Welcome to Lean4LIFE! This is a program that will help you to achieve and maintain your ideal body composition…throughout your lifespan. The predecessor of this course was a popular e-book that I produced a few years ago. It was called “Effortless Weight Loss” and I intentionally used that term because it resonated with what the general population wanted. But as my online coaching and performance enhancement services grew, many clients asked for an approach to body composition that was not just about weight loss. They desired a system that comprehensively addressed health, supported training and peak performance, and protected longevity. They needed a program that used an athletic view of healthspan. Something that was personalizable, and sustainable. A way of helping them to stay Lean4LIFE.
We are going to use the term “bodcompopp,” which stands for body composition optimization. For Lifetime Athletes, just looking at weight loss is inadequate. Same goes for the popular metric of body mass index (BMI), which does a disservice to heavily or even adequately muscled bodies because it essentially only compares weight to height.
Taking the athletic avenue into longevity requires us to function in ideal ranges with respect to our total percentage of body fat (BF%) while simultaneously possessing population-leading levels of lean body mass (LBM). Regarding body fat, we also want to distinguish between subcutaneous (beneath the skin) and visceral (inside the abdominal cavity and packed around the organs) fat. Within reasonable limits, subcutaneous fat has been found to be less problematic for long term health than visceral fat. We want as little visceral fat as possible, and this can be assessed with modern DEXA scans. Visceral fat is also synonymous with the “high, hard gut” and is more common in males than females. Generally speaking, each gender has a preferential adipose (fat) depository site. In most men it’s the belly and in most women it’s the butt and thighs. In very generic ranges, men function very well in a body fat range of 10-20% (of total weight) and women at 15-30%. The range is higher for women than for men due to gender-specific differences that revolve primarily around reproductive physiology.
Lean body mass is of course focused on muscle, but it also includes bone density as well as healthy organs, skin, nails, and hair. Research characterizes health, peak performance, and longevity as being highly dependent on optimal levels of body fat, LBM, and aerobic fitness. With bodcompopp, we are addressing the first two elements very effectively. Aerobic fitness, or cardiorespiratory functional capacity, is an additional component of training for Lifetime Athletes.
At this point we must acknowledge individual differences. In many ways, humans are similar and the basic concepts we’ll go over in Lean4LIFE are quite sound. But each of us is also a little unique. Gender differences, body types, genetics, environment, preferences, and many other factors make it necessary to fine tune and tweak any program for best personal results. And going along with that need for customization is the recognition of dynamism. While it’s true that what works for one person may not quite work as well for you or I, it’s also a fact that we are dynamic organisms living in a natural environment. The training and nutrition that you found to be either satisfactory or highly successful at age 25 may need to be adjusted at age 55 in order to be equally effective.
As a human body owner with an internal, instinctive user’s manual, you already know that health and performance are intricately connected to total lifestyle, not just diet and training. Sleep, stress, daily habits, relationships, etc. are all drivers in our total function. Along with genetics, these things can perhaps partially explain why some people seem to get results with exercise and eating behaviors which others may deem suboptimal. I’m going to posit that robustness in the human organism, or beast, is one of those keys. Some people are a little more durable than others and can “get away with” less working out or more indiscriminate food choices. They not only do OK…they seem to thrive. So there is that. But realistically, or eventually, we will probably do better in both body composition, healthspan, and performance if we ascribe to the principles in this course.
Most everything I’m going to talk about in this course is evidence-based. Principles that have been substantiated at least to some degree by research. There is also quite a bit of information that comes from my observations and experiences from working in human performance for 40 years. That stated, I encourage you to question and test the concepts presented here in order to see how they work, and which ones work best…for YOU.
Lean4LIFE contains 19 key principles to explore. These are actionable items that you can apply to your life in the pursuit of bodcompopp and all the benefits that go along with it. I’d also like to suggest that you take advantage of the Member Submission section in the app. This gives you the opportunity to ask questions, make comments, and engage with me and our community. You can share pictures, videos, and stories of recipes, meals, workouts, before/after testimonials or advice…whatever helps you to get answers and feel connected. We’re all in this together and let’s make sure we’ve always got each other’s backs.
Lastly, you’re dealing with me, Coach JZ, or as some folks call me Old Daddy Lightning (that’s a long story). With me comes a flavor (gotcha) that is definitely an acquired taste (Bam!). I have a substantial amount of education and experience in the content matter at TLA, but I’m at a point in my life where I’m old and bold enough to just be me and not give a flying rat’s ass what people think. I sincerely want to help people and I don’t believe being pretentious in that pursuit is warranted. I’ll occasionally call BS on something and even use tones of language that I feel give strong registration to a point. It comes from the heart. No apologies.