I told a client this week that missing three days doesn’t erase six months. I meant it. I’ve said some version of that sentence probably a thousand times since I got certified, and I believe every word of it.

Then I stepped on the scale the next morning before I’d even had coffee, saw a number I didn’t like, and spent the first ten minutes of my day doing math about how far behind that put me.

Kim asked what was wrong. I said nothing. That was a lie of omission, which is still a lie, and I know that too.

Here’s the part that doesn’t make it into the coaching emails. I’ve lost fifty pounds. I know the difference between water weight and fat loss. I know a bad number by itself means almost nothing. I could pass a written test on this. None of that stopped me from letting one number set the tone for my whole morning.

I tell people the scale is data, not a verdict. Then I stand on it most mornings and let it decide how the day starts.

“Keep reading with a paid subscription”

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A few years back I would have told you I don’t hold grudges. Ask Kim. I said it more than once, usually right after bringing up something from fifteen years ago in the middle of an argument about the dishwasher.

That’s the trick resentment plays on people over 50. It doesn’t announce itself. It sits quiet in the back of a drawer until something small opens the drawer, and then it’s all over the counter and nobody remembers why.

I started keeping a list. Not for a book, not at first. Just names and situations, written down when I noticed my jaw tighten thinking about someone. A old boss. A brother-in-law. A guy from the Navy I haven’t spoken to in thirty years and still argue with in my head sometimes.

The list got long fast. Longer than I expected from a man who insisted he was fine.

That’s usually how it goes. The people who need this audit most are the ones sure they don’t. Not because they’re lying, but because carrying something for twenty years starts to feel like your own weight instead of something you picked up along the way.

This isn’t about becoming a pushover or pretending nothing ever happened to you. Plenty of what’s on your list deserves to stay there, at least for now. This is about knowing what you’re actually carrying, because most people over 50 have never once sat down and counted it.

Here’s what the audit does and why it works before we get to the questions themselves.

It forces specificity. “I’m just stressed” is vague enough to ignore. “I’m still angry at my father for selling the house without telling me” is a fact you can look at directly. Vague resentment festers because there’s nothing to grab onto. Named resentment can actually be dealt with, even if dealing with it just means deciding to let it sit for another year.

It separates people from patterns. Sometimes the problem isn’t your sister, it’s that you’ve never once told her no. The audit will show you both, and they’re not the same fix.

And it gives you a number. Not a scientific one, just a personal gauge you can check again in six months to see if anything moved.

The full audit, the actual worksheet, the scoring, and what I did with my own results are for paid subscribers. If you’ve read this far and you’re already running names through your head, that’s usually the sign you should keep going.

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Not Done Yet Materials — Paid Subscribers Only

Somewhere around fifty, a switch flips in how doctors, trainers, and well-meaning family members talk to you about exercise. The advice gets softer. Go e…

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I wrote Not Done Yet. All 22 chapters of it. And I will admit, right here in front of everybody, that I cannot quote chapter 14 from memory.

That’s not false modesty. That’s how books work. You read one, you absorb the big ideas, and then three months later you’re standing in the gym trying to remember whether the deload week comes every four weeks or every six, and whether you’re supposed to cut the volume or the load. The information is in the book. The book is at home. Your memory is doing what memories do after 50, which is its best.

If you listened to the Audible edition, you’ve got it even worse. You were driving, or walking the dog, or pretending to listen to your spouse while actually listening to me. You absorbed the ideas, but you can’t dog-ear an audiobook. There’s no flipping back to find that one section about protein timing. The whole thing lives in your head or it doesn’t live anywhere.

So I built two reference files. They’re attached at the bottom of this post for paid subscribers, and if you bought the book or the audiobook when it comes out, consider them the companion material I couldn’t staple to the back cover.

File One: The Key Takeaways

Every chapter in Not Done Yet ends with a Key Takeaways section. Bullet points, no fluff, just the load-bearing facts from that chapter. I pulled all of them, from all 22 chapters, into a single 10-page PDF organized by the book’s six parts. That’s 118 bullet points covering everything from why fast-twitch muscle fibers disappear first to why peak week water manipulation is a bad idea for masters competitors.

Here’s how to actually use it.

Before you start a new training block, reread the part you’re in. Starting a fat loss phase? Part Three takes five minutes to review and will keep you from doing something aggressive and dumb. Coming back from a layoff? Part Two. The takeaways won’t reteach you the material, but they’ll wake up what you already learned.

Print it. Ten pages. Put it in the drawer with your training log. A PDF on your phone is fine unless it’s the thing distracting you at the gym.

Use it to settle arguments. When your brother-in-law announces that lifting is dangerous for people our age, or your golf buddy swears carbs are poison, the relevant bullet is in there, with the research behind it sitting in the book if anyone wants to go deeper.

File Two: The Scientific Terms Glossary

The book uses real scientific terms because you’re an adult and I’m not going to pretend the science doesn’t have vocabulary. But I also know that anabolic resistance, sclerostin, and GLUT4 are not words anyone uses at dinner.

So the second file is a glossary. Ninety terms, A to Z, every scientific and physiological word in the book, each one defined in plain language. Not textbook language. The way I’d explain it to you over coffee.

This one earns its keep in three places.

At the doctor’s office. Your physician has about eleven minutes for you. Walk in knowing what HbA1c measures and what insulin sensitivity actually means, and you’ll spend those minutes asking useful questions instead of getting the standard “stay active” speech.

Reading the news. Every week there’s a new headline about a study on muscle, metabolism, or longevity. The glossary turns those articles from word salad into something you can evaluate. You’ll start noticing when a headline is overselling the research, which is most of the time.

Decoding supplement marketing. When a label throws scientific terms at you to sound credible, you can check what those words actually mean. Spoiler: knowing the vocabulary is usually all it takes for the magic to wear off.

One Honest Note

These files don’t replace the book. The takeaways tell you what. The chapters tell you why and how, and the why is what keeps you training when motivation takes its scheduled vacation. Think of these as the field guide, not the territory.

Gus, for the record, has reviewed both documents by lying on them. He approves.

Both PDFs are attached below the paywall. Download them, print them, use them.

Not a paid subscriber yet? It’s $20 a month or $80 a year, and it gets you everything behind the paywall, including resources like these built directly from the book. And if you don’t own “Not Done Yet: Strength, Muscle, and Health After 50” yet, it’s on Amazon in print and ebook and soon to be on Audible at https://amzn.to/4ed2Td6.

The files below will make a lot more sense with the book in hand. Or in ear.

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Let me tell you what this place is not.

It is not a newsletter written by a 30-year-old in a fleece vest who discovered breathwork six months ago and now wants to optimize your morning routine. It is not a collection of motivational quotes over sunrise photos. It is not going to tell you that you just need to “listen to your body” and everything will work out fine.

Your body is 50-plus years old. Sometimes it lies.

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If you picked up Not Done Yet and found yourself flipping back to the appendices every time you sat down to train or eat, this is for you.

I pulled all seven appendices from the book and packaged them into a single, standalone document. It’s free. No strings. You don’t need to re-read the whole book every time you want to double-check your protein targets or look up which supplement is actually worth your money.

Here’s exactly what’s in it.

What’s Inside

Appendix A: Muscle Reference Guide

Two full anatomical illustrations, anterior and posterior, mapping the major muscle groups. If you’ve ever stared at a cable machine wondering exactly what you’re working, this is the cheat sheet you needed. Understanding the map makes the training more intentional. That matters more than most people think.

Appendix B: Beginner Training Templates

Twelve weeks of programming, broken into three phases, zero guesswork. Session A, Session B, full-body, three non-consecutive days a week. Every set, rep, RPE target, and progression rule is written out. This is the actual program from Chapter 7, formatted so you can print it and bring it to the gym without hauling the whole book.

Phase 1 is four weeks of pattern practice. The load is deliberately easy. I say this in the book and I’ll say it again here: do not rush Phase 1. The people who skip it are the ones who get hurt in week six.

Appendix C: Intermediate and Advanced Programming Frameworks

What to do after the first 12 weeks. Four frameworks covered: Upper/Lower Split (4 days), Push/Pull/Legs (3 or 6 days), 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler for anyone whose primary goal is building maximal strength, and Daily Undulating Periodization for people who respond well to variety. Also includes universal progression principles that apply regardless of which framework you choose.

Appendix D: Protein and Calorie Reference Guide

The tables you’ll actually use. Daily protein targets by bodyweight at three levels (minimum, active training, muscle-building/cutting). Per-meal protein guidance based on the leucine threshold research. A ranked list of high-protein foods showing how much of each you need to hit 30 grams of protein. The Mifflin-St Jeor equation for estimating your TDEE. Calorie targets by goal with expected rates of change. This is the nutrition math without the lecture.

Appendix E: Supplement Summary, Evidence Rankings

Four tiers. Tier 1 is strong evidence, recommended. Tier 2 is meaningful evidence, worth considering based on your situation. Tier 3 is insufficient or inconsistent evidence. Tier 4 is not recommended, with explanations.

Tier 1 has two entries: creatine monohydrate and protein supplements. That’s it. Everything else is Tier 2 or lower, including things the industry spends enormous money convincing you to buy. The testosterone booster section alone is worth the read.

Appendix F: Key Research Citations and Further Reading

Every study referenced in the book, organized by chapter topic. Sarcopenia and muscle loss, hormones and metabolism, bone density, brain health, training programming, cardiorespiratory fitness, nutrition, supplements. PMC and PubMed identifiers included where available so you can pull the actual papers yourself. Also includes a short recommended reading list for anyone who wants to go deeper.

Appendix G: Masters Bodybuilding Federations and Resources

This one is for the people who finished the book and thought, “okay, what if I actually wanted to compete?” It’s a practical breakdown of the major drug-tested natural federations, including WNBF/INBF, OCB, NANDF, INBA/PNBA, NGA, and ANBF, plus an honest look at NPC for anyone considering it with clear eyes. Also covers how to read the division structure, a realistic first-competition timeline for someone starting after 60, and why posing is not optional.

How to Use This Document

Print it. Put it in a binder next to wherever you train or eat. The training templates are formatted to work as printed reference sheets. The protein and calorie tables are built for quick lookups, not bedside reading.

The supplement rankings are worth revisiting every time someone tries to sell you something new. The framework is the same: what does the evidence actually say, in what population, at what dose. If that question doesn’t have a clear answer, the product doesn’t belong in your stack.

Get the Full Book

The appendices give you the reference material. The book gives you the reasoning behind it, the chapters on sarcopenia, anabolic resistance, bone density, brain health, and why strength training is the single most evidence-supported intervention available to people over 50 who want to stay capable for the long haul.

Not Done Yet is available on Amazon. If you haven’t read it yet, grab a copy here.

If this document is useful to you, a paid subscription to Proud Boomer Wellness gets you everything I publish, including the deeper dives on training, nutrition, and supplements written for people over 50 who are done being talked down to. Subscriptions are $20 a month or $80 a year.

The appendix document is attached below.

Not Done Yet Appendices Supplement

230KB ∙ PDF file

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He walked in uninvited.

Past John doesn’t knock. Past John doesn’t need to. He’s 47 pounds lighter, slightly smug, and wearing the running shoes I haven’t touched since the Clinton administration. Well, not that far back. But it feels that way.

He sits across from me. Looks at my coffee. Looks at me. Does the math.

“So,” he says.

“Don’t,” I say.

“I’m just sitting here.”

“You’re doing the thing with your face.”

He is absolutely doing the thing with his face.

This is the part nobody tells you about losing a significant amount of weight and then slowly, quietly, determinedly gaining it back. It’s not just that your pants don’t fit. It’s that you remember. You remember exactly how it felt to be the other version of yourself, and that guy won’t leave you alone. He shows up in old photos. In your Garmin history. In the way your doctor’s face does the quick calculation before she composes her expression into something professionally neutral.

Five years ago, I lost a lot of weight. I trained. I tracked. I showed up. I felt, genuinely, like a different human being. Not because I had a six-pack or wore slim-cut anything. But because I had done the thing. I had taken the information I knew to be true and applied it to my actual body in the actual world, and it had worked.

I knew how to do it. I still know how to do it.

So why am I not doing it?

That’s the question Past John wants answered. And honestly, so do I.

Past John: You know the protein targets.

Current John: I do.

Past John: You know the sleep matters.

Current John: I do.

Past John: You have the equipment. You have the time. You wrote the actual framework. You coach other people with it.

Current John: I’m aware of the irony.

Past John: Are you, though?

Here’s what the research says, which I am going to tell you because I find it marginally more comforting than the alternative, which is that I am simply weak and lazy and deserve to feel bad about myself.

The alternative is wrong, by the way. Not in a self-help, “don’t be mean to yourself” way. Wrong in a neuroscience way.

Behavior change is not primarily a knowledge problem. If it were, every doctor would be at their ideal weight, every trainer would never miss a session, and every addiction counselor would have a perfect relationship with alcohol. Knowledge is necessary. It is not sufficient.

What actually drives sustained behavior is a combination of emotional regulation, environmental design, perceived self-efficacy, and something researchers call “implementation intentions,” which is a technical way of saying: knowing not just what you’re going to do, but exactly when, where, and how you’re going to do it, and having already pre-decided what happens when it gets hard.

The brain’s prefrontal cortex handles deliberate, goal-directed behavior. The limbic system handles emotional response, habit, and stress. When you’re tired, overwhelmed, underfed, or carrying more ambient anxiety than you’ve admitted to yourself, the limbic system wins. Every time. It is older and faster and it does not care about your macros.

This is not an excuse. It is the landscape.

Past John: So what’s actually going on?

Current John: It’s complicated.

Past John: That’s what people say when they don’t want to say the real thing.

Current John: (long pause) I’m tired.

Past John: From what?

Current John: Everything. The writing. The worry. The noise. I’m tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix, which I know sounds like a clinical flag, and I’m not dismissing that. But mostly I think I’ve been running on adrenaline and caffeine and a personality type that doesn’t know when to stop, and I’ve been doing it for years, and the thing that takes the edge off fastest is food. Not broccoli. The other food.

Past John: You know that’s a coping mechanism.

Current John: I know.

Past John: You know it doesn’t actually help.

Current John: I know that too. It doesn’t stop the craving. It just postpones the knowledge.

There’s a concept in psychology called “ego depletion,” though it’s been debated and refined since Baumeister’s original work. The core idea is that self-regulation draws on a limited resource, and the more decisions you make, the more stress you manage, the more you white-knuckle your way through difficult interactions, the less you have left for the next thing that requires willpower. Whether the mechanism is exactly as originally described or something more nuanced is still being sorted out in the literature. But the experienced reality of it is not seriously in dispute.

The days I eat well are not the days I feel virtuous. They’re the days I didn’t have seventeen other things pulling at my attention and a deadline that made me want to eat an entire sleeve of something regrettable.

Past John had a simpler life. Not an easier one. A simpler one. He had fewer moving parts and more white space on his calendar and a level of focus that I have since weaponized against myself by filling it with ambition.

Past John: You’re not that busy.

Current John: You didn’t have the Substack.

Past John: (pausing, to be fair) That’s true.

Current John: Or the third book. Or the coaching clients. Or the obligation to be insightful about everything on a deadline.

Past John: You love it, though.

Current John: I do. I really do. And it’s also exhausting. Both things are true.

Past John: So what are you going to do?

Current John: I don’t know yet. I think I’ve been waiting to feel ready. To feel like I have enough bandwidth. Like it’s the right moment.

Past John: That moment isn’t coming.

Current John: No. It’s not.

This is the real answer. Not the neurochemistry, though the neurochemistry is real. Not the stress eating, though that’s also real. The real answer is that I have been waiting for conditions that will never exist.

I have been waiting to feel like the guy who did it five years ago, and the guy who did it five years ago didn’t feel ready either. He was also tired and busy and slightly overwhelmed. He just started anyway. Badly, at first. Inconsistently. With a lot of half-weeks and recalibrations and mornings where he showed up at two-thirds capacity and called it a win.

There’s a clinical term for what I’ve been doing. Actually, there are several. But the most honest one is “waiting for motivation before action,” when the actual sequence is reversed. Motivation follows action. Not the other way around. You don’t feel like doing it and then do it. You do it badly, then slightly less badly, and somewhere in there the feeling catches up.

Behavioral activation. Tiny commitment escalation. Whatever you call it, the mechanism is the same: you don’t think your way into a new identity. You act your way there.

Past John knows this. He lived it.

I know it too. I wrote a version of it for other people.

Time to write it for myself.

Past John: (standing up, heading for the door)

Current John: Where are you going?

Past John: I’ve said what I came to say.

Current John: You were kind of a pain in the ass.

Past John: You needed it.

Current John: Yeah. (beat) Same time next week?

Past John: I sincerely hope not.

He was right, of course. He usually is. That’s the irritating part about confronting the better version of yourself. He doesn’t let you off with a diagnosis. He just reminds you that you’ve done hard things before, and that the path back is the same path it always was.

One meal. One session. One decision that doesn’t require feeling good first.

Gus is already at the door. He doesn’t need to know my macros. He just needs a walk. So do I.

That’s probably enough for today.