fck I'M FIFTY

By Russell Masters

I never intended to write this book. Turning fifty was a difficult milestone as I felt I had passed my prime. I was overweight and out of shape, and my work-life balance was a disaster. What worried me was that if I felt like this at fifty, how was I going to feel when I was in my 70s or 80s.

This is my story: I never thought that getting fit or losing weight would be so damn confusing. After trying so many diets and fitness programs with no real result, I looked at the underlying principles that the fitness, diet, and meditation industries are built on. Lift heavy shit to get stronger, move to improve cardiovascular health, stretch to maintain flexibility, eat good food to fuel you for the day, and sit quietly with your mind, aka meditation. With this grassroots approach, I got success. It was simple, non-restrictive, and easy to incorporate into my life. In short, it worked, it took work, but it worked, which is why I wrote a "what I did" guide. If cutting through all the confusion and finding a simple approach that worked could help me, it could help others.  This is the recipe for the soul and in my opinion a contented soul is the definition of happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russell Masters
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224373925

Book preview

ONE

FCK I’M FIFTY

I AM MY STORY

This is my story.

One morning, about six months into my fifties, I realized that my joking over too many whiskeys with friends and family about reaching the halfway mark was a very generous statement served with a pang of regret. Instead, it felt like my life was no more than an unbalanced wasteland of working, eating & sleeping with an occasional splash of play and a holiday with the family thrown in for good measure. I was still smoking as I had done for years, and being both overweight and unfit took its toll on me mentally and physically. I wasn't lucky enough to keep my Dad's head of hair and was balding pretty dramatically at the back. I must admit I started getting down on life with my newly earned 50 badge.

The biggest thing that will fuck you up as you roll into your fifties is your mindset. You have to get that right, no exceptions. It took me a year to figure that single lesson, so you're welcome; I just gave you a year of your life back. If you get your mindset right, everything will start to stick and making better decisions becomes easier. If you don’t, you’ll likely end up spinning your wheels and falling back into old habits, which is not progress. Don't get to next year, look back, and realize you haven’t progressed one bit. Believe me, that’s a bitter pill to swallow.

"Over the years, I had often declared in earnest, 'no more... I will quit smoking, lose weight, get fit, spend more time with my family, take time out to pursue sports and personal interests, and have adventures.' Suddenly, life kicks in; my declarations are forgotten until that next moment of self-realization, and another year has passed. But then, suddenly, fck, I'm fifty, and I still haven't crossed any of these off my list. To be brutally honest, I felt like the overweight, balding old dude I had allowed myself to become, and I looked at today's youth with envy. I really missed being young, and I really hated being old.

I was in a funk for a solid year, which was almost as bad as being old. I am typically not prone to feeling sorry for myself, and while I have, in my later years, experienced anxiety borne from the stress of life, I always end up kicking my own arse into gear. I hate nothing more than when people sit around feeling sorry for themselves, and I liked it even less when it was myself.

I dived into books and webinars, had YouTube premium on tap, unsuccessfully pursued 21-day this and 7-day that programs, and spent thousands of hours wading through the myriad of conflicting information available searching for answers. I wanted, no, I needed, a simple blueprint for eating better and improving both my physical and mental health. One that encompassed my Mind + Body & Soul. One that I could fit into my busy life as logically as grabbing a coffee in the morning. I never found it, but I learned a lot, so I decided to create my own plan, a MANtra if you like, one that could be lived every day! It needed to cut through the waffle that filled 80 percent of everything I had read, watched, and listened to. It needed to uncover the root of where everything originated from. To do this, I had to rediscover the archetypes of health and well-being from