If you haven’t made your New Year’s Resolutions yet or you’ve already broken them and are looking around for goals you might actually be able to keep, consider Aaron Leventhal’s The New Fit: How to Own Your Fitness Journey in Your 40s, 50s, and Beyond (Triumph Books 2025).

A former soccer player who played professionally in the USL A-League and also holds a BA in Exercise Science with a minor in Health and Nutrition from Drake University plus numerous certifications in health, nutrition, and exercise, Leventhal is amazingly fit (don’t get discouraged by looking at his videos) who understands that many of us—okay make that most of us—aren’t at his level. That’s why he isn’t offering an over-the-top exercise and diet routine that would defeat mere mortals. Instead, he encourages us to connect to what is best for us in establishing a long-term healthy life journey as we age.

First the bad news. Even at the relatively young age of 40, our body starts to change and what we need to do to stay fit does as well.

“Over the age of 44 years old, there’s only about 14% of our population in the United States that are active fitness consumers, not sedentary,” says Leventhal, who, with his wife Christine, has owned and operated FIT Studio, a boutique gym in Minneapolis. And, of course, for those 86% who aren’t active, the numbers aren’t likely to increase.

That is, according to Leventhal, they’re able to make a connection and commitment to change.

As an example, Leventhal talks about his 87-year-old mother who discovered walking was an exercise that allowed her to enjoy two of her interests—walking and being outdoors.

“She started with three or four intervals and then she adds on each week, and she keeps progressing,” he says. “It’s making that connection. Some people want to dance or to hike. It’s different for everyone but once they make that connection, it makes it easier because they want to do it.”

Leventhal understood the science behind exercise and nutrition, and he is the poster person for connection—after all, how can you be a sports star without the dedication that being connected to a goal requires. What he strives to accomplish with his book and his consultations is to help people develop a training week based on their own specifics—age, body type, sex, emotions, goals, fitness level, and injuries.

It was a lesson he learned the hard way when at age 49 and totally fit, he was diagnosed with cancer. Depressed, out-of-shape, craving processed foods, he realized the need to get unstuck.

The old way of doing things was getting me nowhere,” he says. “I needed to simplify my plan and make changes.”

This knowledge inspired him to write the book.

What Leventhal hopes to show is how to curate individual experiences by providing the knowledge needed to create customized fitness practices that will make impactful changes.

“I wanted to help people by creating a road map or a guide that people could follow,” he says. “As well as something that would be meaningful to them.”