It shouldn’t come as a surprise that your body changes as your age—and so do your nutrition needs. To maintain proper hormonal balance, fight weight gain, lose body fat, and build muscle, you need to eat right. And I’m giving you the only fit after-50 nutrition plan guidelines you’ll need!
Looking to Get Fit After 50? Here’s the Only Nutrition Plan You Need!
Whether it’s time constraints, stress, or lack of knowledge where cooking is concerned, I’ve heard hundreds of excuses as to why men can’t eat well. Sure, grabbing some takeaway is easier than cooking an entire meal, but if you want to build muscle, burn fat, and balance hormones, takeaway (and all the other garbage you might be eating) isn’t going to cut it. Men over 50 have unique challenges they didn’t encounter in their younger years, and your nutrition plan needs to cater to those.
If you’re tired of “eating well” and not seeing results, I get it—and I have the nutrition secrets you need to get lean, strong, and shredded in no time flat. Let’s get started.
Importance of Nutrition During Aging
You probably know about the importance of exercise as you age, but what about eating properly? A healthy and balanced diet is crucial to maintain optimal health, whether you want to boost testosterone, gain muscle, lose weight, or even sleep better. While sleep deprivation (or poor quality sleep, in general) will override virtually every effort you make to improve your health and balance your hormones, eating like crap will, too.
Do not underestimate the power of nutrition. What you put into your mouth at every meal has one of the biggest impacts on your results. No matter how hard you work in the gym, you cannot out-train a bad diet. No exercise program, supplementation protocol, or sleep schedule will give you a shredded body if you eat like garbage.
You can ask Google about the best fit after 50 nutrition plan, but the problem is that it might not address the issues you need to address. For older men trying to boost testosterone levels, most conventional cookie-cutter diets won’t work.
And that’s for a few reasons:
● They’re not sustainable
● They’re geared towards packing on muscle, not boosting testosterone and balancing hormones
● They’re designed for younger men who lack the problems of men 50+
● They’re restrictive and lead to binging
● They’re a lot of work and require hours of meal prep per week
If you want to see success, it must be easy and sustainable. You must consume the right mix of protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fat to support muscle growth, balance hormones, regulate appetite, and boost metabolic rate.
Health Issues for Men Over 50
All things aside, nutrition isn’t just about building muscle and burning fat—it’s also about preventing other health issues accompanying aging. As you probably know, the risk of certain conditions increases as we age, especially if we’ve led an unhealthy and sedentary life. That’s things like:
● Obesity
● High blood pressure
● Heart disease
● Stroke
● Diabetes
● Prostate cancer
● Colorectal cancer
● Osteoporosis
But here’s the thing: a solid nutrition plan can help to reverse and prevent these conditions from coming into your radar in the first place. When you eliminate crappy foods like industrial seed oils and unhealthy fats, processed meats, refined grains, sugar, and any other junk you might reach for, fending off disease doesn’t seem like such a far stretch or something inevitable. In fact, it’s pretty attainable.
And that’s exactly what this nutrition plan aims to do. I want you to become your healthiest and fittest self, and we’re starting with your diet to get you there.
So, what does the ideal fit after-50 nutrition plan look like? Simple:
- Sustainable
- Metabolism-boosting
- Hormone-balancing/testosterone-boosting
And best of all, simple and delicious. You’re not eating boiled broccoli and baked tilapia for every meal. You can enjoy what you eat AND lose weight and build muscle.
Your Fit After 50 Nutrition Plan: A Balanced Plate
When it comes to eating, I want things to be simple for you. While it’s easy to get carried away with fancy recipes, sauces, and all that jazz, that’s also where the calories come in. And excess calories (especially bad ones) will pack on fat and weight—two things you want to drop.
Instead, we’re going to focus on four things at every meal:
- Protein
- Complex carbohydrates
- Healthy fat
- Fruits/vegetables
Let’s break those down briefly.
PROTEIN
If you want to build muscle, protein is the foundation, and it’s 100% non-negotiable for any goal or diet. Your body requires amino acids for almost every cell function, so when amino acid availability drops, you compromise muscle growth and other functions. Studies suggest that even in a caloric deficit with high energy expenditure, high protein intake may attenuate alterations in insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), androgen levels, and loss of fat-free mass. So, regardless of age, you should consume at least 20% of your calories from protein.
CARBS
Whether you want to lose fat or not, don’t cut carbs—it’s more about choosing the right kind of carbs. Your thyroid, the master of your metabolism, relies on carbohydrates to produce thyroid hormones, but your body also needs them for testosterone production, energy, muscle growth, and more. But we don’t want the simple kind from white foods that spike blood sugar. We want the complex, nutrient-dense, slow-burning carbs that supply slow-releasing energy and stabilize your blood sugar. Aim for about 40-50% carbohydrates coming from high-fiber sources (ideally gluten-free) like sweet potatoes, quinoa, rice, root vegetables, beans, legumes, etc.
FAT
Many people fear fat when they aim to get shredded, but your body needs fats, especially for hormone production. Interestingly, studies find that men who follow a low-fat, high-fiber diet tend to have lower testosterone levels compared to men who follow a moderate to a high-fat diet that is lower in fiber. Saturated fat is the foundation of testosterone, so while there’s a ton of research telling you saturated fat is bad for your heart (healthy saturated fat actually isn’t…), cutting it out cold turkey isn’t going to help you achieve your health goals. Ideally, you want about 30% of your daily calories from fat coming from good sources like coconut oil, MCT, grass-fed dairy products, raw butter, and eggs. These will support healthy testosterone levels. But then we also have monounsaturated fats like those found in salmon, avocado, nuts, seeds, and olive oil that are great for fuel but also powerful anti-inflammatory compounds that contribute to optimizing hormonal balance.
MICRONUTRIENTS
But we can’t forget the micronutrients—the vitamins and minerals supporting optimal body function. If you’re deficient in specific nutrients, it will compromise your body’s ability to run like a well-oiled machine, and guess what that means? You won’t see the results you want. Although your body requires 17+ essential vitamins and minerals daily, there are a few we focus on where testosterone is concerned:
● Zinc
● Vitamin D
● Magnesium
● Selenium
Hitting your micronutrient goals can be more challenging than hitting your macros, so I always recommend a multivitamin in my fit after 50 nutrition plans.
One other thing: Avoid foods that kill testosterone if you want to boost your T levels. There are five that I want to emphasize:
- Alcohol
- Soy
- Sugar
- Bad fats (industrial seed oils, hydrogenated fats)
- Conventionally-raised animal products
Don’t Forget About Hydration
And then we come to the last part: hydration. Did you know that if you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated? Staying on top of your water intake is essential to losing weight, burning fat, building muscle, and balancing hormones. It’s fit over 50 secrets you need to know about.
“A gallon a day keeps the cortisol away” is one of my favorite things to tell my Alphas. Dehydration is a huge factor that not only leads to impaired mental and physical performance but can also lead to reduced testosterone production. Most people are chronically dehydrated, and dehydration directly impacts cortisol levels, which, in turn, influences testosterone levels. Cortisol is the primary stress hormone produced in response to sympathetic activation (i.e., stress). Although cortisol is essential for several functions, it is a natural testosterone suppressor when in excess. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology looked at the effect of hydration state on the endocrine and metabolic responses to resistance exercise and found that hypohydration significantly increased circulating concentrations of cortisol and norepinephrine, reduced the testosterone response to exercise, and altered carbohydrate and lipid metabolism.
Long story short, the increase in testosterone levels normally associated with exercise is suppressed during a dehydrated state. So, even if you exercise regularly at a high enough intensity to maximize the hormonal response to exercise, dehydration will blunt that response. But how much do you need? Ideally, consume at least half your body weight (in pounds) in ounces of water daily—or at least one gallon. If you’re doing intense exercise and sweating like a beast or consuming caffeine (a diuretic), you want to increase your intake to compensate.
That’s it, my friends—your ultimate fit after-50 nutrition plan to turn you into a lean, strong, and muscular Alpha over 50.
IF YOU NEED A PROGRAM SPECIFICALLY FOR MEN OVER 40, 50 & 60 TO HELP LOSE 7-20 IN THE FIRST
30 DAYS WHILE BUILDING LEAN MUSCLE, THEN CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW AND GET STARTED WITH THE ALPHA FAT LOSS SHRED PROGRAM
