Podcast Transcription: How to Stay Under 15% Body Fat All Year (Without Strict Diets or Crazy Workouts)

Ted Ryce: Most men over 40 think they need the perfect diet or crazy workouts to get in shape and to lose fat. But let me tell you something, I've stayed under 15% body fat for years without a perfect diet, without being crazy in the gym. And in today's episode. I'm going to share with you the seven habits that I actually follow that have led me to keep this body and getting complimented all the time, and nobody believes I'm 48, even though I've got gray in my beard and have, and my hair is disappearing. 

So who am I in case you're tuning in for the first time? My name's Ted Ryce, creator of the Lean After 40 program and host of this podcast, the Legendary Live podcast. And I've been, I'm A BJJ Black belt and I've been in coaching for over 25 years now. So again, what you're gonna get from this episode is the seven habits I actually follow. 

And if you follow these as well, if you steal my framework here, you are going to get in much better shape than you are right now. So rule number one, be data driven. There's a great saying. We all know it comes from Peter Drucker. If you don't measure it, you can't manage it. So what I do is I track weight, cowie steps and workouts. 

You need to know it can't just be, oh yeah, well I went to the gym this week. How many times did you go this week? How many times did you go last week? How about a month ago? If you don't know, if you can't look back and see what you've done. That's the problem if you don't have any idea how many calories you're eating, and what I mean by idea is not what you think. 

Like, oh yeah, I'm probably eating 1800 calories. No, I mean, have you tracked it? What about your weight? What about photos? What about steps? So look, I always talk about how I've been in this business for over 25 years, but the reality is I never was able to create a big change in my body repeatedly, sustainably without doing strict things or killing myself in the gym until I started tracking. 

And now sometimes I track my calories. Actually, more recently, I, I haven't been, but I spent years tracking my calories to get to this point. So it's just. A common blind spot. People think they're exercising way more than they actually are, and they're not eating as much as they're actually eating. So be data driven. 

Rule number two, consistent workouts, but flexible length. I don't skip workouts now. If I'm sick, if I've got an injury, I will take time off if I need to, but I never do it because I'm busy and I am busy. I always have things to do, things that I could prioritize. So here's what I do. Even if I have to do a workout in my hotel room using body weight exercises and do something for 15 minutes, maybe even 10 minutes, I do it. 

If I only have 30 minutes to get to the gym, I do it. Sometimes I'll do a 90 or two hour, uh, a 90 minute or two hour session. But the practice here is consistency. Consistency beats perfection. This is something, look, that sounds cliche, maybe it even is cliche, but it is the truth. If you go to the gym and go hardcore for a month, but then you take a month off, you've just screwed around. 

You have to find a way to be consistent and you need to take a flexible approach to your workouts to make that happen. Rule number three, I move every day. So my rule is this. Either I'm gonna get my steps in and my target is 10 k. There's nothing magical about 10 K steps, but it's just a, it's, it's a high enough to be challenging for most of us who work in a seated, right, have the seated work, uh, environment, or I lift weights, or I do cardio, or I do jiujitsu or something where like in Florida, Opolis in Brazil, I would go hiking. 

It's not something I would do there. Or if I'm in a different place, maybe I'll, I'll go paddle, paddle boarding, but I do something every day. Okay. It doesn't have to be a lot. And sometimes I don't, even on the days that I aren't, that I'm not going to the gym or doing cardio or jiujitsu or something fun, I may not even hit 10,000 steps, but I have it as a target. 

And if I don't, like, if I feel like I'm creeping away more towards that 15% body fat and maybe even above it, I start to push myself harder. Okay. And the, that's kind of like the rule that I have. Or if I feel my pants getting tighter. I start to push harder. Okay, so it matters. Daily movement. Wow. People overestimate how many calories a hard workout will burn, and they underestimate just what being more active can do. 

In other words, take the stairs instead of using the elevator. I'm on the 13th floor where I'm staying right now in Goiânia Brazil. Actually, if you have any idea where that is, it's kind of the central part of Brazil. Uh, it's the land of country music, Brazilian country music, beautiful women, and, um, and also famous for their food. 

So anyway, yeah. So I've been having to push myself because the food is, uh, I'll, I'll share this in a second. The food's quite good here, so. Yeah, the, this daily activity thing and, uh, making a point to like, okay, well, how can I just squeeze in a little bit more activity without having to go to the gym or really even thinking about it too much, right? 

It, I haven't taken the stairs here just in full transparency, but it would be a good thing for me to do. 13 flights of stairs is a, a solid climb. In fact, I'll, I'll probably do that today since I'm not gonna be going to the gym today. So rule number four, focus on satiating foods. Not just protein, but fiber. 

Water rich foods like watermelon, low energy density foods like vegetables. Here's some personal examples. I focus on oatmeal, potatoes. I like chicken breast. I prefer it to chicken thighs, and also chicken breast really fills me up if I eat a lot of chicken breast. I, I just, I'm pretty full after that. But I also have oranges, watermelon, and I take a fiber supplement right now because I'm in Brazil, it's more limited with the type of supplements available here. 

So I take a Acel supplement and why this helps is I don't restrict myself, and we'll talk about this in rule number five, uh, helps me eat less without feeling restricted. So let's get right to it. Rule number five. I remember talking to, well, the rule number five is don't restrict your life. So I remember talking to a potential client. 

Actually never became a client, unfortunately for him. And he was talking to me about, you know, I was ask, I always ask people when they wanna work with me, he was actually a referral from someone who got insane results from working with me. And the guy just had to talk with me, right? And he was sharing what he had done in the past, and he was like, well, the whole 30 really worked well for me. 

But the thing was, it was so strict that. Him and his wife had to stay home and couldn't go out to eat and hang out with their friends because it was so strict. If you don't know what the whole 30 is, it's like something that was popular maybe 10 years ago, maybe more, actually more like like 15 years ago. 

Anyway, it's basically an eating disorder dressed up as a weight loss program. It's fricking ridiculous how strict it is, and keto is a less strict diet, let's put it that way. More flexibility on keto anyway. It, it did work, but you have to, it's so strict and it's just like, it's kind of like, oh, do you wanna wait? 

Make more money. Okay. Uh, work more hours. Oh, okay. So it's brilliant advice. The issue is you end up losing other parts of your life and the same thing with a whole 30, I don't think it's psychologically healthy either, which is part of my point. Psychological and social health are actually part of. What makes you healthy and can affect your physical health? 

So I'm in Brazil right now. Um, I went out last night and had a poke bowl and the people who I'm with, the two girls, one, one's my friend's girlfriend and uh, she's from here as is her sister and they're a little bit famous, especially my friend's girlfriend. She's got like 300,000 followers on Instagram and she's a baker. 

She makes sweets and they're very famous Sweetss. And they're really good. So, so I ended up eating some and I'm still able to enjoy my life and go out to dinner and eat things that I, people think that you can't eat and stay lean despite those challenges because of. The other things that I've already shared with you. 

So rule number six is manage your stress. Every week I get a massage. In fact, I had a massage yesterday. I do a float tank. It doesn't matter if it's acupuncture, whatever it is for you. Doing the sauna, that can work too, although that does apply stress to your body, so you have to keep that in mind. I've had some issues with overdoing the sauna because it can dehydrate you and cause problem, or at least for me, it dehydrated me, screwed up my exercise performance and messed with my sleep a little bit anyway. 

But figure out what works for you. And the key is you do it and afterwards you feel better. So when I left my massage yesterday, when I got to the massage. I felt like I didn't feel bad, but I was just like, I'm a little on edge and I've even cut my, I'm only having one coffee a day, one cappuccino a day at the moment. 

And so, um, I'm a little bit more sensitive to caffeine. Not exactly sure why, but after I walked out of that, that massage, I was like, whoa, I feel so much better. Stress causes, cravings can cause overeating. It's like you want to feel better. So what do you reach for alcohol? Food that tastes good. You overeat because you're eating anxiously. 

So find something weekly that you can do that drops your anxiety, drops your stress. Could be hugging your partner, um, single at the moment. Which brings us to rule number seven, align your relationships. So I'll tell you something, the most important. Thing you can choose for your health is who you end up marrying or being in a relationship with because they're gonna affect how you sleep, how stressed you are, and also some of the choices that you make. 

For example, in my marriage, she was not that healthy and she liked to eat unhealthy foods and she was never overweight or anything like that, but she didn't exercise that much and she made pretty, she would. End up making choices for food that aren't so healthy, except she wouldn't eat that much because her appetite was well regulated and I would eat a lot and so I would get fat and I kind of blamed it on her when uh, that wasn't a hundred percent fair. 

Right. Hence. My, since we're divorced. Right? But the point is, IL what I learned from that and also my, with my ex-girlfriend, my ex-girlfriend was kind of the opposite. She was in the gym. She got me in the gym more. She got me eating in healthier, healthier. I won't get into why that didn't work out, but it wasn't because of the health, the, the shared lifestyle values. 

And now that I'm single, if a girl drinks. Regularly she's out. If she doesn't, if she's not in the gym every day, she's out. Right? So make sure if you're single, you set those rules to make sure your partner is at least on the same level, and maybe even ideally better than you. Okay with that. For example, my ex-girlfriend was more strict with her diet. 

She was more on top of it, and I was more loose anyway. And if you're married right now, obviously you can't go to your wife and say, Hey, you need to change. You're making me fat. Definitely don't do that. It's not good for relationships, but what you can say is you can ask for support and, you know, putting pressure on your partner. 

That's not a a, a conversation I'm gonna have with you, but certainly asking for support. And say, Hey, listen, I really want to be healthier. I really care about it and I need your support. 'cause I'm, I'm struggling here. People love to help people. People hate being blamed for someone else's choices, especially in a relationship. 

So make sure if you're already in a relationship and you want to make healthy changes, make sure you go about it the right way with. Good communication skills, maybe even a little bit of relationship coaching or therapy. And hopefully you're in a relationship already where you're kind of the one dragging with your health and you need to step it up. 

So in that case, your partner's gonna really want to help you. Alright, those are the seven rules. Let's go over 'em again. So rule number one, be data driven. Rule number two. Consistent workouts, but flexible lengths. Rule number three, move every day. Do something every day. Rule number four, focus on satiating foods. 

Rule number five, don't restrict your life. Rule number six, manage your stress and rule number seven, align your relationships. So these rules work together. It's not, it's not just one of them. You can't out supplement poor habits. That's why I didn't talk about supplements. You can't disconnect health from the other aspects of your life. 

So it all needs to to work together. So what I want you to do is what's one thing you can start doing today that will help you, that will help you move the needle in the next seven days? Which one of these is the one that hit home with you the most? That's what I want you to focus on. Alright, so that is it for today. 

It's, remember, it's not about restriction. It's about the right rules that you can keep forever. In my masterclass, I talk about the 10 year test where it's like, if you don't see yourself doing this for the next 10 years, it's the wrong thing for you. So if you can't be keto for 10 years, if that sounds whoa, then don't do it. 

Find something you can be consistent with and then you can build from there. That's it for me. Hope you enjoyed this. Have a great week. Speak to you soon.