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There is no strength like dad strength. It is quiet, patient, and persistent. Some would say stubborn, dammit. Dad strength rarely makes the highlight reel. It exists in the in-between spaces....The times when nobody—except maybe your kid—is watching.
The Dad Strength Podcast was created to support and encourage the best in dads like you. Authors, entrepreneurs, artists, and experts from all over share their wisdom with us. We discuss 360º health, doing work that matters, and—of course—fatherhood. These conversations are fun, informative, and always emphasize action and understanding.
The Dad Strength Podcast is hosted by Geoff Girvitz. Geoff is a father, fitness expert, and curious fellow. Based in Toronto, he has been featured in Vice, GQ, and multiple exercise publications. He is known for innovation and real-world success in the fitness industry. Now, Geoff is pointing a wide-angle lens at health and parenthood. Workouts and nutrition are just part of the program. He will be looking at relationships, critical thinking, motivation, and discipline. In short, anything you need to earn the mug that says “*World’s Greatest Dad.”*
“I want to be Mr. Rogers for men over 30,” says Geoff. “There is so much noise and confusion out there.” We *all* need a community devoted to the best we have inside of us. The Dad Strength Podcast is here to make the world a better place through our roles as fathers and as men.
Welcome to Dad Strength, helping you earn the mug that says world's greatest dad. My name is Geoff Girvitz. I am your host. I am a dad. And today, I am thinking about putting a quarter into the opposite machine.
Geoff Girvitz:Also on today's edition, losing fat, not muscle, a beautiful second act, including a lie I've been telling my family about j r r Tolkien, and a book, a quote, a dad joke. Let's get into it. When asking for a behavior from teens, be careful not to accidentally put a quarter into the opposite machine. For a great example, let's go to London 1972. Alice Cooper, still largely unknown at the time, and tickets to the band's London show simply aren't selling.
Geoff Girvitz:So their manager, a marketing genius named Shep Gordon, arranges for a billboard truck to carry a huge photo of the singer wearing only a boa constrictor. And then he arranges for it to, quote, unquote, break down in Piccadilly Circus. Old people are predictably enraged. Newspapers and elder statesmen are condemning the stunts. And so what do teenagers do?
Geoff Girvitz:They listen carefully, and they stayed away. Oh, no. Pardon me. The show sold out immediately. The kids didn't even know who they were paying to see.
Geoff Girvitz:They just knew that it made granddad angry. According to David Yeager, who he quoted last week, teens push back hard against things that make them feel judged, disrespected, or incompetent. So if you want the opposite of the opposite machine, consider doing the opposite. If you want to be able to talk about stuff like this with other dads who get it, you can sign up for our weekly calls. Dadstrength.com/calls.
Geoff Girvitz:Coming up next week, the care and feeding of the middle aged body. Let's talk fitness. Can you lose fat while gaining or at least holding on to muscle mass? That is the dream. But is it also a fantasy?
Geoff Girvitz:You know, that sounds a lot cheesier when I'm reading it out loud. It's fine. It's fine. We're keeping it. In reality, it is possible for beginners and for rebeginners to do this.
Geoff Girvitz:However, as you progress into the realm of intermediate, progress becomes tougher to pull off. Let me explain, just for the audio edition, what I'm talking about when we say a beginner, intermediate, or advanced exerciser. There is some debate about what that means. You might look at how long a person has been training. I think it is more useful to look at how long a person has been training and how consistently over the last, say, 6 to 12 months, you may look at their performance.
Geoff Girvitz:I'll tell you what I look at or how I think about this, and that is how long how much cumulative training stress do we need to create a positive adaptation. And for beginners, it's typically one session. You will see a beginner make progress session after session for quite a while. It might be weeks. It might even be months.
Geoff Girvitz:At some point, and I've had this conversation a 1000000 times, someone will come to the gym, maybe 2 or 3 months into beginning consistent exercise, and they will have a bad day. They will go backwards. They won't be able to lift as much weight or perform as well as they had the previous week, and this is really frustrating for them. And in that moment, I always say the same thing. Congratulations.
Geoff Girvitz:You're not a beginner anymore. As an intermediate exerciser, you are more subject to the impact of sleep, nutrition, stress. So you now have to take better care of those things. That's the beginning point of being an intermediate exerciser. Later on, you will need to accumulate more great training sessions in sequence to really move forward.
Geoff Girvitz:Okay. So let's bring this back to the question of being able to gain or at least maintain muscle mass while losing fat. I would say that this also tapers off as you become an intermediate exerciser. You will have to create some kind of caloric deficit. That means asking the question of, is less better?
Geoff Girvitz:Are fewer calories better? And I have seen many people drop fat quickly from a combination of restricting intake and huge amounts of cardio. But there's a problem with that, and that is that muscle mass drops with it. It is a devil's bargain because the benefits of muscle, which includes strength, increased exercise output, even aesthetics, are sorely missed once the muscle is gone. It's really tough to get that back.
Geoff Girvitz:So the smart play is to lose fat without sacrificing too much muscle. What is the right sized deficit? Now I've got a link to a study in the written edition, and it says to keep the caloric deficit under 500 calories a day. Meanwhile, the most important things you can do to maintain muscle mass are strength training, 2 to 4 days a week, high protein diet. According to the literature, that's at least 1 gram per pound of body weight per day.
Geoff Girvitz:But I will say that even getting over a 100 grams per day is productive for most people. And then we have the usual suspects, sleep, hydration, and stress management. I am going to put a link in the newsletter under this section. If you want to book a consult with me, be my pleasure to walk you through the nitty gritty of getting this done. Okay.
Geoff Girvitz:Let's get into mindset. Let's talk about a beautiful second act. I was recently reminded that JRR Tolkien was 44 or 45 when he started writing Lord of the Rings. I think there's hope for all of us to do great work in middle age and beyond. I'm not here to offer any kind of life coaching advice.
Geoff Girvitz:Although, if I'm understanding things correctly, the general practice would be to try to rope you into a pyramid scheme or a crypto scheme, maybe both at the same time. I am also not saying, hey. Just be Tolkien because I don't think that is very practical advice. I would advise you to make sure that your exercise and other lifestyle habits are well in place. That is because a beautiful second act is fueled by the practice and benefits of exercise and daily movement.
Geoff Girvitz:I'll write today's book, very topical, is j r r Tolkien, a biography by Humphrey Carpenter. I'm gonna give you a quote from the book, bonus quote for today's edition. The shells are crammed with dictionaries, works on etymology and philology, and editions of texts in many languages. Predominant among them are old and middle English and old Norse, but there is also a section devoted to translations of the Lord of the Rings into Polish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Japanese. The map of his invented Middle Earth is pinned to a window ledge.
Geoff Girvitz:A little peek into the study of j r r Tolkien. In case you're curious, the JRR stands for John Ronald Reule. So even though I have been claiming to my family that the JRR stands for Jolkan Rolkin Rolkin Tolkien, that it may not be a 100% accurate. Alright. Here is our official quote today from one of my favorites, Alfie Kohn.
Geoff Girvitz:How we feel about our kids isn't as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them. Alright. Let me get my son in position for today's dad joke. Somebody told me that it's not opposite day, but that's exactly what they told me last opposite day. When will the deception end?
Geoff Girvitz:Alright. That is it for the weekly edition of Dad's Strength. Thanks for hanging out with us today. If you are listening to the podcast edition, hit us with a rating and a follow. That helps a lot.
Geoff Girvitz:If you're already a newsletter subscriber, hey. Thanks for being part of this. It is a labor of love. This has been the weekly edition of the dad strength newsletter. Title music by Daniel Ross, additional music by Mike Ford.
Geoff Girvitz:See you next week. Until then, take care of yourself, man.