Nathan: Hi, I’m Nathan from the DVCC and today I am here with one of the founders of the DVCC, Stephen; Stephen how are you?
Stephen: I’m very well thanks, Nathan.
Nathan: Awesome to see you. Today we’re going to be discussing Dad bods – so, Stephen if you can give me an overview of what a Dad bod is?
Stephen: Well, Dad bods are quite a new phenomenon I think; this is in the news, this is how it has been reported. Everyone was always wanting to have, as a man, a more lean muscular physique; you know, typically, what you would see, potentially in the magazines. But basically you’re looking to look muscular and have lower body fat.
I think a Dad bod merely refers to a bit of a trend of people being, I want to say happy with, or actually aiming to have, a very opposite type of look – so not very much muscle, not exercising and not being worried about a slight beer belly or similar – I think that’s essentially what a Dad bod is referring to.
Nathan: Obviously that can’t be ideal for health?
Stephen: Well I’ve been asked my opinion on a Dad bod or getting a Dad bod, and I literally think it’s someone’s business, whatever they want they choose to look like.
However, from a health perspective… I would never challenge someone on this – if someone’s happy with the way they look that’s the most important thing, feeling confident within yourself is the most important thing.
Having said that, if someone were to say that this was a healthier way to be, physically, I would challenge them on that. I have no issue with if someone is comfortable with how they look and they are confident in the way they look – however, not if they are not as healthy as they could be and they’re thinking that they are.
Essentially, having a lower body fat is healthier. There are quite a few different hormones that are better in a healthier state, when you have less body fat. So, particularly for a man, there’s less chance that you are going to aromatase, which is turning testosterone into oestrogen, the lower body fat you have. So again, one of the predictors of longevity, healthy living life, is the amount of muscle mass you are able to maintain into later life.
So someone who is talking about a Dad bod, they tend not to have very much muscle; and we’re not talking body builder style, large amounts of muscle, we’re talking about having muscle tone, to be able to be active, to be able to be healthier, so the more muscle tone a man has as he goes through life and goes into his forties, his fifties, his sixties – the healthier he will be; and there are studies that show that longevity – so how long you live healthily – are better the more muscle tone, the more muscle mass you have.
And it’s important, when I’m saying this I’m not talking about these massive body builders, I’m talking about more than the average person, so someone that’s going to exercise with resistance work, does something like we do at the DVCC, the modified lactic training, they are going to have more muscle tone than someone else at their age, which would mean the person with the larger amount of muscle tone will be healthier and will be metabolically more active, their joints are stronger, their balance is better.
So if you want to look further ahead, 65-70, 75-80, muscle tone is one of the most important things to living healthily because it allows you to stay active. And I think most people know that when you’re not active, that’s when most problems tend to occur.
For example, my grandfather is just turning 90 this year, but he walks all the time, goes up and down the stairs, and is very active; whereas someone else at 70 who is not active can come across as far older; because my grandfather, by using that and doing all that movement, has been able to maintain his muscle tone.
{{cta(‘59647e28-d712-406d-880a-ae17a3eaabca’)}}
So I think that’s what we’re talking about here, and so my opinion on Dad bods – as an individual, I never say what someone should or shouldn’t do – but in my personal view, it’s very important to be as healthy as possible and one of the things we try to be, or we very much aim, is that someone that comes to the DVCC, their future is brighter because it’s healthier as well as being leaner, etc.
Nathan: So if someone was listening to this podcast and they felt that they might have a Dad bod and they wanted to increase some lean muscle mass, what would be the best thing for them to start doing?
Stephen: There are a couple of different angles they can look at; one of them would be what you do activity wise, another one would be what you do food wise, nutritionally.
So, for most people on average, they don’t tend to eat enough good quality protein, which is very important to be able to sustain muscle tone anyway, also to lose body fat as well, so they come hand in hand.
So when we’re talking good quality protein, we’re talking oily fish which is very good: salmon, tuna, all these different types of fish are great; lean quality meats, so chicken, turkey, some beef – all good quality protein sources. They are the building blocks for muscle tone, so you can’t have muscle tone if you don’t have enough protein.
Nathan: So starting to eat more protein would be good?
Stephen: That would be the easiest thing, because you wouldn’t have to change your daily activity.
But daily activity wise, resistance training is probably the most efficient way to create more muscle tone and get away from that Dad bod kind of look, if we’re talking about health wise besides the aesthetics, because that’s the individual thing.
I’m not going to say what looks better and what doesn’t, that’s not really what we worry about at the DVCC; we purely want people to be confident in themselves; it would never happen that we ever presume how someone wants to look or feels comfortable to look, and I strongly disagree when people tend to project that on a lot on people in the street or whatever, thinking they should look like this, they can’t be happy; that’s an individual person’s opinion; they should only worry about themselves.
It’s all about how confident you are and again, how healthy and confident. You want to be confident in your body and you also want to be confident in your health as well.
Nathan: Yes of course, and that’s what we focus on a lot at the DVCC.
You wouldn’t have to go to a gym though, to start resistance training, would you?
Stephen: No, but it really depends; you wouldn’t do if you’ve never done that type of thing before. So, someone like you or I, if we wanted more muscle tone, we couldn’t do that at home because we’ve done exercise for a long time.
But if you’re new and you’re wanting to build some muscle tone and you’re wanting to do some activity, then you could do that with body weight type of exercise, that would be enough of a challenge.
That won’t last forever, because you’ll become strong enough where doing things with your own body weight is not enough to actually cause you to have to adapt; what you’re actually looking to do when you’re doing any form of exercise is to get your body to adapt to something, which is why modified lactic training, which is what we do at the DVCC, or using resistance training is the most effective way because that can always be adapted.
Whereas you’re very limited if you’re just doing body weight type things, unless you go ridiculously crazy, like jumping up and down, bounding all around and that’s far more likely for injury.
Nathan: A bit dangerous at home as well!
Ok Steve, if you could just recap on what we’ve been talking about today in regards to Dad bods?
Stephen: Just the fact that a Dad bod, as the news calls it, is not as healthy a body as someone that would have less body fat and more muscle tone – that’s the number one takeaway, besides that it’s an individual choice about how you feel comfortable and confident.
But health wise, you’re not as efficient as if you have more muscle tone and less body fat, so I think that’s kind of the crux of the matter.
So when you’re making your decision on what you feel comfortable with, obviously health is at the forefront of most people’s minds; certainly for people that are clients at the DVCC, health is one of the most important factors as well, because we all want to live longer, healthier.
And what we do today has a massive impact on 20 years time, so always being aware that a more healthy body would be less body fat and more muscle tone. Not body builder muscle tone, we’re not talking about that – it’s impossible to get, we’re talking about just half a pound, a pound, just by doing resistance type of exercise.
Nathan: Awesome, Stephen it’s been a pleasure to speak to you today; have a good afternoon.
And if you’ve been listening to this podcast I hope you found it useful. This is Nathan from the DVCC; have a great day.
{{cta(‘3a9efe0b-ea2d-45f3-86ab-48c9ac58d34c’)}}
