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Intro

Hello and welcome to the Over 50 Health & Wellness podcast.  I’m your host Kevin English – I’m a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach and my mission to help you get into the best shape of your life – regardless of your age – so that you can show up in life as the healthiest, strongest, most vital version of yourself.  I want to let you know that if you enjoy this podcast, I have additional free resources over at www.silveredgefree.com.  There you’ll find my mini guides on nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle.  So feel free to head over there, scroll through the guides, and download anything that looks helpful to you.  Today we have another edition of the Coaches Corner – so no guest today – it’s just me, and we’ll be back next week with our regular interview format.

 

Here’s what we’re covering in today’s episode.  I start off talking about my new Holiday Accountability offer that I’m launching today, and then I share a couple of news stories I read this week that I found interesting.  Next I discuss what’s more important for weight loss – how much you eat versus what you eat (believe it or not there’s actually a war being waged on social media over this right now).  Then I discuss the role of supplementation for folks over 50, including my current supplementation routine, and I wrap up by sharing my thoughts on why I’m so passionate about fitness.

 

Holiday Accountability Offer

OK folks, I’m really excited about this.  I’ve decided to launch a holiday accountability group.  What is a holiday accountability group you ask?  Great question!  This is a program that will run from November first through December 31 and is designed to help us get through the holidays in a sane and balanced manner.  The holidays are a tricky time for many of us.  They are often emotionally charged, and there are usually tons of opportunities to overeat and over-drink.  So the idea of this program is to create a support community where we help hold each other accountable and can have honest dialogue about our struggles and our wins.  And I’ll be with you every step of the way to support you with my best tips for staying on track and healthy during these festive times.

 

So here’s what you get if your decide to join.

1.      Individual nutrition plan that is specific to you and your goals.  This isn’t a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all diet plan, but rather a personalized nutrition plan that will give you guidance on what and how much you should eat daily, based on your specific goals (for many of us that will be weight maintenance, but could be weight loss or muscle building).

2.      Membership in a private Facebook community.  This is where we’ll meet and support one another.  Along the way I’ll give my best tips on living a balanced, sane, healthy lifestyle during these two months.  We’ll talk about strategies for maintaining nutrition, exercise tips, as well as stress control strategies.

3.      Live weekly support calls. Each week we’ll have a live Zoom call where we can get together, ask questions, share challenges, and create a sense of community.  If you can’t attend any of the calls, we’ll record them and make them available to view on demand.

 

If this sounds like something you’re interested in, here’s the deal.  The cost is… nothing.  Zero, zip, nada, completely 100% free no strings attached.  All you need to do to enroll is send me an email at [email protected] saying you’re in, and that’s it.  You’ll get a confirmation email back from me with a short questionnaire (so I can prepare your nutrition plan), and I’ll get you enrolled.  Depending on interest in this program I may need to cap the enrollment, so if you feel like this would be a helpful program for you, I’d encourage you to sign up now.  Again, just send an email to [email protected] letting me know that you want in.

 

But why free?  Full transparency - here’s the deal.  I want to run these types of programs and offers in the future, and I want to charge for them.  But I’ve never run a private Facebook group, so you folks will be my pilot group.  I’ll get practice running this type of program, and you’ll get some guidance and support along the way with absolutely no cost.

 

It’s already October and the holidays will be here before you know it.  Now is the time to start planning your strategy for how you’re going to negotiate all those parties, family gatherings, pies, cookies, and eggnog.

 

News

This was sent to me by a podcast listener and I absolutely loved this story.  The headline reads “At 101, she’s still hauling lobsters with no plans to stop,” and the story highlights 101 year old Virginia Oliver who has spent her entire life lobstering off the coast of Maine.  When she started lobstering at age eight, World War Two was still more than ten years in the future.  Today she still tends her lobster traps along with her 78 year old son.  I’ll drop a link to the article in the show notes which you can find at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode78

https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-oddities-maine-61b5c7bd559a5636e840c206cb990a32

 

Here’s another link that came across my newsfeed last week.  This is from the folks over at Eat This Not That, and the article is titled Over 60? Never Do These Exercises, Says Trainer.  I wanted to talk about this one because these kinds of headlines drive me crazy.  The idea that there are exercises that people over a certain age shouldn’t do is – in my humble opinion – complete BS.  Now this particular article wasn’t too offensive.  They’re quoting a trainer who’s making a case that people over 60 are losing muscle fast and that their joints are not what they used to be, and that older folks should train with, “bodyweight and lighter, more manageable weights.”  And she’s probably correct about most people over 60 losing muscle and mobility, but it’s my mission to reverse – or at least – arrest that!

 

So what exactly are these exercises that those of us over 60 should never do?  The first is the Behind-the-Neck Pulldown, and I think I could probably make a good case that nobody needs to do this exercise, regardless of their age.  Her second prohibited movement is the Barbell Overhead Press, and this is where I start to take issue.  She makes the case that us old farts simply lack the mobility in our upper backs and shoulders, which will cause us to overcompensate by arching our lower backs.  She’s absolutely right that if we lack overhead mobility which causes us to arch our backs overhead that we need to not do that.  But I would argue that a better strategy might be to see if we can address the upper back/should mobility and get our 60-something lifter capable of pressing overhead.  That way when said 60 year old travels on a plane, he or she is perfectly capable of putting their suitcase in the overhead compartment.  Now it is a reality that some older people are too far gone to completely rehabilitate overhead pressing, but for everyone else I’d try to restore this very natural movement.

 

Her third and final do-not-do-this lift are shrugs, with her argument being that most people over 60 are very upper trap dominant but lack strength in the upper back and mid-to-low traps, and shrugs would exaggerate this imbalance.  OK, I can live with that.  Shrugs are purely an accessory exercise, and if you’re not a bodybuilder, I suppose you could live without them.  But if you’re over 60 and you want your upper traps to really pop, properly performed shrugs would be a great exercise for you.

 

The trainer then goes on to suggest two exercises that people over 60 should be doing and those are the Suitcase Deadlift (which is deadlifting two kettlebells) and the Turkish Get-up.  I have to say I’m a huge fan of both movements.  Deadlifts in all of their variations are fantastic exercises, and who doesn’t love a Turkish Getup?

 

OK, so I admit I was triggered when I read the headline, and that’s what caused me to click into the story (which was probably the desired response from the Marketing folks over at Eat This Not That), and this one wasn’t so bad.  But my feeling is that there are no movements you can’t or shouldn’t do over a certain age, rather let your fitness level and mobility be your guide.  And if there are movements that you can’t do, explore ways to shore up your weaknesses and try not to surrender to the prevailing notion that you’ll just naturally lose basic functional movement as you age.  If you’re interested in reading this article, I’ll drop it into the show notes.

Over 60? Never Do These Exercises, Says Trainer | Eat This Not That

 

Here’s another great article sent to me by a podcast listener, it’s from NPR and is titled “Weight Training Isn't Such A Heavy Lift. Here Are 7 Reasons Why You Should Try It.”  The article states that it “Turns out there are loads of good reasons to add weight training to your regime or maybe even switch to it as a mid-pandemic fitness goal: improved movement control, better cognitive abilities, enhanced cardiovascular health, better bone development, reduction in chronic pain — and just plain old feeling better.”

 

The article goes on to dispel seven myths, which are as follows:

 

MYTH #1: Weightlifting will make you Arnold Schwarzenegger huge!

Reality: Regular weight training can help you build lean muscle mass.

 

MYTH #2: Weight training won't help you lose weight.

Reality: It's actually an excellent way to lose the flab.

 

MYTH #3: You have to start when you're young.

Reality: Heck no! You can start at any age.

 

MYTH #4: You need fancy equipment and clothes.

Reality: You can find cheap or free choices, and shoes are optional!

 

MYTH #5: You need an expensive trainer.

Reality: You do need some expert guidance to get started, but you can often find cheap or free help.

 

MYTH #6: Weight training is all about results you see — i.e., looking buff.

Reality: It can help with your overall health and fend off chronic illness.

 

MYTH #7: Weight training is all about the body.

Reality: It can give a mental health boost, too, experts say.

 

Anyways, I love this article, it seems like the benefits of strength training are going mainstream!  Again, I’ll drop a link to the article into the show notes if you’d like to read more.  Also, if you see something fitness related in the news or have a subject you’d like me to discuss, please send it to [email protected].

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/26/1040577137/how-to-weight-training-getting-started-tips

 

How Much You Eat vs. What/When You Eat

In the last edition of the Coach’s Corner I addressed the question of which is better for weight loss – cardio or strength training.  This week I want to talk about another controversy, and that’s which is more important for weight loss – how much you eat or what you eat.  Perhaps you’re unaware, but there’s a war being waged in the nutrition space right now over this topic.  On one side you have folks claiming that the only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit, that is to consistently eat fewer calories than we expend.  On the other hand, you have a new group saying not so fast… the only way to lose weight is to alter what – and when – you eat.  This argument typically centers around carbohydrates and insulin.  This is often referred to as the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity and argues that eating processed -especially ultra-processed carbohydrates – causes blood sugar to increase, which causes insulin to be released.  So far so good, that’s how our bodies are supposed to react to simple carbohydrates.  The problem arises when we eat too many of these processed foods too often.  When we are constantly spiking our blood sugar – and releasing insulin in response – we develop insulin resistance with leads to all sorts of nasty things including excess fat storage which eventually leads to obesity.

 

In the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity the idea is to limit how much and how often you eat carbohydrates, especially processed and ultra-processed foods and drinks.  And certainly this makes sense – swapping out nutritionally barren processed foods for nutrient dense healthy whole foods is a much healthier nutritional strategy.  Studies show that 70% of the typical American’s diet is made up of processed and ultra-processed foods.  And consistently eating these foods leads to very poor health outcomes.

 

Now when I say there’s a war going on between these two camps, I mean there are very smart people on both side of this argument who feel very strongly about this, and in fact there are some epic posts on social media with proponents of each side going at each other.  The calorie deficit camp claims that the only way the Carbohydrate-insulin model works is if it results in the dieter eating fewer calories than they expend on a consistent basis.  And the carbohydrate-insulin camp claiming that if you simply eat fewer carbohydrates less frequently, you don’t need to worry about the actual amount you’re eating.

 

But here’s my take on this – why can’t both sides be correct?  Very few things in the nutrition space are clear-cut black or white.  Nutrition is nuanced and complicated, but I’m of the opinion that both of these camps have merit and are valuable contributors to obtaining – and maintaining – a heathy body composition.  In fact, one of the first things I do with my nutrition clients is look at what they eat and tweak that first.  And this almost always results in me upping their protein – often considerably – which means they are eating less carbs.  In other words, I spend more time – especially early on – concentrating on WHAT they eat as opposed to how much they eat.  But don’t get me wrong, I also give them a daily total calorie goal to aim for as well.  And as these clients start to eat more healthy protein and fats, and start cutting out some of their processed foods, they start feeling fuller on fewer calories, their overall health and energy improves, and they begin to lose weight.  And when we combine this holistic nutritional strategy with strength training, true magic begins to happen.

 

If you’re interested in learning more about the calorie-insulin model of obesity and some practical tips for implementing a low insulin lifestyle, I interviewed Dr. Morgan Nolte a while back, and you can listen to that episode wherever you get podcasts or at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode61.  She’s definitely in the “eat less exercise more doesn’t work” camp and makes a compelling case for why we should care more about what and when we eat for long term sustainable weight loss.

 

My Current Supplements

I get asked about supplements fairly often, and people often ask me what supplements I personally take.  Here’s my take on supplements – they are exactly whet they sound like – supplemental to a healthy diet and lifestyle.  In other words, you should get most – ideally all – of your nutrients from real whole foods, and only supplement where absolutely necessary.  And the best way to know what’s necessary is to get regular blood panels to see where you might be deficient.

 

Some of the most common supplements for those of us over 50 include: Multi-vitamins, Fish Oil, Fiber, Vitamin D, Calcium, and B12.  Often times people take these supplements on very vague and general recommendations, there are plenty of well-meaning lists online that state seniors should take these supplements simply due to their age.  But my strong recommendation is to get as many vitamins and minerals as possible through whole foods and natural sources, and only supplement when that isn’t feasible.  For example, let’s consider the above list of supplements and see where we could shore up our nutrition to help avoid supplementation.

 

·        Multi-vitamins – simply eating a varied diet of primarily whole foods, including plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and healthy protein should cover most – if not all – of our needs.

·        Fish Oil – we take fish oil for the healthy Omega-3 fatty acids, and this can be found in oily fish like salmon, mackerel, anchovies and sardines, as well as oysters.  Not a fish fan?  Skip the middleman and eat algae – specifically spirulina and chlorella.

·        Fiber – your best bet is to skip the Metamucil and load up on berries, apples, whole grains, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, beans, lentils, etc.

·        Vitamin D – vitamin D is found naturally in a few foods such as fatty fish, liver, cheese, and egg yolks.  But our best bet for getting adequate Vitamin D is healthy sun exposure.

·        Calcium – Calcium is best known in dairy products like milk, cheese, and yogurt, but also occurs in foods such as seafood, dark leafy greens, and some seeds and nuts.

·        B12 – we get B12 almost exclusively through meat and eggs, so your best bet here is to eat high quality grass fed and finished meats where possible.  Vegetarians and vegans will normally need to supplement B12.

 

Here’s one reason why getting your vitamins and minerals from whole foods is superior to supplements.  Consider this, where in nature would we ever find any vitamin in isolation?  Let’s use Vitamin C as an example, this is one of the most common vitamin supplements on the market.  The only way to get Vitamin C naturally is via whole foods.  Let’s consider the orange, one of the most popular sources of vitamin C.  When we eat an orange of course we don’t only get Vitamin C, but also B1, B9, potassium, as well as various flavonoids and carotenoids, and even fiber.  And this of course isn’t an exhaustive list of all the compounds found in the humble orange.  But our bodies and these foods have evolved alongside each other for a very long time, and as advanced as our science is we simply cannot mimic the complexity of whole foods in an affordable easy-to-swallow pill or potion yet.  The vitamin C in the orange is going to be absorbed better and more completely than if we simply take the supplement without this other vast cast of helpful characters.

 

All that being said, there is a time and place for supplements.  As mentioned above, you may have a medical need for supplementation or perhaps you’re on a restrictive diet.  But another good reason is convenience.  Many of us - myself included – take protein powder for example.  I’ve certainly taken my share of supplements in my lifetime, but here’s what I’m currently supplementing with today – protein powder, creatine, and algae.  That’s it.  The protein powder I’m currently using is Muscle Feast’s Whey Protein Isolate.  I like this because it’s from pasture raised and 100% grass fed, and only has four ingredients: whey protein isolate, cocoa, sunflower lecithin, and stevia.

 

Next up is creatine.  Creatine is a substance found naturally in muscle cells and its function is to help muscles produce energy especially during short intense bursts of exercise.  The creatine I use is just plain old generic creatine monohydrate from a company called Bulk Supplements.

 

The last supplement I’m currently taking isn’t really a supplement at all, but rather a food.  But since it comes in a tablet or powder form and is usually found in the supplement aisle in health food stores, I’ll include it here.  And that’s algae, specifically spirulina and chlorella.  These two algae forms are the most nutrient dense substances on the planet.  In fact, one gram of spirulina or chlorella has the same nutrient value of 1,000 grams of fruits and vegetables.  It contains over 40 vitamins and minerals and has the highest chlorophyll content of any other food – over 1,000 times the amount found in most greens powders.  I personally eat spirulina every morning and chlorella every evening and is really the replacement for most other supplements.

 

I’ve talked about this on this podcast before, but I’m not a big fan of vegetables.  I’ve used various greens powders in the past - I really liked the Organifi Green juice – but as a nutrition coach I’m constantly asking my clients to eat their veggies, and I try my best to eat a wide variety of vegetables myself, but algae is my hedge against me not getting all the phytonutrients I need from vegetables.  So in my mind the daily algae takes the place of a multi vitamin, the fish oil (where do you think that fish is getting all those healthy Omega-3 fatty acids?), and the greens powder.  I personally get all my spirulina and chlorella from a company called Energy Bits, they produce the world’s cleanest and purest algae available on the market.  Unfortunately, not all algae is created equal.  If you’d like to learn more about the health benefits of algae, I interviewed the CEO and Chief Science Officer of Energy Bits a while back.  She does a deep dive into the nutritional properties of algae, as does a great job of explaining why high-quality algae is so darn expensive.  You can listen to that episode wherever you get podcasts or at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode59.  You can also learn more and shop for algae over at www.energybits.com, and you can use the coupon code “silveredge” at checkout for a 20% savings.

 

Why I’m passionate about fitness over 50

OK, I want to wrap up with a brief discussion on why I’m so passionate about fitness over 50.  Somewhere in my late forties I became very unhealthy.  I spent close to a decade dedicated to endurance sports – primarily marathons and triathlons.  But I burnt out on that, I grew weary of the monotony of running and biking all the time, as well as the nagging repetitive-use injuries that were piling up.  So I just stopped.  Cold Turkey.  And at the time I knew next to nothing about nutrition – I suppose I ate the typical standard American diet with a heavy emphasis on carbs.  And I continued to eat this way after I stopped exercising.  I was thin – very thin – from all the swimming, biking, and running, but now I was gaining a good bit of weight, primarily around my midsection.  I was what you would call skinny-fat, very little muscle, and a good amount of visceral fat.  Not surprisingly my health took a turn for the worse which ended with a two-day hospital visit because I thought I was having a heart attack.  I wasn’t – I was just very metabolically unhealthy.  I was just doing everything wrong – I was sedentary, ate like crap – which is to say primarily processed and ultra-processed foods, I drank daily, slept poorly, and I had problems managing my stress.

 

But what really scared me the most – even more than a couple days in the hospital – was my testosterone tanking.  My libido had been wanning, and one day I experienced erectile disfunction.  I was horrified and embarrassed.  I was in my mid-forties and I wasn’t ready for a beer belly, Viagra, and a slow decline into ill health and old age.  I’ve written about this painful time in my life and how I eventually overcame this, and I’ll drop a note to that blog post in the show notes (readers can find it HERE), but suffice it to say that the fire was lit under me to clean up my act.  Without any real direction I started to clean up my diet (I had salad once or twice a week to start with) and joined a globo-gym.  And I started to research – I devoured everything I could find on optimal nutrition and workouts.  I waded through tons of garbage on the internet to find the hidden gems, and slowly but surely my health turned around.  Until suddenly I found myself in my mid-fifties as strong, fit, healthy, and vital as I’ve ever been in my life.  And I felt fantastic, almost super-human.  I found such joy in what my body was capable of, and my energy levels and libido were at all-time highs.

 

The magic happened when I tied nutrition, exercise, and recovery all together into a holistic program.  I focused on strength training with some short intense interval conditioning, I ate primarily whole foods with an emphasis on quality protein, and I worked diligently on improving my sleep and controlling my stress levels.  And these simple steps worked magic in my life.  It didn’t happen overnight, and there was a lot of trial and error and missteps along the way, but I stuck with it and I’m so happy I did – it was literally a life transforming experience.

 

So that’s why I’m so passionate about fitness.  I want to share this with as many people as I possibly can.  I want to help change the common narrative that it’s all downhill after 50, or that poor health and weakness are inevitable as we age.  I want to shine a light on people who are defying that narrative, and to educate and inspire those who aren’t sure where to start.

 

So if you are stuck and don’t know where to start, reach out to me.  I’d love to start a conversation.  If I can help you in any way I will – feel free to email me at [email protected].

 

OK, that’s our show for today folks – I’ll put links to everything we talked about in the show notes and you can find that over at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode78, and don’t forget to check out www.silveredgefree.com for more great free resources on how to live you healthiest, strongest life after 50.  In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you.  You can always leave a comment on this episode page, or feel free to email me with any comments or questions from today’s show.  Send emails to [email protected].  I want to thank you so much for spending your time with me today.  I’ll be back next week with my regular interview format.  That’s it for today, so until next time, stay strong!