactly what most over 40 bodies need. [26]

And this is not just motivational. Resistance training improves key cardiometabolic markers like blood pressure and body composition. [27] Muscle strengthening activity is linked with lower risk and mortality in major chronic diseases. [28] Combining resistance training with cardio improves cardiovascular risk profile as much as cardio alone, with the added benefit of building strength at the same time. [29]

Translation: if your goal is to save time, protect energy, and get lean and athletic without burning out, strength training plus walking gives you the highest return. Cardio is still in the mix, but it stops being the main lever.

Bottom line

In a perfect world, we would all sleep eight hours, eat like adults, manage stress like monks, and never touch ultra processed food.

This is not that world.

This world is deadlines and debt and relationship stress. It’s shift work, kids, hormones, injuries, and that weird midlife realization that time moves faster now. It’s walking into a grocery store where most of the “food” is engineered to hijack your appetite. It’s doing your best and still feeling like your body doesn’t respond the way it used to.

So if you’ve felt behind, frustrated, or like you “should be doing more,” I get it. And here’s the truth that cuts through all the noise:

Strength training is the greatest tool we have.
Not because it’s trendy. Because it works at the root.

It builds the one thing that protects you when everything else isn’t perfect.

Muscle is metabolic armor.
It’s glucose control and insulin sensitivity.
It’s your body’s capacity to handle modern life without tipping into metabolic dysfunction.
It’s anti frailty. Anti falls. Anti “I guess this is just aging.”
It’s endocrine signaling, because your muscles literally send healing messages through myokines.
It’s bone protection, joint protection, stability, posture, and power.
It’s the ability to carry your own groceries, get off the floor, play with your kids, travel without breaking down, and feel capable in your own skin.

And here’s what I love most: you don’t have to live in the gym to get the payoff.

Two full body sessions per week can change your entire trajectory. Then once you’ve built a base, maintaining often takes about half the work. That means even when life gets chaotic, you can keep the foundation with a surprisingly small dose of consistent effort.

So start where you are. Train twice a week. Keep it simple. Stay consistent.

Build the habit. Build the tissue. Build the armor.

Because this isn’t just about looking good. It’s about being strong enough to live your life with energy, clarity, and confidence.

This is the lever. This is the medicine. This is the greatest tool we have.

GET GUIDANCE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS
BJDianaThrivingFit.com
https://BJDianaThrivingFit.com/

You can go faster with a coach or a clear plan. The right trainer saves you years of spinning your wheels, and the wrong one can waste your time, money, and joints.

Hire a trainer who lives the part and coaches the fundamentals. They should

Teach clean form and good movement patterns, not just yell reps
Assess your starting point and build the plan around your body, your schedule, and your goals
Track your numbers and progress you week to week, load reps sets rest tempo
Keep you leaving the gym better, not wrecked
Know the difference between hard training and dumb training

Red flags

They wing every workout
Every session is random muscle confusion
They chase fatigue instead of progress
They load you heavy with sloppy form, then blame you when you hurt
They talk more than they coach

If a coach is not in the budget, do not default to chaos. Follow proven voices and run ONE program at a time. Twelve weeks. Log every workout. Consistency plus progressive overload is the entire game.

MIKE MATTHEWS AND LEGION ATHLETICS
This is the best place to start for most people. Simple, structured, evidence based, and built for real humans who want results without living in the gym.

Books and programs

Bigger Leaner Stronger by Mike Matthews
Thinner Leaner Stronger by Mike Matthews
Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger by Mike Matthews

Legion Athletics training and nutrition platform
https://legionathletics.com/
https://www.instagram.com/legion/
https://www.youtube.com/@legionsupps

EVIDENCE BASED EDUCATION AND FREE CONTENT

Mind Pump Media with Sal Di Stefano
Practical coaching you can apply the same day. Sal’s work is a big reason I love their approach.
https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/
https://mindpumppodcast.com/
https://www.instagram.com/mindpumpmedia/
https://www.youtube.com/c/MindPumpTV

Sal Di Stefano book
The Resistance Training Revolution by Sal Di Stefano

NASM National Academy of Sports Medicine
Great for fundamentals, form, programming basics, and coach level education. They put out a lot of beginner friendly free content.
https://www.nasm.org/

ACE American Council on Exercise
Solid, practical training education, exercise libraries, and free articles you can actually apply.
https://www.acefitness.org/

Jeff Nippard evidence based programming and hypertrophy deep dives
https://www.jeffnippard.com/
https://www.youtube.com/jeffnippard
https://www.instagram.com/jeffnippard
https://twitter.com/JeffNippard

Renaissance Periodization RP and Dr Mike Israetel
No fluff. Clear hypertrophy principles, training volume guidelines, and nutrition coaching that helps you understand what matters. Tons of free education.
https://rpstrength.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@RenaissancePeriodization

Andy Galpin
One of the best communicators in exercise science. Great for understanding how training actually works, strength, hypertrophy, conditioning, recovery, and real world performance.
https://www.andygalpin.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@AndyGalpin

HOW TO USE THIS WITHOUT GETTING OVERWHELMED

Pick one plan. Run it for 12 weeks
Track lifts like a grown up
Add a little weight or a rep over time
Do not change the plan every week because you got bored
Master basics, build your base, then get fancy

References

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