I saw this article on Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat for those of you who may not be familiar. It was about him getting fit in his 50s. Now he’s everywhere, on the cover of Men’s Fitness, and other health publications, showcasing his shocking transformation.
The story goes something like this: he got divorced in middle age from his wife and mother of his children (The super hot chick from Wedding Crashers, Isla Fisher) . Now, he’s gotten super fit in his 50s to play a superhero or supervillain in a Marvel movie or something like that… So naturally, the woke police are coming after him and if you can believe this, there are articles being written by women about taking shots at him; saying this isn’t desirable, that they prefer the dad bod and that he doesn’t realize his “midlife post-divorce body is repellent to most women”..Basically: “What is he doing?” “He’s going overboard.” “Women don’t care about this or like this”, “This isn’t important.” And you know what?
It’s complete bullshit.
News flash, ladies:
I don’t believe he, or any of us men, are doing this for you
We’re doing this for ourselves.
This is a guy who has already proven he can be incredibly successful. He can be a millionaire 10, 20, 30 times over. He can be funny as hell. He can be famous. He can marry a beautiful celebrity actress, have kids, and stay married for over 13 years.
We’ll never know what led to the demise of their relationship, and they’ve handled it professionally, privately, and respectfully. But I’d hazard a guess that it had nothing to do with him getting in better shape. I don’t believe his ex-wife ever said, “Listen, I liked you better when you were softer.” or “ I don’t want you getting in great shape, building confidence, going from fat to fit, or from drunk to sober.”
That’s not how it works. And quite frankly, I don’t think he was thinking about her or any woman when he made the decision to transform. He was doing it for himself.
When I went from fat to fit, from drunk to sober, from broke to wealthy, I didn’t sit down and have a conversation with my wife about it. I just took a long, hard look in the mirror, got sick of what was staring back at me, and decided to make some changes.
So to the women out there, I don’t think you’d appreciate it if we started taking shots at you when you were trying to better yourselves. When you exercise, put on more muscle, get injectables, prescriptions, plastic surgery, implants, fillers; whatever it may be.
But when a guy does it, he’s narcissistic. He’s egotistical. “We women don’t want it.” And here’s the thing; don’t worry about it, ladies. There are plenty of dad bods available for you. There are plenty of guys who are totally fine with the conformity, complacency, and redundancy of middle age. Who are okay being soft. Who are fine being beholden to you for validation and acceptance. Who know who they report to and are careful not to take up too much of your bandwidth by working too much on themselves.
But self-care is not selfish. In fact, it’s one of the most selfless things you can do. And I applaud Sacha Baron Cohen for putting self-care first.
He has nothing to prove to anyone. He has checked all the boxes of success by every metric. And now, at this stage of his life, he has time, money, freedom and discipline. He’s applying it to get healthy.
Rather than knock him down, male or female, we should be applauding him.
And again, don’t worry, ladies.
Plenty of overweight guys out there for you.
Plenty of soft guys out there.
Plenty of dad bods.
And if you’re not into this version of him, I got news for you—he’s not looking for you either.
He’s not looking for someone who wants the older version of himself
That’s called growth.
That’s called evolution.
That’s called progress.
And guys, this is a perfect example of not only what’s possible, but what’s probable in middle age; when you commit to preparation, discipline, accountability, and consistency.
In Health,
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Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
52. Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
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