Hello Reader,

Gus is a fifty-five-pound Bernedoodle who has decided the far side of the yard is where he needs to be right now, and the leash is my problem, not his. I used to end that pull sitting on the ground. Now I plant my feet, brace, and walk him back to the porch like I meant to do that the whole time. I did not get faster. I got stronger. That's the whole story.

For years I ate to hit a number on a scale or a size on a tag. Every diet in that cabinet I cleaned out did that. None of them ever asked what the number would let me do. Here are three things I think about instead.

Muscle is what you eat for when the plan falls apart. A hospital stay. A flu that flattens you for a week. A fall on the stairs when nobody's home to help. These things happen whether you're ready or not, and muscle is the reserve that carries you through a stretch when you can't train and can't eat well. You don't build that reserve during the emergency. You build it years before you need it, one plate at a time.

Your body needs protein spread through the day, not stacked in one meal. Eggs at breakfast and steak at dinner sounds like plenty, but muscle over fifty answers to what's on the plate right now, not what showed up twelve hours ago. Three or four meals with real protein in each one works your muscle harder than one big feeding and two afterthoughts.

The scale can't tell the difference between muscle you built and fat you lost. Both weigh the same per pound and both move the needle. Somebody who adds three pounds of muscle while losing three pounds of fat looks like they did nothing, according to the scale. Their jeans, their blood pressure, and their grip strength all disagree.

Here's the question I'd put to you. If your eating plan disappeared tomorrow, no app, no tracker, no rules on a card, would you still know how to feed the person you're trying to become, or only the person you're trying to look like?

$5.00 Not Done Yet - Key Takeaways Each Chapter in Not Done Yet ends with the Key Takeaways. This is your "cheat sheet" to all of them. Get it now!

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$2.00 Not Done Yet Glossary of Terms Not Done Yet has a trove of information. This Glossary will help you navigate it. Get it now!

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Strength After 50 Dave Durell I help people over 50 get and stay strong with online workout programs that are safe, effective, time-efficient, and sustainable. Get stronger at any age without getting hurt or wasting time. Subscribe​