147: How I Maintain Peak Health at 44 While Working Full Time and Raising Kids

147: How I Maintain Peak Health at 44 While Working Full Time and Raising Kids

I'm 44, and I would argue that I'm in better shape than I was at 34. You know, I sleep better, I'm stronger, and I've got more energy than I did a decade ago. And I'm doing this with kids, a company to run, well, actually several companies to run, and a homestead that doesn't really care whether I feel like showing up.

And here is the assumption I wanna challenge today, you know, the idea that peak health is something you earn once life calms down. You know, when the kids get older, when the business is finally stable, or you have a free morning, then you'll get healthy. Well, that's a trap because life doesn't calm down.

I've never seen it. And the version of you waiting for perfect conditions never actually shows up. What works isn't more time, and it certainly isn't willpower. It's having better defaults, you know, systems that run whether you're motivated or not. So today I'm walking you through the exact systems that I use to stay in peak health in the busiest, most demanding chapter of my life.

You know, and it doesn't include 4:00 AM ice baths or two-hour, you know, morning workouts. It's just a handful of things that carry almost all the weight. And before we get into that, you know, if you're listening or watching this on a platform supporting comments, I'd really like to hear from you. You know, what is it that you do today to stay fit, to stay in shape?

And, and I'm not meaning the textbook answer, I mean the stuff that actually fits your real life, because you're probably as busy as I am, you know. And I read all of those comments, and, uh, the best ones usually then tend to shape the content of future episodes. So I'd love to hear from you. Um, if you're not watching this on a...

If you're listening to this on an audio platform, maybe just shoot me an email, you know, mike@michaelkummer.com. I read all of that stuff, and I always love to hear from you guys. Welcome to the Primer Shift Podcast. Let's talk about real brief why all of this matters. Because, you know, during the busy years of one's life, you know, that's when you build your career, when you have young kids, you know, that's usually when staying fit and exercise goes on a back burner, you know, because life is just too busy.

And for me, I can tell that was somewhere between, you know, 35 to now 44. You know, that was a timeframe, I wanna say, where life has gotten more busy. You know, we've launched several businesses. We started homesteading and homeschooling, and it's become crazy. The problem is, you know, for a lot of people, the decline that you then suffer from because you're not as active anymore is usually silent.

You know? You, you feel good in your 30s. You obviously feel good in your 20s, but in your 30s most people still feel good. And even in the 40s, I wanna say that, you know, it's... can't really tell much of a difference. But usually then when you have turned 50, you know, you get the bill. And I know a lot of people who are a little bit ahead of me age-wise, and they're like, "Well, you know, when I was 40 everything was fine, but now that I'm 50, you know, it's, it's different."

And I don't think necessarily age is the problem. I think it's the lifestyle that, you know, supports either remaining fit or not And science has shown over and over again that the big longevity predictors are very much trainable. They are not genetic traits or genetic luck where you know nothing you can do about it.

One of them is muscle tissue or muscle mass and strength. You know, those are key predictors of all-cause mortality. So everything else being equal, if you're stronger, if you have more muscle tissue and muscle function, it's really the strength and the function more so than the mass alone that indicates or that massively influences your risk of all-cause mortality.

The second one is cardiorespiratory fitness or your VO2 max. You know, it's one of the strongest longevity predictors we have. And both, on average, happen to decline by default or not by default, but by lifestyle choices after 30. You know, you lose about 3% to 8% of your muscle tissue per decade after 30, and that even accelerates then after you turn 60.

And the driver for that is not the age itself, that number, it's inactivity. Metabolic health is another one. You know, it's an upstream lever for energy and body composition and disease risk. And, you know, metabolic health and, and energy levels, you know, all of those things are important because they determine what you can do, what your work output is, what your patience is, what your being, you know, being able to be present.

All of that stuff requires energy. And if you don't have energy or less than you should have, all of those things suffer. And needless to say, but especially if you're a parent, you know, kids learn health from what you do and what you model and not necessarily from what you say. And if you sit there eating a donut and say, "Hey, don't eat grains," it's probably not gonna work.

You know, you have to be the role model so that the next generation, the future generation, is hopefully gonna do better than our generation did And to reframe all of this, you know, I'm not talking here about willpower or having more time or carving out the time or being stronger in your head. It's about setting up defaults and systems that work whether or not you're motivated on a given day, you know?

And I'll tell you what I mean by that and, and how I set up my systems and my defaults to help me. Food being a classic example, you know. Our food intake, our nutrition runs on defaults and not daily decisions of whether or not we should eat a donut or a candy or not, you know? Because the real elem- enemy for many people is decision fatigue.

It's not weak willpower. It's saying, "Oh, now I have to decide again if I should eat this or that." You know, if you have defaults that are set in stone to a degree, you don't have to make those decisions, and that's especially true when it comes to what foods you bring home. Because if you only have foods at home that everyone can freely enjoy, there is no friction, there is no decision.

"Oh, do I have ... Should I eat this candy bar now in my pantry or not?" If it's not at home, you don't have to make this decision. And for us, our default, our core foundation is to anchor every meal in animal protein And the rule of thumb is, you know, we... I mean, we're not counting anything, neither macros, nor calories, nor protein.

But every so often, you know, we kind of assess if we are eating enough, if what we're doing is working, and our goal is to consume about 0.7 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight. And that's especially true if you're, if, if you're maybe not eating enough protein today, or you're... you have a, a diet that's high in carbohydrates and you wanna change it to more protein, it might make sense to count your protein for a little bit so you have an idea of what it means to eat one pound of protein per, uh, per pound of body weight.

Uh, one gram of protein per pound of body weight. And so it's not a hard threshold, but it's, it's a rule of thumb that I would like you to consider. And breakfast for us, you know, just to start with the basics. In the morning we have eggs, meat, maybe smoked salmon, cottage cheese, raw milk, and seasonal fruit.

That's typically... Those are the staples of our breakfast, and we have them in different variations so it doesn't get boring. You know, we might have scrambled eggs one day with chives on top, then we have sunny side up, or we make an omelet with, you know, with maybe peppers and, and, and bacon in there, whatever.

We might have ground meat some days and steak other days and, you know, bacon, uh, and smoked salmon, maybe some bacon from our own pigs, you know, that we raise. So but the, the core foundation is always the same, it's just about what variation do we wanna have today. And maybe, you know, sometimes the, you know, kids say, "Hey, I'd like to have scrambled versus, you know, a sunny set up," and that's fine.

You know, there is this... They still, still can influence the, the food choice in the sense of how they wanna get their food, but it's not that we have to pick what are we gonna eat today? Is, uh, are we gonna do cereal, or, or eggs, or pancakes? No. It's the foundation is the same. We don't need to make any decisions in the morning.

And we also don't have like, you know, the kid food line. You know? No, everyone eats the same thing. Within, you know, reason there are certain variations that I've talked about, but it's not that, you know, uh, kids get cereal because they don't like eggs, or they don't like this and that. No, we all eat the same thing.

And of course, you know, we don't eat anything ultra-processed. Uh, we don't even buy that, so there is no, no in-the-moment battle of whether or not you should be having something. You know, so and of course for us, you know, we raise animals for food, so we have access to the highest quality, you know, food there is, you know.

And actually today, after recording this, I'm gonna go and pick up the pork from one of the pigs that we slaughtered. Um, you know, we slaughter our own, um, rabbits, and chickens, and turkeys, and, and we have our own honey, and we have cattle, you know, for beef. And so all of the things. And e- even if you don't homestead, you know, but make, make the center of each meal an animal protein, animal fat with plants and seasonal fruits as like the, the sides, you know, for- taste and, and, and what have you, but make it animal-based protein and take the whole decision-making and, and all of that out of the equation.

Pillar number two, strength. That's incredibly important. You, you ought to be able to lift heavy stuff and- For me, the goal is no longer to increase my strength or to build more muscle tissue. It's to maintain what I have. I used to do CrossFit for a long time. I lift- I used to lift a lot. I can, you know, or I used to be able, uh, deadlift 500 pounds or over 500 pounds, and front squat 400 p- over 404 pounds, 405 pounds.

Uh, you know, and I did a lot of lifting in my, in my days, all throughout my life early in a, as a professional athlete and then later on in the last couple of years as part of my CrossFit routine. And that's incredibly important to get strong joints and bones and, and muscle tissue. Now my goal is to maintain that.

You know? I don't need to get any stronger. I just need to maintain my function and my strength, and muscle mass is then typically part of that as well. And for me, that means usually, you know, a kind of a farm fit type of setup where, you know, I lift heavy, I drag stuff, I pick stuff up, I do farmer's carry with feed and water buckets.

You know, a lot of things that I do every single day that help me maintain what I have. And then once or twice a week I join, join my wife for the gym and we do, you know, classic lifting or, you know, jumping, box jumps, those kind of things. Um, more like the things that I, you know, don't get to do, you know?

Focusing on specific muscle group speed, you know, doing squatting or, uh, leg presses, you know, sometimes bench presses, you know, dips, pull-ups, those kind of things that I don't do at home in a more structured way. And that's pretty much it. That's how I stay fit and, um, been able to maintain my, my physique, my strength, my body fat composition, my metabolic health and all of that.

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And now back to the episode. Um, as far as conditioning, that's the third pillar. You know, I walk a lot every single day, at least 8 to 10,000 steps, sometimes 15,000 steps, just as part of doing my chores and, uh, you know, walking down to the animals, walking up, going to the mailbox.

You know, now that we live on 45 acres, every way is significantly longer than it used to be on one acre. You know, just going to the other corner of the property is like a 10-minute walk. Uh, and that's fine because that, that's all part of my my fitness routine. And then every so often, you know, I need to sprint.

I need to run because, you know, someone needs something real quick. There is an animal that needs something. There is maybe a predator, you know, that needs to be, um, that needs to be addressed. So there is sprinting every so often just built into the lifestyle. And then whenever I have a chance, you know, I try to, you know, to jump, um, be it roped, with a rope, you know, rope jumps, or be it box jumps or jumping up on the back of the truck, you know, uh, jumping up, jumping down.

Maybe with down you wanna be careful with knees and stuff, but jumping up definitely. You know, if I lower, you know, the, uh, the, the back of the truck, you know, to load something and I need to get up, you know, I might just jump from it from the ground. You know, that's incredibly important. Jumping, jumping, jumping is so important for muscle strength, for bone density, for ligament strength, you know, all of the things, the explosiveness, all of the things that you need.

So I don't need to, you know, clock in cardio hours. I don't go for runs. I don't ride my bike, you know, for hours in a day. None of that. Um, just the walking and the explosive exercise is what appears to be working for me. Pillar number four, and that's a very important one, maybe that should have been pillar number one, is sleep.

You know, it's the keystone. It's not a- an afterthought. Sleep first and everything else second, you know? And because that is so important for gaining my recovery, for my hormone production, my appetite, my patience, you know, all of those things. And my sleep really starts with what I do in the morning. You know, not the evening, in the morning.

You know, going out first thing in the morning after waking up, I put on my boots, I go outside, and I get sunlight directly into my eyes. That sets that, that That tunes or keeps my circadian rhythm in, in check to make sure that I release the proper amount of, um, stress hormones in the morning, like cortisol should be high in the morning, and then melatonin at night.

And that all starts in the morning, and it's all influenced by light and lack of light. So light in the morning, first thing in the morning, and then lack of light in the evening so that my hormones get released properly. I fall asleep quickly, I sleep good, and I wake up refreshed and energized in the morning.

So that's number one. And typically for me, that means spending an hour outside every morning just because I need to do chores. It doesn't really matter if it's cold or hot or if it's, uh, snowing or raining In the morning, the animals wait for me. They don't care whether or not I feel like it. I do that every single morning, and that really sets the tone for the rest of the day and then also for my sleep.

Um, also, you know, our-- we have a fairly fixed bedtime. We even, this time around, you know, did not change our routine based on daylight savings time. We are still on our winter time, meaning that we just go to bed an early- an hour later now, and we get up an hour later as well, instead of adjusting to that senseless, um, daylight savings.

So we stuck to our routine. We stuck to the light, basically to the sun. And, um, you know, we sleep in a cold room, in a dark room. Sometimes we actually have the curtains open because we are out in the sticks. There is no artificial light coming in from the outside. The only thing that comes in is, you know, starlight and moonlight, you know?

And I would argue those are natural sources of light that humans have been exposed to for a very long time, and I've yet to, I've yet to, I've yet to notice that they negatively impact my sleep. You know, caffeine, obviously I'm done drinking caffeine at noon. Typically, around ten AM is when I have my last cup of coffee.

And of course, sometimes, you know, there is a dog barking at night because something is outside. There is maybe a kid who wakes up, you know, because of, you know, of not feeling good or whatever. Sometimes that sleep gets interrupted, but more often than not, our sleep is very much protected. Pillar number five, you know, I already alluded to it, is light, because that sets the clock.

That sets the circadian rhythm. You know, the morning sunlight, um, and then no light in our bedroom. You know, that's one of the things and, and also not only in the morning and in the evening, but also midday when the sun is strongest. I go outside, I take off my shirt, and I try to spend significant time outside to get my skin exposed to the sunlight because that's important for vitamin D production, which is then also important for hormone production, all of the things.

But it also sends my body a signal that this is now time to be active. We are in... During the day, there is no time now to release melatonin or anything like that. We need to be wide awake, and that helps me then at night when that sun sets and goes down. Usually then I sit, uh, with the kids and with my wife on the patio, and we look at the sun setting.

So again, another signal, another light-based signal that tells our body it's time to settle down and start releasing melatonin because it's time for bed. Very important. Pillar number six is nervous system regulation. I try to make this as built in as possible instead of a bolt on, um, because anything that you have to do extra is likely something that at some point you're like, "I don't wanna do it anymore.

I don't have the time for this," you know? So my nervous system regulation, I try To make it, not make it another task, but to make it emerge from the pillars that I shared with you so far. So sleep, outdoors, you know, being outdoors, being barefoot, grounding, you know, close to nature, you know, all of those things.

We also have a home spa, so we have several saunas and cold plunges that we can use as tools. It's not the foundation of what we do, but it-- there are nice tools that can support everything we do. The physical work, obviously, the real sleep, good sleep, sunlight, you know, that does most of the regulation really.

Um, and then, you know, work-hour boundaries. You know, that's incredibly important as a, you know, as an entrepreneur if you run your own businesses and, you know, homestead. You know, the-- it's, it's a little bit of there is no clear line when work ends and when life starts because all of our work is our life and vice versa.

So it's a little bit muddied in that sense. But there are times we're like, "Okay, now we are done doing the have tos, and we focus on the want tos," you know? Um, so you know, phone off. You know, my phone is in my office during night. It's not in my bedroom, you know. So first thing in the morning, I'm not grabbing my phone.

Because if it is in the bedroom, well, guess what I do? I'm gonna grab the phone in the morning to see if I got an email that's important, if I got, you know, what have you, you know. So th-those are some of the things. And it's kind of the counter example to, you know, what a guy like Bryan Johnson does, you know, where it's everything is optimized, and there's like this optimation, you know, as anxiety kind of thing or anxiety induced by the optimation and all of the gadgets.

You know, I prefer, you know, nature over screens and nature over gadgets and, and supplements and all of those things. To put all of this together, you know, if, if you've listened carefully, you know, none of these are heroic alone. I mean, they are all common sense. They're all fairly simple, fairly straightforward.

There's nothing really, "Oh, you do this, and then everything else falls into place." No, the power really is in stacking those things, those lifestyle choices, and making them consistent systems, so you don't have to make the decision every morning to do something. You know, if you have to make the decision, "I'm gonna work out today or not," well, guess what?

You're probably gonna say, "You know what? Not today because I don't have the time." And I'm the same thing, you know. The, the going to the gym, that thing is always, for me, a decision, and sometimes it just doesn't fit because of other priorities. But, but because I'm so active and physically active, you know, as part of my lifestyle, it doesn't really matter.

You know, my system is set up so that I even... I don't even have to make the decision, you know? And My recommendation for you would be if you don't have those systems in place yet, I would recommend you find your weakest pillar and fix that and turn that into something positive and into a default. You know, don't try to fix all of those things at the same time because it can get frustrating.

You know, if, if your, if your system is or if, if your behavior in the morning is set up so that you-- the first thing you do is you get into your car or you go into your office or whatever and not be outside, maybe fix that first. You know, make it a default, make it a system so that you get natural sunlight exposure first thing in the morning.

Maybe stop buying certain types of foods that you don't wanna have at home and that you don't wanna make a decision on when they are at home, whether or not you should have them and when. You know, those are things. Pick the lowest hanging fruits and fix those first. Turn them into a, a positive system that doesn't require any more decision-making and that by default benefits you.

If there is only one thing that I would like you to take away from this episode, then let it be this. You know, you don't, you don't rise to the level of your motivation. You know, you fall to the level of your system. It's like when you, you know, go to war, it's not you don't rise to the occasion, you default to your training, you know?

And the same goes with your lifestyle, you know. Don't wait for, "Oh, you know, I need to get motivated so I can do this or that." No, you always fall back to what systems you have in place that don't require extra motivation, that don't require extra willpower or decision-making. That's what you need to work on.

You know, and at forty-four, you know, with a full plate, I'm not white-knuckling my health, you know? I just built defaults that make the healthy choice the easy choice, and then I let consistency do the heavy lifting. You know, you don't need more time. You don't need more discipline. You need a handful of defaults that survive a chaotic week, and the willingness to start with one.

Pick your weakest pillar, fix that one default this week, and then stack the next. That's how you stay in peak health in the busiest chapter of your life. Not by waiting for it to get easier, it won't get any easier, but by building a life that keeps you healthy whether it gets easier or not. If that episode resonated with you, let me know.

Leave a comment. Maybe share it with someone who could use it, who is struggling, and who thinks they need more willpower, more time, more motivation, you know, another app, what have you. Share it with them, and maybe they can get back to the basics and build the systems that sustain them for the next couple of decades.

See you in the next video.