FTV; Fitness After 40 with Brad Williams

FTV; 

In this week's episode I am joined by Personal trainer, gym owner, podcast host and all-round good guy Brad Williams.

California based Brad specialises in working with men and women over 40 and we talk about the differences that he sees in how someone over 40 should eat and train compared to someone in their 20s.

Some of the things we touch on are;

Life is different for the over 40s but how does this impact exercise?
Is it more difficult for someone over 40s to get the same results as someone in their 20s?
Why the hormone levels of the over 40s must be taken into account when training/aiming for certain results.
Should you eat differently past 40?
What food go on his eat or don't eat list?
Which foods should you always try to buy organic?
What supplementation does Brad recommend for someone over 40?

and much, much more.

Check out Brad's amazing "Over 40 fitness hacks" podcast 

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Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic  

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Replay

Peter 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast of your Postnatal Expert Peter Lapp. That, as always, will be me. This is the podcast for now, the 3rd of August 2026. And this is from the Voltman after last week's interview with Dr. Myers. Three years ago, I did an interview, I had a conversation with Brand Williams, who's a PT gym owner, podcast host, and just all around good guy. I like Brad a lot. And we spoke about exercise over 40 and how life is different. Diet and exercise over 40. I get a lot of emails about this. So we spoke about many, many, many, many, many things. Life is different, how does it impact how it impacts exercise? Is it more difficult for someone over 40s to get the same results? Hormone levels over 40s. Should you eat differently? Blah, blah, blah. What's supplementation for over 40s? I don't agree with Brad on everything, but I quite like his take on stuff. And you know, we can't agree with uh with everybody on everything, right? You know, my opinion on supplementation and all that type of stuff. You're gonna love this conversation. We touched on loads of stuff that I get a lot of emails about. So, you know, without further ado, here's your answers. Here we go. What

The Hard Switch After 40

Peter 1:42

is the difference between exercise and diet in your 20s and in your forties?

Brad 1:47

Yeah, I think I mean it's pretty rare to everyone, uh, except probably the 20-year-olds, if any are listening, that uh, you know, it's a lot harder to get away with what we did in our 20s than in our 40s. You know, to where you know we had more energy to work out more and run more, that's obvious. But dieting really wasn't a thing because our metabolism was so high, you know, for most for most uh young 20-year-olds. And uh, you know, for me, you know, growing up my whole life, my dad was a doctor and mom was a nurse. We were kind of that healthy family and had had that upbringing and was into sports and all that kind of stuff. So it was real easy for me to kind of stay in shape. And I I got into the gym scene, you know, in in high school, so I kept that going. And uh, you know, you just you know, as long as you're kind of in that zone, it doesn't take much effort to get a decent athletic body and staying fit in your 20s, and then you know, became a trainer and all that kind of stuff and was coaching mostly over 40 because that was just our area here in Orange County who could afford personal training. And uh, you know, kind of the the the the reason I started uh switching gears and the theme of my podcast, over 40 fitness acts, was you know, I was that personal trainer in my late 20s, early 30s. It was just, you know, not a boot camp instructor, but you know, kind of teasing my clients, you need to work more, die a little harder, you know, that's why you're not getting the results you want. And then lo and behold, I'm 42 now. But when I started my show, I was 40. And right around 38, 39 was when I saw this the biological switch of of aging and seeing, oh my God, all these guys were right. You know, it is so much harder to keep this weight off. And I'm you know, I'm doubling up my cardio, I'm doubling up my workouts, you know, not missing a day of protein, all that. And I'm still not getting what I was in my 20s and 30s. So, you know, that's kind of been my journey and my the reason I keep going is you know, I've got that personal trainer mindset. You know, I refuse to give up my social life, but I will I will cut it down and I will play by some rules, but I need to work smarter, not harder. And that's kind of been you know, my my thing is finding tips and tricks, and I call it hacks of uh you know, building healthy habits that will work synergistically so I can get the you know the same goal and you know what I want to look like and and my overall health.

Peter 4:06

Yeah,

Fat Storage And Mitochondria Decline

Peter 4:07

because because that's a good point, because it's you know, I remember my my dad was was like uh was the skinniest guy alive, and I was the same. I could eat whatever I wanted in my teens and my 20s and my early 30s, and then round about 35, 36, it all went horribly, horribly wrong. So yeah, all of a sudden, it was a belly there, and I was a PT by then, right? So I had had I spent my 20s, yeah, 25 homeworks. I was working for a large American company doing 80-hour weeks. I was having takeaways every night, and I looked phenomenal, right? I was I was consuming 3,000 calories at least every night of the crappiest, crappiest food that you could possibly get. Like for the UK, this is uh chicken tikka masala, non-bread, so a non-bread filled with curry sauce and filled with chicken and some chips on the side, that was no problem. The subway foodlong was followed by a packet of crisps and maybe a bit of chocolate, and then you'd still be hungry. Yeah, and and and that was fine. And by the time, much like my dad, by the time I was 35, 36, it all just went, Jesus, I can't do this stuff anymore. And for a long time, much like yourself, like like much like what you were saying, I thought, uh, it's just if I sit on my dad, sit on my ass all day and I used to be more active. I completely ignored the fact that biologically we just there's there's this change that happens round about.

Brad 5:40

Yeah. Yeah, and and then that's the thing, it's it's it's all factors. So it's you are slowing down because if you know, over 40, you probably have a family uh or you know, work and and more responsibility. Um, you're more tired, it just happens, so it's like less you know, motivation to even go out and do what you used to do in your 20s. Then on top of that, your biological clock uh switches to the you know fat conversation. Uh what am I trying to say? Your body's trying to store fat for the long run. So it's just uh it's just a uh survival method of you know holding on the fat to protect your organs and everything, and it's a more sustainable energy to take you into your later years. So your body switches that and it'll prefer you know uh glucose and even your own muscle tissue before it'll take fat. So it's like you have everything going against you. It's not fair, but you know, that's just the way it is. So we have to find you know new and better ways to to kind of spark up uh you know, you know, muscular growth, uh keeping that lean muscle on you. And another thing I've noticed too is um, and I'm really only started researching it more like this last year, your uh mitochondrial health. That's another thing. So as we're slowing down because we're getting older and have more responsibilities, your body like starts decreasing the amount of mitochondria in your cells because it doesn't need it. And thus, when you actually start burning fat and you're trying your hardest to do cardio and all that kind of stuff, you don't have those in your cells that run efficiently as before in your 20s. So you can't neglect, you know, uh, you know, building that up, which usually is you know more higher endurance or high intensity training to kind of build those uh mitochondria cells back up. Um, so thus when you're doing your weightlifting and all that to build your lean muscle mass, you know, you're attacking it from both angles. So it's just it's a constant game, man. And it's like, when do you find the time to do all this stuff?

Social Life And The Weekend Tax

Peter 7:39

So yeah, because because like like you said, but I mean, in my 20s, I had loads of time, I was working like a beast bank, but I had loads of time outside work that I could spend essentially on myself. Uh, whereas now, you know, I'm 48, I've got responsibilities and have things to do. I have a wife, and having a wife means sometimes you have to be at home. Um, you know, otherwise she gets grumpy, uh, and there's stuff to do uh uh with that. You have to you have to socialize. I mean, yeah, I have to go out and see people. I'm I'm the plus one, right? My wife gets the invite, and you know, it'd be nice if you can bring Peter along as well, but I still have to go to all these things. Um and like you said, I I enjoy socializing, but it seems that every single time I go out on the weekend, it bites me on the ice on the Monday because the things I could do drink alcohol to a slightly uh at a slightly higher level, eat crappy food. Uh I I I could get away with that. I I didn't know what a food hangover was until I was 40.

Brad 8:46

Yeah. Well, that's and that's the thing I've discovered, you know, working a system is basically for two days that you you know have your social life and kind of throw the diet and everything out the door, it takes about four days just to match it. So now if you add that fifth day of clean eating and clean everything, you'll actually start getting some progress. You know, this is this is assuming you can you you still want your social life. If you want to you know expedite this, you could just cut cut that out. But you know, my whole thing is I refuse to do that. So that's that's my system. Clean on Monday through Friday, and that Fridays, that's the day that I get you know that damage done to to get me to that next level.

Peter 9:27

Oh no, that's that's an interesting, that's an interesting approach. So you're saying basically, okay, so your weekend is the weekend, and you know, within reason you you you do your thing. Um and then you accept that Monday to Thursday, yeah, okay, you're you're eating clean, but those are not your and you're or you're living clean, or you're not living to excess or whatever. Uh, and then Friday that's your say your results day. So would you then break it down just from a purely mathematical, just very boring calories in calories out perspective? Do you then kind of say, okay, the the Monday to Thursday that is catching up on the weekend, and the Friday, I don't know, the thousand calories that I'm below my uh base metabolic rate, my my rate that sustains where I am, but I'm a thousand calories below that, then that is that is my win on uh on the Friday.

Brad 10:26

Yeah,

A Simple Weekly Fitness System

Brad 10:27

so basically, you know, weekends, you know, you you try your best, and I do like take with me some digestive enzyme pills to help you know process all the unprocessed foods and beers I'm drinking. It's a kind of a tip to get you a little bit better startup on Monday. Um, and then uh, you know, mine is basically a uh 1800 calorie diet Monday through Friday, and I try to hit close to 200 grams of protein. Um, and then I've got a whole morning routine of of supplements to make sure, you know, I've got all my calcium, vitamin D, potassium, magnesium, because a lot of people don't, you know, count their micro minerals. I count my calories and microminerals. It's not like I count a count every day. I just did it one time, and once you kind of know the routine, you know, you're good. Yeah, you can bulkmark it, right?

Peter 11:16

You know you're pretty much in the right day area.

Brad 11:18

Yeah, and so I go on uh three mile walks pretty much six days a week. I do a now I just switched, I do a high intensity training day to help boost my mitochondria because I started noticing that trend of not having you know enough powerhouses in my in my body. Um and then I do a heavyweight training day, full body, and then I do uh time under tension day. So that's I've noticed real big benefits from time under tension is in half the time, you know, you just take longer to do every motion, you know, four or five seconds down, four or five seconds up on a squat. Same thing for any type of uh exercise, and really mind focusing, you know, on that muscle and squeezing and contracting and slowing it down to so much more efficient, a better quality workout. And you know, I'm doing these workouts in like 20 minutes when you I used to do them for an hour, hour and a half, just killing myself in the gym. And I'm getting better progress now. So, you know, everything is attacking all angles, you know, the high intensity, the slow-mo, the heavyweight training day, you know, making sure you move every day. So that's why I at least do the walking as well. Um, you know, we all noticed during COVID, you know, even personal trainers, you know, we brought all our weights home and we still went out and runs and all that, but we weren't getting the steps we were when we were you know busy working and all that kind of stuff. And that was huge. We all started gaining weight, so movement is huge. So you got to do something every day. So that's kind of the system I have, and you know, it's been rocking.

Time Under Tension Done Right

Peter 12:45

Yeah, no, then that's that's interesting that you said to basically you just keep you mix it up a bit every week. I always tell people, you know, because we get asked as personal trainers, we I bet you get asked as an authors well. I said I do weight trading three times a week. Is that enough? I uh I go for five runs a week, is that enough? Uh I do yoga three times a week, is that enough? And you're like, yeah, if you're targeting just one thing all the time, you're missing out on something that is ridiculously beneficial. And this is yeah, you hear this quite regularly from um from the doctors and and in the UK. Uh there's a man who's a bane of my existence called Michael Mosley, uh, and he does these health programs. And you know, if you do one thing, do resistance training, because resistance training is the secret, and I I use secret, I use air quotes there, is a secret to uh a success a successful health later in life and all that sort of stuff. And like, yeah, weight training is useful, but it's not the be all and end all. If I only do heavy squats, which is beneficial, I'm not knocking it, I'm not getting much in the way of cardiovascular benefit. And I still need that. I need to work on my range of motion or flexibility, whatever you want to call it. I need to make sure when I get a bit older again, uh, that I can get up off the toilet or up off the solar phone without making weird noises, you know, because I'm at that age now, I'm gonna be 50 relatively soon. I can't be that guy right every time I get up in between Netflix uh specials. So, and it's interesting like what you said. If you target everything for a bit, especially that time on detention bit that you mentioned, because I came across uh someone the other day who's talking about yin yoga, and yin yoga is very much a time and attention type type yoga where you hold your squat position or uh for five minutes or as long as you can, you hold this pose for five, ten minutes, and it's completely different from the traditional stretchy yoga that we that we tend to use. But this guy was also saying that yeah, but if you only do this, you're going to miss out on because you'll get really good at one thing, you'll be terrible at everything else, and it'll bite you the bum. So the mixing and matching seems to be a very sensible approach.

Brad 15:08

Yeah, and you know, that's kind of personal training 101 that we always preach, is even with you know, at our gym, we m mostly do kind of circuit training style, right? And uh a blend of cardio with weight training and slightly heavy. And you know, we do you shock the body, you can't do the same routine every day. We're constantly changing the exercises because your body cannot get used to it. You know, your body is will only uh you know change its its shape and form with stressors. And if you keep doing the same thing over and over, it knows, oh, I know this routine, I don't have to put that much effort into it. So you gotta you switch it up. And so so now, just like you're saying, you gotta switch, you know, even that you know, one day of circuit training, one day of yoga, just pick different things because it's a different shock to the body, different stressors, and you'll get more adaptation from that um with less effort. So, you know, and then the other thing is um, ever since I about five years ago, I had a uh back accident, you know, trip moving heavy equipment, you know, being the gym owner that does everything, you know, probably should hire all that stuff out. But lo and behold, uh two surgeries later, and um, you know, kind of my overall philosophy now is too is overall health. You know, that's why I focus on micro minerals, I focus on time under tension mostly because I don't want to lift super heavy weights anymore. If I can get away with less, get the return I want, and my joints are better, my back is you know less at risk because you know, my goal is to make it past 100. How am I supposed to do that in my current condition and my old style of just you know shredding in the gym? So it's just you know, you gotta you gotta look, you know, the ways in front as well.

Peter 16:49

So

Functional Fitness Over Pure Aesthetics

Peter 16:50

yeah, and that's and that's a thing that I found when you get the training people over 40, and the same goes for for mums and for for women over 40, as for men over 40. That's so sure everybody trains to some extent for aesthetic reasons, right? Most people, most people do. Uh but fit for purpose is kind of everything, as far as as far as I'm concerned. And by the time you're over 40, I mean, fit for purpose in your 20s is look the part so you can get laid, right? That is kind of how the how the large section, I know it's a bit crude for this podcast, but everybody listening to this will kind of we're all on the we haven't met our partner yet, maybe we're still looking in that direction. So you know, you have to look the part a bit to on a primal level attract the right mate or whatever. Fit for purpose in your 40s is just being able to be in reasonable good health, be able to run for the bus if you're running late, um, run after your kids, play with your kids, get up off the sofa without being in pain. You know, you don't want to be one of those old ladies or old guys that's constantly bringing out the heat pad and all that sort of stuff every time you've played catch with your kids and all that sort of thing. But you have to work at that stuff, it doesn't it doesn't come naturally to anybody, yeah.

Brad 18:16

And we call it uh functionally fit over here, yeah. But uh, you know, we then that's why we incorporate a lot of balance training. You know, no matter if we have training 20 year old 20-year-old athletes all the way to you know 70-year-old uh, you know, men and women, we we we train the same way, and obviously the younger can you know uh get to that higher level of balance training and crazy stuff, but but still it's it's part of that functionally fit philosophy. Then we can go into you know building a little bit more muscle and that kind of stuff. But you know, move kind of moving on to the even past functionally fit, um, it's that concept of overall health, bringing that back and you know, stressors in your life that are bad, you know, physical stress, pain, mental stress, maybe you're having you know, uh problems with your family or spouse or or or at work, and how how much that affects your uh cortisol levels. And over over 40, you start seeing that and a little bit more so in women, but still for both men and women. I've I've had clients that were so stressed, you know, mentally, we couldn't get anything done. It's because your body is just in flight or flight mode, cortisol levels are high up, you cannot build muscle in those kind of uh you know, presentations of of those you know hormones, and so almost almost uh we have to be as trainers, almost like therapists to kind of work through that too, you know, not only that, but sleep and everything, like all the parts that you wouldn't think a personal trainer should be a part of. But we can't get our job done unless some of those start lowering, and then oh my god, you start seeing the results. So a good trainer kind of dabbles a little bit on all of that stuff, if not at least point them to a referral, like you got to get this you know taken care of before we we just grind your body down to nothing trying to get some results.

Peter 20:07

Oh, for sure. One of the questions I ask the most when I see somebody is hey, how are you doing? How'd you sleep last night? Like it's it is kind of the first, especially with mums, especially with and whether your kid is is six months old or it's 15 or whatever, you know, they all come with different levels of stress, right? When they're when they're younger, they might not sleep that well, or you have to get up to breastfeed or to feed them regularly and all that sort of stuff. When they're 15, they're just from what I see of my clients or 15-year-old girls. I mean, Jesus, that's another level of parenting. I mean, I don't even know how parents do it anymore. Um, because it's like that battle is constant, and therefore the stress is constant because it does, even though uh it might not feel particularly stressful sometimes, on uh in the way that we can we think of stress. We tend to think of stress and people being stressed. As remember Michael Douglas did a film called Falling Down. He he was stuck in traffic and he just had enough, and he you know he goes on a rampage for LA. Um that's how we view stress. Going postal is the American expression, yeah. But stress, just the background level of stress that somebody has, like you said, it really plays with their hormones. The cortisol level is, and that's a problem because in fight or flight mode, your button your body doesn't want to lose weight because it doesn't know why you're stressed, it doesn't know that it's just your 15 year old spending too much time on a phone, but that's the reason. It thinks we're going to be starving or there's a bear coming. And fundamentally, that says, I need I I I need that fat because who knows what's what's going to happen. So, how do you tend to deal with that yourself with your clients?

Breathing To Lower Stress Fast

Brad 21:59

Yeah, so. you know it's and it's it's funny too I wanted to mention like you know when you're in 20s you don't have all these problems because you don't care you know that's that's our mentality when we're in 20 and now we care because we have responsibilities and um but yeah for and that's a big one too um for uh you know mental stress and what that can do and you know even with me with uh chronic back pain even after my surgery and dealing with that you know whatever stressor is causing that fight or flight response your body's at high level cortisol doesn't know how to calm down and one of the things I've learned how to do is um uh breathing it's called diaphragmatic breathing um meditation is another good one I just kind of you know fell in love with the the the breathing portion which is kind of a version of meditating but you know breathing from your diaphragm where you breathe through your nose a special way um breathe out your mouth slowly and you're building basically it helps build some nitric oxide in your blood supply very calming but the biggest thing is you're trying to uh keep your rib cage down while you're breathing that's why use your your nose and then use your diaphragm and using that diaphragm starts pushing on your vagus nerve which is from from all the research that I've I've seen is one of the best ways to calm your flight or flight response down just by by compressing on that nerve. I'm sure there's a million other ways as well but just just the one that I kind of gravitated to because everyone in the health and wellness industry kind of talks about that. And you know when my back pain was like a level you know 10 almost I got that down to like level four in like two days just from that one little trick. So that made me a firm believer you know of all this stressors and cortisol and all that and that you can mentally take some of that and alleviate that down just by breathing. So that was one of my biggest ones.

Peter 23:53

Yeah breathing is it's funny so when uh just for clarification because I spoke about diaphragmatic breathing with regards to diace recti before for DR it does nothing. Listeners diastysis recti does not is not helped or healed by diaphragmatic breathing. The core breath that's what you use at least if you use my program that's what you use if you're sensible then you use the core breath what Grant is talking about is diaphragmatic breathing just for breathing properly right that's a completely different beast that is that is not rehab breathing as as as I call it just in case of people listening saying hey you went off on a tangent against diaphragmatic breathing a few months ago but it's again it's it's it's it's it's this stuff all depends on what you want to get from your exercise and from your habits and from your lifestyle.

Brad 24:46

If you need to slow down a little bit I completely agree with you that I think headspace do one it's called uh you're picturing basic the the guys at headspace uh everybody knows that monk that is now the the IT guru right the the the mental health guru uh with his little with his little app they have one uh I can't remember his name but I know what you're talking about yeah I mean every everyone knows the the guy with the nicest voice in the world for for for this sort of stuff I have no idea what his name is uh but basically he he just says picture a big square and you inhale at the top line and you and then uh you hold it for three counters you move down and then you exhale at the bottom line and you go back up using the same sort of thing that that that you're talking about the circular breathing that uh singers tend to use as well what because what you find when you do that is indeed like you said everything slows down and a lot of the time the the hormonal response that we create in our body and this sounds a bit wooy has nothing to do with reality as it is my stress nine out of ten times has nothing to do with the situation that I'm actually in it's quite often to do with the situation that I think I'm in or I trick myself into thinking and that can be running five minutes late for an appointment right that is annoying sure is it end of the world oh my god I'm going to die soon stress level annoying probably not right yeah so if you don't believe your way through it right there's your solution right yeah and then you know another one that that I picked up too is you know in our society today you know we're all on times and all that kind of stuff so we set alarms if that alarm wakes us up in the morning instead of waking up naturally and you know that kind of stimulates a little fight or flight response to like oh god it's it's seven o'clock I gotta get going like not a horrible level but constantly every day seven days a week so you know a trick I learned is you know hit that alarm goes off you hit you know maybe do it five minutes early but hit does or shut it off and just sit there and just kind of you know do a little meditation breathe just kind of wiggle your toes feel everything for me I kind of do a scan on you know roll my shoulders my body how's it feel and then you usually my back how does that my sleep feel well on my back it's like five minutes but just keeps that level down and then you gently get out of bed and start going but there's no rush and that's so important. And uh you know since I've kind of developed this overall concept of health with all these little things you know it's not just hydration working out in cardio you know it's dieting it's your happiness it's lowering your stressors down it's you know you know I kind of label it as having all these different buckets as long as you're putting some in each one oh my God now it's like my overall health is cranking my blood work is like phenomenal my blood pressure is phenomenal I feel good and happy all the time I'm putting on muscle like close to what I had in my 20s with less work.

Peter 27:54

It's just awesome when when your body's optimized and running and you and you you work at that at that system you know you'd be surprised what it can do even after 40 even after 50 yeah and and and that's that's the amazing thing isn't it like like you said you take a multipronged approach really where you realize I have to do everything a little bit now that doesn't mean we have to do everything perfectly like like you said earlier 20 minutes a day exercise yeah that's enough right if you do the right thing I've always said this to people 10 15 minutes a day with regards to like postpartum recovery 10 15 minutes exercise is enough um as long as you're doing the right thing if you're just aimlessly throwing a dumbbell about it's not going to do you any good whatsoever if you follow a program that that makes sense and that's it's been designed by someone that kind of knows what they're doing which like like you said targets all the all the bits targets all the various forms of exercise uh and it isn't the same thing you know you see a lot of these programs online and I came across one yesterday which was a phenomenal program to be fair uh put together by one of the one of the big power level power left as my dog shouted so now I have to edit this thing uh that's it the 25 minute mark that's fine that's just a note for me um so what I find is that so I I came across this this program designed by one of the big power lifters in uh he's on one of those YouTube powerlifters if you lift an on the lull amounts and looking at the guy you genuinely wouldn't realize that that that's that's what he did but he it's essentially a push pull program that has to do the same thing for three months right um yeah and that's kind of how a lot of bodybuilders use the train and again bodybuilders they might look the part and powerlifters again they they might but it's it's fit for purpose for those guys um if your goal is to look a certain way then yeah okay you know you you you go spend your hour in the morning doing your cardio uh slow steady state cardio usually on the channel um and in the evening you spend a couple hours in the gym and you slowly do your bicep curls and and you know you have your back day your leg day and your your chest and tricep day and all that sort of stuff um you spend three hours in the gym but you're going to look a certain way and yeah you get results and you hit your plateau at I don't know 120 kilogram bench press and all that sort of stuff we all know those guys that that can't break 100 kg and then they'll try something else um that is not really the way you either need to do it it's not the most efficient way of getting results especially not when you're when you're in your 40s and it's for personal trainers and that's what I what I was getting to if you work with someone like yourself who knows how to program that is not how you program yeah um it's the way how you program when you just come out of PT school and you're you're a pretty terrible personal trainer because that is all you know right we do chest and triceps we do back and biceps and uh shoulder day and and and leg day and and maybe a bit of core um but

Health Span Goals Versus Bodybuilding

Peter 31:29

that is not how someone who really knows what they're talking about who wants to get your results quickly pro puts together yeah and that's the thing you know personal trainers are not supposed to coach their clients to be bodybuilders you know unless that's a totally different niche if that's what they want.

Brad 31:46

Yeah some some personal trainers are bodybuilders because that's kind of why they got in the game and that's all that but a good trainer does not train their clients like that unless that's what the client wanted you know we're personal trainers it's supposed to be functional health overall health building lean muscle and you know uh no risk injury you know the whole body world bodybuilding game is high risk injury not the greatest overall health because of what they're trying to obtain you know but as long as you know that and that's what you want more power to you but that's not what you know I I preach and and clients that I'm looking for it's more of you know looking to extend the functional fit you know part of your your life and you know they call it you know lifespan now it's health span how healthy are you the longest you could possibly go that's that's all I care about and uh you know aesthetics will just come with it but yeah it's not going to be that bodybuilder aesthetics unless you really want to push for that so really gotta you know get that out of the client to to see what what they actually want before you you know start the program.

Peter 32:47

Yeah and and and and that was something I I wanted to touch on with you because I don't know about you but you know like you like we said my priorities changed a little bit when I was uh when I hit 40 and not because 40 was a big number my priorities changed probably when I was 35. I just wasn't aware of it. Um finding out what your goals really are and what you're willing to give up to meet those goals for me became much more important by the time I hit middle age. What am I willing to give up to achieve XYZ and that that kind of went with almost everything in life to be honest am I willing to work 80 hour weeks to have a bigger house no I'm not then why would I you know I don't want the bigger house that much then I'm willing to work 80 hours. Okay that's awesome that's great that that's phenomenal it means that I have to then accept that I have a smaller house but I don't have to work the 80 hours anymore. I mean that that's a bit of a win right if I wanted the bigger house or the bigger car or whatever then I'd have to consider what am I giving up there's always something to give up and everything comes at a sacrifice right 20 minutes whether it's 20 minutes or half an hour it is but are you willing to what are you willing to do to improve your health so how do you deal with that with your clients because a lot of people I find a lot of people in their 40s try to give me the answer that they think they should either should give or give the answer that they would have given 20 years ago when they're still in their 20s.

Brad 34:29

Well uh you know most of my clients at least here in Orange County it's you know it's kind of the the party bubble there's so much action here there's so much fun stuff to do. So a lot of my clients are coming to me because they're overweight and the one thing they do not want me to touch is their diet and all the rules and all that kind of stuff. So that's one of the nine buckets so okay we got to start working on the other stuff. Okay we just gotta we gotta move more we gotta you know work on your hydration maybe get some cleaner source of water so you know instead of drinking tap water or soda can waters you know maybe we get some sparkles you know filtered water or something you know you know that's number one on keeping us alive. Why not make that the best source you can um how's your sleep we could work on you know little simple things and until you they're getting results and everything and they're really sold on time under tension because you know they can only work they can just work out for 20 minutes and I really beat them up and make them you know do that kind of slower uh time under tension method um but they're out of there which is what they want because they you know a lot of them will pay because they have to but they don't want to stay for the hour so no problem so we'll really make it efficient then my job is to really whittle on that bucket of you know the diet like okay well can you at least give me Monday through Thursday or Monday through Friday or you know give me something you know you just it's just building little habits slowly and uh you know it in the end it's you know is a client happy where they are if they're not well we've done everything else really you know it's it's up to you if you want to take that next step and you know really clean up you know that for for most of my clients it's the diet portion. Yeah because let's be honest diet is the most difficult thing in the world right it is it it just is I mean changing your diet is is one of the most difficult things you can do um every everybody can exercise for half an hour a day if if if you had to you know you'll find half an hour you do some jumping jacks or some press ups or whatever you can move you can go for a walk like you said you can

Supplements Protein And Food Quality

Brad 36:30

do a three mile run or something like that you can do all that stuff diet and diet adherence I mean everybody can start a diet right everybody can do a diet for a week I can go full keto for a month before I lose my mind um everybody can do Atkins for a while everybody can cut out sugar for a day and that's pretty much how long I last without sugar um but diet adherence that that is the most difficult one to buy into yeah um so what do you do because you mentioned digestive enzymes and all that sort of stuff so what what do where are you on the what supplements do you recommend for the over 40 specifically yeah so for and my my kind of theory with the client too is you know try not to touch too much of their their current diet let's just work on some simple things some simple supplements that can kind of help um one of them is we got to get them down to a at least a a decent calorie marker that they can at least abide to um I really love uh the concept of intermittent fasting where okay if you're gonna eat all this food and everything let's at least crunch it into a tighter window it doesn't need to be like a crazy four hour six hour window just give me a little bit better than what you're doing then it just that fasting gives them your body just a chance to clear it out um digestive enzymes you know I've been using those for two years and swear by them it just you know when you're when you're drinking like a protein drink it already has it in there you don't really need that almost all uh manufacturers put that in there but when you're eating real food and and and tough meats you know like beef and all that kind of stuff really uh taking the digestive enzymes allows you to eat a little bit more because you know if you're a bigger guy trying to get to 150 200 grams of protein it's literally impossible unless you have time to eat all day so eating a little bit bigger portion maybe you can take in 50 60 grams with an enzyme and actually absorb it. And uh so that's been real huge. And then just you know protein shakes that's really that's the only realistic way with our busy lives and everything of getting to that higher level of protein it's you know I just can't eat that much food in a day to hit for me I need you know 180 grams.

Peter 38:52

Right.

Brad 38:52

So protein shakes are are just the easiest way to go. So if you're gonna go that route you know get the better stuff. You know wake concentrate pea protein concentrate is kind of like cheaper and not the greatest yeah and in our 20s it was great we didn't care we you know our party would absorb everything but things are slowing down we're not digesting that you know well so give yourself a break and buy the better stuff to isolate or there is there's even the hydrolysate stuff that's even more refined but I've I've found that isolate is good enough it's not that much more expensive and man you just have less uh digestive issues um I'll see lean muscle being put on better and easier so that's that's a big one um to for a lot of my clients I put them on yeah so so are you a big fan of less but better quality with everything pretty much yeah and food yeah and then obviously you know let's try to not do the processed foods you know to teach them that whole routine if you can grow it or find it those are better options um better cleaner meats if you can afford it um you know get organic and and drink better water and you know if you have a home vax system get a better HEPA filter that'll filter out all the stuff you know just you go through those things and what will people are willing to pay and plus there's a cost to it but another cool trick I I tell people is like well if you don't want to go full organic and neither do I because I don't want to spend it's like an extra it's an expensive way to live yeah it's it's like an extra 250 300 bucks a month on grocery bills I've I've discovered because I used to do sprouts for like you know four months straight and then went back to Albertson's. So another trick I found is uh every year if you go type in dirty dozen on the Google this uh environmental agency takes all these different food products mostly uh fruits vegetables and but then they do some meats as well but mostly fruits and vegetables and they'll just show you which ones have like the most pesticides and all these processed things that they they test for and it changes every year because farmers change their stuff and all that um I'm not sure if it they have one for the UK or not. I think for us maybe they maybe they have to have something but at least uh we'll probably have we'll probably have something in the UK. Yeah so I would type in Google like dirty dozen UK or wherever you're wherever you're listening um and then you'll just find like for me uh the worst ones were strawberries spinach and I can't remember the third one straw strawberries are is I mean remember strawberry is is always up there yeah I think it's always been there on every year so so every week I go to sprouts and I only buy those three things then I go to Albertson's get the rest of my stuff so at least you're taking out the most potent bad stuff um and and just kind of running your system that way so at least you're at least you're trying and there's another you know the bucket of diet and you know trying to go organic clean at least you put a little bit more in the that bucket than you were before.

Peter 41:56

Yeah because it's interesting the dirty dozen and I will link to this um by the way because there are several dirty dozen lists and the UK one is indeed a slightly different from the uh from the from the US one uh strawberry spinach kale and colored kale colored and mustard greens but nobody wants to eat kale anyway so I think that trend is died now isn't it we're not eating kale anymore um in the UK apples are always at the top of the list wow i don't think i've seen it on ours for apples uh no it doesn't appear on your list but but it's it's it's up on ours i think that's that's kind of how they grow it just depends how they grow apples here you know we have different climates you know we don't get any sunshine here for large large parts where you're so you're an orange county so you can paint you know you're golden with regards to that sort of stuff um and that's that's the thing so you you're you're an orange county you have sunshine there so most of your fruit is significantly better quality than than the fruit in our uh in our country simply because you get sunshine that means you can pick the fruit later on you because you don't have to export that you don't have to import fruit from miles and miles and miles away because most of our strawberries aren't even grown in the UK we don't get sunshine enough sunshine to grow real strawberries you can do them in greenhouses but then you run into that dirty dozen problem um and then you run into another problem and I'm I'm just wondering how how you tackle this um if we want strawberries we have to get them for France which is pretty much the nearest one South American countries I think we import some for South American countries so you can imagine you know by the time it comes us from Chile that's one old strawberry right that is not a fruit strawberry by any stretch of the imagination so how how do you deal with do you recommend people especially again especially Over 40s, you buy local, you buy fresh, or you're like, dude, you just do the best you can. It's all good.

Brad 44:06

Yeah, mine is kind of do the best you can if they want to get into that, you know, more power to them. But that's why, you know, at least looking at the dirty dozen, if you if you want to at least make a step in that direction before going full farmer's market and all that, like I don't want to go to our farmer's market on the weekend and all that stuff. No, it's too much work for me. Yeah. So, you know, I kind of stick with that dirty dozen, and then the rest is just down the street grocery store and you know, pick the best stuff I can. Um, and you know, that's all you can do. Just you know, a lot a lot of this stuff is you know processed by your liver, and that's that's a big contributor to slowing down your metabolism. It's just all this stress you put on it, you know, not drinking the cleanest water, not breathing the best air, you know, your social life's not helping.

Peter 44:53

Yeah, alcohol is a bugger, people.

Brad 44:55

Yeah, and then your food, and your food, like all this dirty processed stuff. So, you know, this is the most you can do to help it out, and you'll start seeing some results. And you know, all the stuff we're talking about, it's like, man, that's a lot of stuff to go through. Well, we don't expect the client to you know do this all on day one. We just pick one bucket, let's fix it for a couple weeks, let's and make it make sure we build these habits slowly so they don't seem like a big ordeal because now it's just part of your routine. Then we work on the next bucket and start working some of that, and you know, and by the end, it's just your your life is you know, and then for certain things you didn't want to give up, we don't give up, you know. You're the you're the boss of yourself and your health.

Peter 45:33

Um yeah, and then that's a big thing, isn't it? At the end of the day, you are completely in control of of of what you're willing to do. And I think I think the the the bucket approach is is is a is a is a clever one because it allows you to say, okay, we're not touching that one. If you're nine, uh did you say nine nine buckets or so? Yeah, or so so that's a lot, right? So and if if they're all about even in in their impact, and some will be more important, uh sleep for me is always you know top of the that, so to speak, is a bigger bucket than than almost anything else for me. Um but if you can address everyone a little bit, you're still going to get results because you're only missing out with nine buckets, you're only missing out 11%.

Speaker 1 46:22

Yeah, right.

Peter 46:22

If you do everything a little bit on the other ones, then fine, you can leave your diet being relatively uh or not as great as it potentially be. Let me put it that way. If you have an atrocious diet, you're buggered anyways, right? Because then yeah, if your diet really sucks, your sleep will suck as well. But it it just will, you're not gonna sleep well if you're hyped up on sugar all the time.

Brad 46:44

Yep. And you know what most people coming in that require, you know, personal training assistance, you know, they've had enough, and that's why they can reach out to us. They're like maybe doing two of the buckets okay, and the rest are just so low, it's unreal. So that's it's so fun to see them at least putting a little bit in, you know, spreading it out on everything, and then seeing the results happen so much faster than back in the day when I was first starting out personal training. All I worried about was we just got to beat you up and you know, build that muscle. That's it. Oh, it's just so much extra work and not much results, and the client would fight you back. And you know, when you when you have more options and it synergistically works better for them, you know, as they get healthier and healthier, you might actually get that one they didn't want to give up because oh man, I'm doing so good. I want to get to that next level. Yes, finally, we got to work on the diet.

Peter 47:35

So, yeah, no, and that's true. I've had one client for the best part of eight years now. Um, I trained the whole family, and uh, I trained his wife as well. And now, finally, after eight years, he's almost come to accept that maybe some form of stretching might be essential for him. Everything else, not really a problem. Of course, he's not gonna give up alcohol, he's Scottish and and the British people don't give up alcohol during certain seasons. He'll have a clean month, but then you know, rugby's back and all this we're in trouble. Um so that's how it won't really stick. But he's already changed it a lot compared to other other people. But it can take a while before you reach that final thing, but it's it's it's usually a process of of improvement. And I think the nice thing is once you're past your 40s, you you shouldn't hopefully you shouldn't be in a rush anymore to get all the results you want now.

Brad 48:36

Yeah, but um, you shouldn't be able to and that's the thing, too, is you know, people think they have to do this all all this month, you know, they get the news resolutions crowd in January.

Sustainable Progress Over Quick Fixes

Brad 48:46

Like, that's just the wrong approach. Like, do this slowly, you know, we'll build these things slowly. It may take a year, you know, but that's fine. But you got to tell them how do you envision yourself, you know, every year, every five years, every decade of what of what you realistically want to be at that time, and you know, start getting them to you know foresee a little bit farther in the future and be like, oh, okay, you know, that's I eventually want to be more healthy, this and that. And uh, it's okay that you know, you have plenty left in your life. Humans are reaching to a hundred. And I I think our generation is definitely gonna hit a hundred, like a lot. Um, and so there's just there's just plenty of time to do everything. You don't have to kill yourself at your job. There's plenty of time to learn and do new things, and same with your body.

Peter 49:34

Yeah, and and that that is that's an interesting point where you most personal trainers that I know, most decent ones, at least have people fill in a goals form, right? They say, you know, what are your goals and when do you want to achieve and buy? And then we come out with a little smart goal and all that sort of stuff, all that sort of stuff. They're very rarely are they long-term goals. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's because a lot of people, and this this this might be for I have some physios and pts that that that are listen to this thing. We tend to be scared of telling people this will take a while because we're afraid they won't buy our product. Right? The health and fitness industry is very much especially the the the fitness industry, the the gyms and all that sort of stuff, they are very big on the you will get results in three weeks. Yeah, because you will feel better in three weeks, right? That that is that's a given. If you start exercising and eating well and sleeping well, you feel phenomenal three weeks later, and then another two months later you'll see results and all that sort of everybody knows the spiel because we can get people to sign up for three months. We can get people to sign up for five years, even though realistically, after three months, a lot of those people that are seeing some results have realized they have given up so much for that three-month period that it's not sustainable anymore. They they can't stick to that. And if you if you told me, right, and I'm a PT, I do this stuff for a living, but if you told me, Pete, you need to hit the gym for five hours a week and you need to eat clean for the entire time to get the results you want, I can do that for maybe, maybe two months. And after that, I will lose my mind, and then I'll go back to my old habits, which in my case are perfectly reasonable. My habits are not not terrible, they don't need me to load gain loads of weight and all that sort of stuff. And most people, I find, don't have habits that let them gain loads of weight in a fast period of time. Very few people come to me at 380, 400 pounds and say, Oh Pete, I don't know what happened the last three months and just ballooned from 118 to 400. Yeah, right? It's always slowly, slowly catching monkey. So we don't have to make big changes to undo the we don't have to make big changes to undo the little things that are not working for us because it's quite often not the big things that are going wrong for us.

Brad 52:14

Yeah. You know that the whole marketing scheme of you know, six weeks or three months, you'll have everything, and you know, you know, for me, I just got clever, and you know, I'm not I'm not promising you're gonna lose all this weight, but what I'm promising in three months or six weeks, you will learn everything I know to sustain yourself for the next 10, 20, 30 years. That's so that's kind of the pitch that I sell. So, you know, and it's true. They're like, my my goal is to make sure that they know what I've known for the you know, that I've took me a long time to learn in the last 14 years I've been in this business, and I have no problem giving it to them, you know, over the course of however many months. I want them to know everything I know. Um, and then the the reason, the the lure of staying is well, you know, motivation, accountability, um, anything I learn from now till later, you're gonna miss out on unless you stay with us. So that's kind of the the the the hook to keep them with you. But you know, my thing is not to to slow play it where they have to have me forever, you know. If you're good at your job, people just come find you.

Peter 53:16

Yeah, and uh I I find a lot again, mainly aimed at personal change rather than uh rather than saying combo listeners. I find that I get a lot of recurring clients. So people that do, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 sessions with me, and then they're done. And a year or two down the line will fill me up again. Hey Pete, you might have to do some more sessions with you. And not because they've undone all the good work we've done or anything like that, but just because they're like, yeah, I'm Pete. I signed up with him for 10 or 20 sessions, and I felt I could do this for six months or a year or whatever. I didn't need them anymore, at least, right? So I don't need to have that extra expense, and I could spend that on more fun things than PT. Because let's be honest, you know, personal training most people don't necessarily enjoy exercise at that level um uh at that intensity. Uh but they trust me because I didn't take the the pace, so to speak, for three months and string them along. Come on, if you buy another 10, we'll do X, Y, Z. No, it's like you said a good PT like yourself, especially with with your podcast and all that sort of stuff. Because what are you now on on episode 300 something? You're you're about a hundred ahead of me. I know. I think I'm 315. Yeah, so 315. I mean, that's a phenomenal amount of information out there that that you then put out and people that you talk to and all that sort of stuff. The biggest thing a good PT can do for me is be a good educator of of their clients, yeah, and to just go, dude, I have all this knowledge that I'm willing to share with you so that you can make good choices. It's like right to use the parenting analogy, it's like raising children. It's that my job is to have you have the option of making good choices. I'm not gonna slap a dessert out of your mouth. When you're in a restaurant, you know the white fish is going to be lower calories than the beef bog and your eyes. If you choose the beef, that's completely fine, but you're making the dis an informed decision as to how one will impact your goals. Um and as long as you've shared all that knowledge, and like you said, if you're episode 315 or something like that, into you can safely say you're throwing all this information out there at people, and that is exactly what a good trainer is kind of supposed to do.

Brad 55:42

Yeah. You know, my my my passion is still, you know, learning new things, which is why I love podcasting because I talk to people all across the world, not just in my little Orange County bubble. So, you know, just the time I've done this for the last three years has been so fulfilling. Learning new styles, techniques, and you know, not everything works for everybody, and not everyone's dip uh the same. You know, all our chemistry is similar, but it's not the same. We have different genetics, different digestive, uh, different foods from different areas around the world that have different nutrients. It's not all the same. So, you know, you gotta stay on top of this kind of stuff. And that's what you know, why I I still love diving deep and talking to all these different people, just to keep educated. And you know, I feel like that's that's my what I my purpose is is to to to keep going in this journey, and then others that need help will they'll they'll come to me.

Peter 56:36

You know, it's kind of my flock, and uh yeah, just my niche. Exactly. No, that's so that's it. So cool.

Top Three Tips For Over 40

Peter 56:43

So where can people find obviously, like I said, we have the overfitness fitness, over 40 fitness hacks. Most where else can they find you, Brad?

Brad 56:51

Yeah, so the over 40 fitness hacks podcast, it's uh spelled 4-0 not spelled out, and uh with the website, same thing, over40fitnesshacks.com, and it's 4-0 not spelled out. It's just the best way to you know on your favorite podcast, player, check it out, or uh reach out to me on my website. I've got all my contact info on there.

Peter 57:12

Oh, happy days. I'm not happy to actually have to ask. Top three tips for anyone over 40 thinking of getting back into this stuff because let's be honest, a lot of over 40 people are like, I used to be fat, I don't exercise anymore. What are the top three things that you do with uh with people like that?

Brad 57:32

Yeah, so top three tips is uh look at intermittent fasting, crunching down your eating window as tight as you can, that feels okay, and do it slowly. You can't just go right to a four-hour eating window crazy fast. Uh, number two is you really gotta get a better quality of protein and really start, you know, just Google a calculation for how much you should be having for your body type and weight. And it is so hard to get it, and no one is hitting it. You know, female clients, especially, are kind of the worst that are far off from hitting that marker. And as soon as you bump that number up, I promise you within a couple weeks you'll start seeing the changes. And then the third one, uh, we didn't talk too much about it, but you know, besides checking out your macros, check out your micros, like just RDA. You know, how what am I supposed to have with all of my vitamins and minerals and potassium, magnesium, that kind of stuff. And a cool website to go to is called eatthhismuch.com. And you can literally go on there, type any type of food there is, and either in raw form or cooked form, and the minerals change. So make yourself like a little grid of what you discovered on your RD RDAs for Google and just see where you're deficient in. And I promise you, most people are deficient in magnesium and potassium big time, at least here in the US. I don't know about the UK. And uh, you know, just start looking at it, check with your doctor and and look for ways of getting better quality foods that meet what you're missing to fill in those gaps. And a big thing is because you you know you push your potassium up and your sodium down, people will lose like four or five pounds of water weight just just by making that switch. Because usually pretty much everyone across the world is consuming too much sodium.

Peter 59:16

Well, yeah, yeah. Salt, salt is a real, real problem, especially in the West. It it's yeah, it's it's one of those, it's one of those things. Cool, I'll link to eat this much, I'll have a look at it and link to eat this much and all that sort of stuff. Thanks very much for that. On that happy note, I will press stop record here. Is exactly what I did.

Closing And How To Reach Peter

Peter 59:37

Thanks very much to Brand for coming on. Like I said, check out his over 40 fitness hacks podcast. Um, I had a great time talking to him. I I'm also I also did an interview with him for his podcast. So if you want to waffle, uh want to listen to me waffle on even more than I usually do on this thing. You know, you don't just have to listen, uh listen to this podcast, you can also listen to his. Uh no idea when it comes out yet. Um anyways, thanks very much to Brad for coming on. That's the hour just up. I'm not going to do an in the news this week because I'm drowning in work. We are catching up with all the transcripts for um for the podcast episodes, and that means we're also catching up with all the YouTube stuff. So it's a little bit crazy. I'm still working on the translations, by the way. That all went remarkably wrong. So just in case you think I've forgotten about all that sort of stuff that I mentioned I was working on last year. No, we're still on that. It's just a bit messier than we thought it was going to be. Peter at healthy postnatalbody.com. If you have any questions or comments or would like to make to touch on certain subjects, I'll always find an expert guest for you to listen to for me to have a conversation with and ask some of the questions that you want to answer. Right? New bit of music, have a great week, and I'll see you in the May.

Speaker 3 1:00:56

Bye.

Speaker 1:01:24

One,

Outro Music

Speaker 1:01:25

two, one, two, need my attitude. Three, four, three, four, check my latitude. Top that's a winning zoo. Drop more like that. Just want the man of the knees. I'm gonna look at my hole. Let's try and find up the name. I'm gonna do the hole, I'm gonna do some mana like if you want to slide you. Give me a give me a gimmick, give me a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit. If you want it, let's take it, you could come.