Why your workout should change with each new decade | Gabby Reece & Dr. Federica Amati
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Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health. Do you ever look at old photos and think, "I should have felt happier with how I was. I wish I was still in such good shape." Perhaps today you feel powerless. You can't move like that anymore and more life responsibilities make it hard to fit in exercise every week. It's natural that as we age, many of us feel like peak physical form is a thing of the past.

But what if I told you that peak fitness need not be a fleeting memory? There are good reasons why you can achieve it at any stage of life. Today's guest is living proof. She's adapted her fitness routines at every life stage, from professional volleyball career to motherhood and now to thriving and exuding vibrant energy in her 50s. Her journey shows that peak fitness is about adapting to life's transitions. And importantly, it's also about knowledge. Knowledge you can only gather with age and experience.

In this episode, Gabby Reich shows us how to train like a lifelong athlete. Named one of the 20 most influential women in sports by Women's Sports & Fitness magazine, Gabby is a former professional volleyball player, Nike's first female spokesperson, a wife and a mother of three. She's joined by Dr. Federica Amati, Zoe's head nutritionist, a scientist at Imperial College London, and author of the bestselling book, Everybody Should Know This.

Together, they dive into the movement and nutrition strategies you need at each stage of life. You'll come away from this episode with practical tools to stay strong and show up for yourself, no matter what life throws your way. And if you're looking for ways to show up more consistently for your health, and I'm guessing you are as you're listening to this podcast, do check out Zoe's Personalized Nutrition Program. Because committing to a change is easier when the change feels exciting. And what's more exciting than eating more of the foods you love?

The ZOE app gives you a list of hundreds of delicious foods that are proven healthy to your unique biology. We take your unique ZOE test results. We combine them with our science to recommend the healthiest foods for you. Here at ZOE, we study the world's largest gut microbiome database. And our data shows that when you eat a greater variety of foods, your gut will take better care of you. That's why we believe in abundance through variety, not restriction. Doesn't that sound like a change that's easier to commit to?

Visit zoe.com to sign up for our personalized nutrition membership today. Speaking of variety, we also just released a plant-based supplement that packs 30 plants into one crunchy scoop. It's called Daily 30, and you can sprinkle it on any meal for a science-backed boost. Okay, let's get on with today's episode with Gabby Reese and Dr. Federica Amati.

Gabby, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. And Federica, thank you for joining me as well. Hi, Jonathan. So good to be here. So Federica knows this, but Gabby, we have a tradition here at Zoe where we always start with a quick fire round of questions from our listeners. And with these very strict rules, you can say yes or no, or if you have to, a one sentence answer. You ready for that? We got rules at the top of this interview. I like it. Let's go. Okay.

Gabby, can you only reach peak fitness when you're young? Peak fitness? No. You can continue older. Federica, should exercise stop in pregnancy? No. Do your fitness needs change with age? Yes. Gabby, is peak fitness something you can measure on a machine at the gym? No. Finally, you have a whole sentence, Gabby. What do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to lifelong fitness?

That it has to be really arduous and hard and miserable, that it's really about consistency and a good strategy that's changing and you don't have to be miserable the whole time. I love that because I basically spent my life feeling like exercise is misery, but I do it because it's supposed to be good for me. So I would like to come out by the end of this session being more convinced about that or how I could do that.

When we reached out to our listeners to say we were doing this podcast, we got a lot of listeners asking us about staying fit in their 50s and beyond. And Gabby, I know it's public, you're 54 years old, and you're continuing to dedicate your life to fitness. And that really started, I think, like 40 years ago or something as a professional volleyball player. So this has been a consistent period of time. And so while...

No one is ever going to believe that I have dedicated my life to fitness and I think many of our listeners won't have done. I think we're really interested to talk today about how to adapt your approach and your tips for managing to stay motivated even when eating cake might feel a lot more appealing than doing exercise.

And I'm pleased to say we have Federica here as well, who I hope is going to share the science behind how we can best adapt to these changing stages of our life. And I know that some of these tips come from your bestselling book, Everybody Should Know This.

I'd like to start, Gabby, if that's right, sort of at the beginning of your fitness journey and maybe sort of describe what the start of your athletic career was like. How old were you? What was the reality of your training? And maybe also what was the reality of your relationship with nutrition at that time?

I'll try to keep it really brief. One would call a late bloomer. I just was very tall. I'm 190 or 6'3", depending on where you live. I moved from the Virgin Islands to Florida, got into volleyball. My last two years of high school, ended up going to college on a scholarship. That's the only reason I would have gone to college. Very primary training, really basic, probably not very sophisticated, mostly time in the gym.

Later then became a professional athlete. My training got a little more layered. I moved to California, got input from trainers. The first time I had a real trainer, I was 22 and a professional athlete. But again, this was in 1992. So we know a lot more about functional movement versus squats and burpees, which was sort of more of my error. And we carbo-loaded, by the way.

So I will say that my training now is much more sophisticated, much smarter. That's how the gods work it out. You always get the good information as you get older. It's so true. And it's the truth for my nutrition. I can say that.

I never really thought that much about it. We were sort of eating egg whites and protein, but I certainly would eat pasta and bagels because we were taught that those were empty calories. We didn't realize that those were converted to glucose or sugar into your body and also didn't really maybe always help you recover. I will say that that part of my life, both lanes have really expanded and improved over

As I've gotten older. So I would say pretty basic. And actually, my training probably grinded down my body more so than I would say helped my performance.

And when you say grinded it down, what do you think? You know, people don't realize repetitive motion. You know this, you know, from any sport. I don't care what sport. Repetitive motion, doing something over and over and over. There's a give. Something's going to give. And unless you're training to balance that out, which I do now, you know, you'll have a knee, you'll have a back, you'll have something that gives. So I think that I didn't really start to look at that until I was in my 30s.

I have a son, he's almost 17, and he's really got into the gym in the last six months. I'm constantly saying, "Oh, be careful about that. You might hurt yourself." He doesn't hurt himself. He's fine. He puts on muscle overnight. I feel he could just sort of get away with things where I'm constantly worrying about whether I injure myself and I certainly don't make much progress. Well, the number one teacher is injury. I've learned everything through being hurt.

Because you're motivated. So I'm so grateful for those injuries because I think that you go, this isn't working. What can I do differently? Certainly when you're young, especially male, you just want to bulk up when you're a woman, you know, unless you're doing a sport, you want to be trim and, you know, have your butt look cute in jeans and you're...

It's just different than this idea of training for performance. So I was training to try to be able to last through a weekend of competition or to be explosive in the sand, but I didn't understand the things I really needed to do off the court that would have supported me doing that. Not only better, but not having all those motions kind of work against me in the long run. You know, sometimes when we talk about fitness, I think it's important. There's performance fitness, which in ways...

should be supportive of being better at your sport

and also help you recover and stay, avoid injury. Like you'll see tennis players now, they have prehab. They not only have rehab, they have prehab because they're smarter and they're just a little bit better in that story. However, I think people think they're going to get hurt, but if you have a real strategy and you're functionally moving, you're moving in ways that are really intelligent and on one foot and in all kinds of planes of motion, then

You really can do this a very long time at a pretty high level or even start later as long as you have a strategy. Federico, as you're listening to this, imagine someone in their 20s thinking about movement and nutrition. What does the science say today about what's most important?

Well, it's interesting, like Gabby mentioned, that if you do the same thing again and again and again, it does wear, especially your joints, like they suffer. And if you don't recover from that insult, as I would call it, then it doesn't help you. And it's interesting because with nutrition, we think about the same way. So in your 20s, you're very resilient. Your metabolism, your metabolic fitness is good. But if you're constantly challenging your metabolism throughout your 20s, then when you get to your 30s, you'll start to notice that actually that's not working anymore.

So I've never thought about sort of nutrition rehab in that way. But actually, when we think about, for instance, if you have a meal that doesn't support your health so much today, then actually what you do tomorrow is almost could be nutrition rehab, where actually you get everything back into shape and you nurture your body with foods that will help to recover from the metabolic challenge that perhaps wasn't an outburger because you're in LA, right? I'm sort of struck that you're...

describing sort of the start of your athletic career and probably the point where you push this really hard and you're saying, actually, in some ways, it was much less sophisticated than you are now. And part of that is just that...

it's the time so that people are just more sophisticated. We know more now, and part of it is probably also one's approach and attitude. You're describing the fact that there's nothing like injury to teach you, and those injuries tend to happen later in time. When do you consider that your fitness was at its peak across your athletic career?

There's like life fitness where you can do all the things you want to do and enjoy them or maybe take on a – say like I'm going to do a mini triathlon this weekend. So you have that kind of fitness. When you're doing sports, sometimes you have spent so many hours doing the sport.

that you're sort of trying to slide in your training. And is it before the season? Is it after the season? Is it during the season? But I see young people right now training so much smarter, even high school students, because people are really so much better at training than when I started. I will say that having separated the two, all of us are athletes. We have bodies. We use them

And it doesn't matter. Someone listening could be even older than I am and say, well, I'm not an athlete. We're all athletes. Our bodies are meant to move. And so in this beautiful way, there's this intersection of training that is beneficial for the athlete and beneficial for, let's just call it the householder or the everyday person.

where certain primary movements benefit us across the board and being able to move in these ways would help anyone. But you have to understand enough of it and not be afraid of it and be afraid to be bad at it, which I still am at this day and time. I do exercises that I'm not good at because I know that I'll adapt, I'll learn, I'll improve, and it will support me.

Well, I think it's clear that you've spent your whole life revolving around training, just listening to you. You're saying, "Even as I'm sitting down in the chair, I'm thinking about my training." I definitely don't think about that when I'm sitting down in the chair. I go, "Oh, chair." No one could describe me as an athlete, so I can't relate to that, but I definitely can relate to the idea that as you get older, your life starts to get overwhelmed with a lot of external responsibility.

And I know that today you're a mother of three, you've got a family and business and all these things that you're also combining with wanting to be healthy. And of course, we all get a year older every year. So I'd love to know, maybe starting this question about how did your relationship with fitness change sort of...

From the point of becoming pregnant and during motherhood. So I went into pregnancy pretty fit. I always tell people, listen, if you find out you get pregnant, that's not the time to go, hey, I'm going to get in the shape of my life. However, you can sort of have a continuous story of your level into your pregnancy, you know, minus a few exercises. But we, if you're feeling good enough, because I always honor everybody has a different experience when they're pregnant. Some people it's like, hey,

I just need to get a meal down and take a walk. So I think one thing that I always try to stress for people is two things at once, 100% accountability and honesty with yourself, but a little grace. Because if we just beat ourselves up, that doesn't work. But being honest, like, hey, you can do it. You're just being lazy. So I think it's that combination. But I took my fitness all the way in and through my pregnancy.

And that really paid off for me because the time you're really tired is when the baby comes. Let's not play games. That's when you're sleep deprived. If you're nursing, I mean, there's a whole myriad of things where that's for me was the time I was like, thank goodness I have this fitness practice in my pocket to support me through, you know, very small. My kids were not good sleepers through that. And the other part of that is for people in the grace part to go, I've just had a baby.

Or, you know, or I'm seven or eight months pregnant. I love when women go, I'm so big. I'm like, yeah, no, I think you're pregnant. And those are different. So it's showing yourself the grace for whatever phase and stage you're in based on what you're dealing with.

And Federica, you said in the quickfire questions that you can do exercise during pregnancy. You know, Gabby's pulling faces if it's obvious. I'm pretty sure that when I was a kid, it was like, you absolutely mustn't do any exercise when you're pregnant. It's really dangerous and you should be, you know, protected in cotton wool. And-

you're both looking at me as I'm an idiot. So what does the science say today? Yeah, I mean, the science is actually really clear that fitness in pregnancy is really important. But exactly as Gary said, we don't want to, you don't want to suddenly start running if you've never been a runner, for example. So there's certain things that our body is adapted for if we're doing that exercise. So if you're somebody who actually ran quite consistently before pregnancy, then you're likely to be able to continue running in pregnancy and it won't

negatively impact your pregnancy. But starting something brand new or suddenly taking that time as your time to take up exercise, it's not the best idea.

What is really clear is that movement throughout pregnancy is really critical for the health of the mother, the health of the baby, and reducing the risk of chronic disease of pregnancy, whether that's gestational diabetes or preeclampsia. So moving in whatever way you can, and I love your message of grace, what is available to you? If you're someone who just loves walking, walking is a really valid way to do this. But there is also a really interesting...

area of research that looks at how physical fitness improves outcomes of like the birth itself so women who train in pregnancy at whatever level they're at tend to have easier births is that right yeah so like it's a very physical experience of course if you're having a cesarean section it's different but then being physically fit really helps with cesarean section recovery

But when we're thinking about natural delivery or vaginal birth, it actually helps the outcome, the speed, everything that goes with that. And exactly as Gabby said, postnatally, if you already have a fitness practice, it does make recovery easier. And there is a little bit of this cotton wool wrapping with pregnant women. Some women are scared to exercise until they've seen their doctor at six weeks. They will be very hesitant. And I think

It's going back to this message of like, listen to your body, know where you are in your journey. So I'll use myself as an example with my first daughter. I, you know, I felt good pretty quickly after delivering her. With my second, I had to have a cesarean, she was breached and actually that recovery was way harder.

So it was about listening to my body and knowing like when it was too much. I remember we went for this very long walk one day and I was like, I've pushed it. And I had to like sit down, listen to your body. It will tell you if like it's not working. But it is important to remember that physical fitness in pregnancy is actually really important for the mother and the baby. So we shouldn't underestimate that. It's important. I've got a question. What is your health worth to you?

I'm Dr. Will Bolsiewicz, Zoe's U.S. Medical Director. As a clinician, I often think about this question. As the saying goes, health is wealth. The more you invest in it, the more it pays you back. Zoe membership is one of the best investments you can make in your health. Over 100,000 people rely on Zoe membership, our personalized nutrition program, to help them make smarter food choices every day.

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Now, back to the show.

So Gabby, you came in with a big benefit, right? So you're basically an athlete that's about as fit as you can be. Momentum, I like that. So you're in a great shape going into the hat. And I think lots of listeners either will have been pregnant or their partners will have been pregnant. And so they'll know both that

pregnancy can be a tough period and equally it's really short compared to the 18 years afterwards of having the child. And that you tend to, you often many people layer this on. I think you've layered this on three times, you have three children, right? Yeah. So I am guessing that there's a point where sort of sticking with fitness gets much more difficult than actually even in that first pregnancy as you're starting to lay on three children and the reality of that. When was this hardest?

And be honest, was there not a point where you just like gave up for a year? Here's the thing. I'm here to serve my family, every person in my family. And I think a lot of people, both partners have this attitude. I don't think it's just the mother. I think both partners in their way serve the family. But I am ruthless about

about my time. And meaning, you could have a new baby, and if it's 12 minutes because you put them down, I'm going to do something. And so I think I've always had the attitude where sort of understanding I'm not going to be good for anyone, and I'm going to probably resent the fact that I gave up all this, you know, something for myself to serve everybody, so that now by my age, if you, you know, get spit out of

kind of raising children and doing all of that. And you feel left behind. I see a lot of my friends being like, well, my partner, their life didn't change that much. And my kids, they're big and they're gone. So within that, it's almost like schedule. I always say I scheduled it. Now, as my kids got more independent and bigger, sure, my workouts got longer and more elaborate. But whatever I could fit in,

I was really ruthless about, or it doesn't have to be fancy. Is it body squats or I have a dumbbell on the side and I'm doing some primary movements? And reminding people too that that is a good example. I have three daughters. To show your family that taking care of yourself is

is not only important, no one's going to remind you. My kids aren't going to be like, hey, why don't you go work out? This is on us to do. And it's counter kind of our training. We're taught to feel guilty or weird about that. And I think it's so important to go, yeah, no, this is part of the same as picking someone up from school and preparing dinner. This is also part of serving the family, which is me staying strong and sane. Yeah.

And so did you timetable this? And so I'm thinking back to the point when, you know, let's say you have three small children. See, I spaced mine out. So I want to also say that if people have three smaller kids, that's a different, you're doing a different dance. Life is crazy. And, you know, I always love these moms that it's all, I am like, are they medicated? Are they, what are they crying in the bathroom? Like everyone, you know, and everybody has to do it. Like I never put my kids really on a rigid schedule. There's plenty of moms who,

who they nap at this time, they go to bed at this time, and that works for them and their family. Our family was not like that. And so it was like, here's a window, take it.

So that's funny because I would have assumed, again, this is like my pure bias as a non-athlete, that you're an athlete, so everything is super disciplined. You've got lots of discipline. So I just assume that you have a little schedule that starts at 3 a.m. and then runs through till 8 p.m. and everything is carefully organized. This is not an accurate summary of... The hierarchical thing you can do in fitness is to be adaptable.

If you want to go through all the things in performance and fitness, it's that you can adapt. You could eat high carbs. You could eat ketosis, whatever your body would know what to turn into what energy and

And you would be emotionally flexible. I'm training now to show up in life. And so am I going to flip out because I have a schedule that then I can't adhere to because one of my kids is, kids don't do, they're not compliant. They're not going to be like, oh, sorry, I know you have a schedule. So I think I learned really early that being adaptable was going to serve my well-being, my emotional well-being, my expectations.

way better than, well, I have a schedule. It's like, yeah, that's great. And life's happening. So I think it's having a relationship with all of those things, with chaos. I mean, I love that. It definitely, I suspect I'm not the only person. I imagine quite a lot of listeners also feel like that feels a bit more sort of understandable than getting everything like perfectly run.

I think it's about evaluating where you are and having realistic expectations and having a loose plan. Like, hey, it seems like the kids go down for a nap around this time. If I don't have a meeting or some work responsibility to pay the bills, I'll get it done then. Oh, if I wake up a little bit earlier, my husband will take the kids. So I think it's sort of so important to always be checking in with yourself and what your life is looking like and what's going on with your children at that time.

and going with it because that's working closer with reality instead of it's not going the way I planned. And so really it was a constant re-evaluation like where are the kids at, what are the needs, and where can I slide it in? We talk quite a lot at the show about how nobody really talks about what happens as our bodies change and therefore what is different about what we have to do. So actually, in all honesty, would really like to talk about

How do you approach working out and fitness today? You know, what is different and go from there? Well, first off, you know, mindset. I'd like to invite everybody that, you know, I used to joke about age because I'm aware of it. You know, it's just part of life. But it sort of doesn't really freak me out because I also am a person of like it is what it is.

And I'm not going to swim upstream on this one. Like, I'm getting older. It's okay. So it's sort of the mindset of how old are you? Well, you're alive. Right. Like, you're not dead. So how old are you? Well, I'm alive. And the other thing is, like, if you have a group of friends that hang out with you and they're constantly talking about their age or how hard it is or whatever, really get new friends. Right.

Because I think that that reinforcement of I'm this age and I can't do that now that I'm in my 40s, I'm in my 50s, I think that holds us back. And I do think it has a physiological impact on our hormones, on our cells, on our vitality, our life force. And so just to kind of re-invite people to go be playful, have fun, and pay attention to your vital spirit first, your life force. Yeah.

Because we're a lot of things, right? People are business people. They've got a title there. Then there's someone's wife or husband. Then they've got a title there. There's someone's mom or dad. They have a title there. And I've talked about this a little bit, which is I'm just me.

And some moments, even if it's just a short period of time, I use my exercise life to just be me and be playful in that time and not limit myself because I go, oh, I'm 54. It's like, yeah, and how lucky am I? I have this healthy body-ish and I'm here. So it starts with it's a priority. It's a value to me. To be healthy is a value. Then it's mindset of

okay, so I'm this age and what does that mean? And to kind of keep pushing on that envelope, not to prove something, because we see that too. We see people who all of a sudden it's like they're exercising almost to prove or go against age, but keep pushing to go, well, how hard could I work or how much could I do? And do that for your own satisfaction and creativity versus you're proving a point

Or you're trying to stay skinny. That's a nightmare. Yeah, it doesn't really serve you for older age. There's really interesting research looking exactly at this mindset thing. So you can actually see how people perceive aging predicts how they age.

So if you have an attitude, so I always talk about aging as a privilege, right? I lost my father when he was 63. He never got to be an old man. So whenever people are like, oh, it's like, you're alive. Exactly. You're alive. You get to be here. And there's fascinating research that literally if you fear aging, you actually age quicker. So it's not worth doing that. It doesn't serve anyone. Is this true? Yeah, yeah.

So like our approach to aging is a huge predictor of how we're going to age. I love the idea that fearing it might get in the way of actually making progress. So Gabby, if I tried to get a bit more specific and said, describe to me now, like what your workout across a week looks like, could you? Sure, I can line it out for you. So Monday, Wednesday and Friday, like this morning, I did a form of HIIT training. So there's

uh, some weightlifting because muscle is a priority period, end of story. And as we age, if you want to talk about, uh, you know, the important things, and I don't want to say especially for women, but I will say especially for women, because I think men have a relationship with that and men and women sort of don't realize how, how supportive it is for them to have muscle as the, especially as they get older.

So I make lifting a part of the priority, but I make functional patterns and movements. So can I be strong also in a functional way? So proprioception and balance, working on one leg. I do cardiovascular exercise, but less than you would think. I would rather do a long walk, and I do a lot of backwards walking because of my knees and my hips. And Gabby, can I ask, sorry, it's not obvious to me, why are you doing a lot of backwards walking?

Well, everything we do is so forward and shortening. And this is an opportunity. And you'll feel it right away. If people have sore, there's a guy named Ben Patrick, knees over toes. If people want to look him up, I think he does an excellent job. If people's knees and their backs and their hips are feeling like a little off, which most of us do because we're sitting way too much,

This is a really easy and beautiful and strange way to kind of work that out. And if you want to make it harder, my husband and I will take giant kettlebells, his or giant, mine aren't. You could take a little vest if you don't want to deal with that and just go walking backwards. And you turn, so there's some really good, interesting things for your eye patterns and movements. And you will feel so good. So I'll try to incorporate those long backwards walks into

I just want to make sure I'm painting the picture. Are you like out in the street walking backwards trying not to fall over the things behind you?

Don't be embarrassed because then people, it's a conversation starter. People come up to you and go, what are you doing? You go, I'm walking backwards and you can talk all about that. And you will feel it is literally one of the things that could make you feel better instantly is walking backwards. So I prioritize muscle and functional patterns. And then I'll add walking backwards, maybe two, if I can get it in two times a week and

And then I do a very weird pool water training that I wouldn't oversell to anyone, deep water training when I can, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday when I can get in there. And it's a lot of ballistic movement. So you still want to be explosive as you get older. You don't want to not try to find ways to work that. But normally those things are hard on us and hard on our joints. So my husband is a surfer.

And years ago, we sort of developed this training where you can go into very deep water and train with dumbbells and do these really explosive jumps, but land like a feather on the bottom of the pool. It forces your breath. So now you've got breath work in there because you have to regulate your breath. And so there's a lot of win-wins. And then you're outside.

And it's kind of playful. This goes back to being a kid because you're in the pool, right? And you're with your friends and you're not feeling self-conscious. You're just doing it and trying something different and new, which also does support your health and performance. Amazing. I want to clarify one thing because you talked about functional patterns and I don't know what a functional pattern is. Well,

You know, most of us are working on one plane and we're not kind of working in all these other multidimensional planes that we live on and working on one leg and stepping off to the side and doing all kinds of things with an arm and an opposite leg extended and things like that where you'll hear people talk about core. Well, that's in a way almost ridiculous, right? Sit-up is almost ridiculous. A core is like literally from right underneath your chin to right above your knee.

So, how do you stabilize in every pattern when you work? And the minute I get a weight away from me, can I ask my whole body to support that weight? Let's say you're picking up a child or a dog or some heavy object.

And so I train in this way that, again, I'm not great at. Sometimes you're off and you feel silly and goofy and not great. But these are the things that will make me avoid injury, but also, you know, work well until I'm not here. And so you're thinking about like there's a lot more that's like sort of might be you might be more unstable.

and all of these things rather than just like a very fixed pattern that you might do in a gym or in a squat or something like that? Yes, all the planes of motion. And I think something really important is machines are, okay, if someone's sitting on the couch and they haven't done anything, great, go to the gym and use machines because they're a really nice way to have a controlled kind of introduction into movement. But once you feel good and maybe you have someone who can teach you, you want to move in these independent patterns, right?

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So Federica, how does this fit with the science and what's the role of movement in midlife? And I'd love to talk a little bit about nutrition as well. Yeah. So, I mean, what you've just said is brilliant because the planes of motion is so important when we look at injury. So there's a huge increase in injuries in midlife. People doing things like suddenly going to the garden and using their trowel and they're suddenly moving diagonally for the first time in months. Yeah.

and they pull that back up. Because when you're running, it's this way. And even swimming and walking, we're all doing everything this way. And as soon as people start to reach across, or say you stumble backwards that way, catching yourself on a diagonal is not something we normally do. And what's really interesting about the foot strength is that in older ages, this is a really fascinating trial where they put people in care homes,

in like barefoot shoes and then compared their falls and trips compared to like normal shoes. And like ever since I've known this, I really notice when you see older people walking in the street, they often have these ridiculously high-soled shoes. And we have to remember that as we age, our peripheral nervous systems, so the nerves that

help us sense our environment in our hands and feet, especially if you have any metabolic disease, they actually get much worse at giving you that feedback, that proprioception. And so having bare feet and having strong foot muscles, which does come from spending as much time barefoot as possible, is even more critical later in life.

So in this trial, Jonathan, the people that had the barefoot shoes reduced their risk of falling by 80% just because they could actually feel the floor. And so when we think about, we know that falls in older people are one of the primary drivers for basically death eventually. So frailty means that if you are somebody who's frail and older age, and frailty doesn't have an age limit and such, but it tends to be in older people.

If there's a fall, the ability to bounce back from that fall and to be resilient is impacted. So preventing falls in older people is extremely important. Not only are they at higher risk of actually breaking a bone, but as I said, like recovering from that fall is harder as we get more frail. So functional movement across different planes, maintaining the musculoskeletal mass to actually get up from your chair and sit back down safely, and being able to sense your environment

And simple things like removing rugs, removing side tables in the home can have a massive impact on reducing this risk and allowing people to live independently for longer. Right.

So there's fascinating science around this. And yeah, I think especially as women, we've mistreated our feet for so long. Like, you know, do you remember when I was in my 20s, the shoes I wore, I wouldn't even touch them now. High heels, like high, not just the heel, but the front of it was high, like teetering around. I used to run in those things. That is not good for your feet or your joints or anything or your posture. But they're cute.

I was going to say, maybe very good for you. You know how that is. I was going to say, maybe good for your balance. Yeah, no. No? And we're not meant to be pitched forward like that. And listen, if people have to wear them for work, it is what it is. But just, again, that practice outside of those environments. There's even something called, they're silly, but yoga toes, right? You slide them on.

Because this all stretches, all this fascia will stretch. So if you're hanging out, working in your desk or something, just slide them on and they just open up your toes and sort of open up all of the space above your feet and they're quite good. So there are things out there. That's the great thing about right now is I don't believe in hacking your way to being fit.

But there are nice little things you can do to really make some of these things easier that don't take that much effort. I'd love to start talking about sort of how we can...

translate some of this to advice that's really helpful for our listeners. And I think your commitment to fitness is amazing. I think a lot of our listeners will be wondering how they can develop that level of consistency. And you're saying it wasn't even perfectly planned and yet somehow you're making this happen through the weeks and the months and the years. So I'd love to transition to that. And

I think the number one question we had actually about this episode is like, how do I break out of this cycle of sort of start and stop with doing exercise? I think you have to come into it with a strategy. I think it's impossible for any of us...

to go on a road trip and arrive somewhere if we don't have a plan. And it's the same with fitness. So what does that look like? Okay, the best I have is three days a week. I know I can get this hour in here. So what is that going to look like? What do you want to prioritize?

If it means one of those days is your walking backwards day and I'm going to lift something. And see, the thing is, people here lift heavy weights. It's whatever's heavy for you. It doesn't mean these massive weights. It just means time under tension. I'm going to keep my mind open. And if I don't know how to do that, I'm going to have somebody that teaches me. So have a strategy and plan it like you plan everything else.

but also create an environment, meaning have a friend. No one can do this alone. There's those few outliers, runners, or people that this is their time, and that's a very small percentage. So I would say you've got to recruit somebody that's like, hey, so on the day you're going to flake, you don't because you have an appointment with them. So I would get a little bit of education if you don't have some. That's the great thing about, on some way, the internet is

But also customize it to who you are, because you could find an expert, and I put that in quotes, and they'll say, this is what you need to do. You hate every minute of it. You hate to be inside, whatever it is. So you've got to also be involved enough to go, well, who am I and what will I show up for? Doesn't mean I'm going to love every second of it, but it means this practice reflects who I am.

And so I think if you have some of those variables and understand consistency, if you only have 15 minutes that day, don't poo-poo that. Be like, this is what I got. This is good enough today. And so it doesn't have to be really long, but you do have to have a nice strategy and look at it like a story.

Look at it like, what are these little buckets that I'm trying to check off? Okay, I'm trying to move in this way. I'm trying to walk enough or run a little or lift a little bit of weights or stretch and have that story. Don't just be doing one thing because you'll hammer yourself down. So for my cardio monsters out there that just go, go, go, that in the long run is not going to serve you. It's not even going to serve like the way your skin looks.

Like however, whichever language, like, oh, you want your less wrinkles? Lift weights, whatever it takes. But you need a friend too. I love that because it reminds me a lot of our philosophy with food, right? It's not about perfection. And I think often, you know, we see this trend of people being like, from January 1st, I'm going to eat a vegan diet and I'm going to go to the gym every day at five. And I've paid like a $200 gym membership. And it's like, you're setting yourself up to fail because life happens.

life happens and you can't be perfect. So being consistent is much more important. And it's the same with diet. Like if you can do it 80% of the time, then 20% of the time life happens and you just crack on. And I also love your, what you just said about find something you love, right? So it's the same thing with food. If you, if you know that

you really love eating in a way that reflects your cultural heritage then don't try to completely scrap that and move to a brand new type of cuisine that doesn't have any of those flavors for you because it's going to be really hard to sustain it so like I love spinning because I love dancing so for me it's like the music and I know that that's something that I love to do and I do it regularly because stable but on the other side it's like I also need to do the things I'm not

so comfortable with and it's about the consistency of it so keeping it up whatever way works for you that you actually enjoy because when you move your body and you enjoy it it's fun and it's actually something that you look forward to so it's interesting hearing you Jonathan ask like how do you do it and it's like

For me, I think when you don't do it, you feel so rubbish because it does make you feel better when you do it, especially if you enjoy what you're doing. And it's the same with a diet like we've seen with our members. When people change their diet and they start to enjoy the food and the flavors and they feel better, they have better energy, their mood is improved.

And what you said about investing in training. So invest in someone to teach you how to get it right is so worthwhile. And I would love to pivot that to, if you don't know how to cook, invest in learning how to cook. We're so resistant to it. It's like, we'll pay for a trainer. We'll pay for the spin class. We'll pay for like French lessons.

But what about paying to learn how to cook? It's a vital skill. So these things, I think, also show commitment if you're willing to put that resource to it, whether it's your time, your money, your planning. It's like prioritizing it as something we have to do. And I would add one little thing, and this is more in the performance side, but this is for real life and for independent life.

even if it's farmer's carry, we have to work on our grip strength. It's very important to be able to grip something. So at first, even if you just walk around with light dumbbells, it doesn't mean hanging necessarily. I'm not even talking about pull-ups. I'm just talking about not losing the ability to grip things is really important. And grip strength is one of the biggest markers for frailty. It's one of the things we measure is actually grip strength. And it's

an important predictor of, I don't want to say death, but yeah. But death. But death. I don't want to say death, but it's death. But it's a really good predictor, yeah. Which I find really depressing because I do work out, I say this often on the podcast, I do work out three times a week because I'm convinced that it's really important for my health. And because the truth is, I definitely do feel better afterwards. I went to the gym this morning. I find particularly when I'm traveling, it definitely makes me feel better. Well, you sleep better too. Yeah.

And it definitely helps with the jet lag. Various scientists have told me this, and I definitely feel the effect. There's two things I think about this. Firstly,

I love my food and I've eaten healthily for years now since beginning my ZOE personalized nutrition program. Whereas I've been doing the gym actually for longer than that and I still don't enjoy it while I'm doing it. I only enjoy it afterwards but haven't really got the point most of the time when I'm actually enjoying it while I'm doing it.

Well, maybe it's about having someone to do it with, but also you call it the gym, which sounds like prison, right? So maybe take the show outside. All you need is one kettlebell or two dumbbells, go to the park, put your music in, create some, write down some routine and see if breaking it up here and there, lunge across the park. I

I will remind people too, there's something else that's very, very important, which is light, sunlight. And it sounds so silly, right? You hear people going like, look at the sun. The way that all of the systems in our body are impacted so positively by sunlight. And we've been, we villainize sun. I know sometimes it's winter, there's not a lot of sun.

And so it's also encouraging people if they get that chance to be outside and have their eyes near the sun and be in the sun and have their skin be in the sun. These things also really are supportive of real health. I'm not talking about I look fit. I'm gym fit. That's sort of like child's play for me at this point. I think real fit is healthy.

what I call the distance between my response time from the stimulus. How do I keep having that length of feeling good and feeling calm? And being outside is more important than people realize, especially because of our computers and phones. It's become even more important. So it also goes back to the value.

If it's not important, if feeling good isn't important, what's keeping you from that? Do you know someone who struggles showing up consistently for their fitness? Maybe they think they're too busy to move their body every week. Why not share this episode with them? Our experts could empower them to show up for their fitness, even when it's hard. I'm sure they'll thank you.

And Gabby, what about when you fall off the wagon? And you might fall off the wagon because you broke your toes or because it's the holidays or you got sick or like this happens. And I think for a lot of people for whom this hasn't just been like an essential part of their life from when they were a teenager, it's

It falls off and then it feels like it's sort of gone. And I think when people talk about stop-start, often there's like something happened and then they didn't sort of get back. And so they might have had a plan, but it got disrupted. What would you say to try and help minimize that or get people back onto a plan? Well, okay, I'm going to...

say that somebody told me this once a long time ago, and I think it's really an important reminder. They said to me that guilt, which is what keeps us from going, right? We beat ourselves up. They said that if guilt came from someplace, they said it would be from the devil because it doesn't really do anything and it just keeps you. So when you feel that guilt, just be like, okay, this is silly. This isn't going to help me in any way. So in that moment, I think it's saying like, it hasn't been going the way I want for a myriad of reasons.

What can I do today that will support me? And for some people, it might just be sitting for 10 minutes and breathing, taking some nice deep breaths in and out through their nose and saying, okay, I'm going to recommit. I'll start with walking.

I'll clean up. I'll take away my one worst thing I've been doing. Like maybe from the holiday, you picked up some new weird eating thing that you reincorporated into your nutrition. Just take one thing or add one good thing, one thing bad out, one good thing in, and just keep the story going. It's kind of like parenting. I think if anyone's been a parent and they have children that are even a little bit older, there are times in parenting that it's not going well. Yeah.

Are you just going to be like, oh, you know what? This kid, it's a wash. Never mind. Forget it. No, you hang in there. The story is long. The arc on this story is so long. And just to believe in that and that we'll make it, but we can't. Giving up is then you're just sort of giving up on yourself and beating yourself up is not really productive. So at some point...

You have to put your big girl or boy pants on and say, I'm not a victim of my story. I can understand how I got here and why I haven't been doing it. What's my next strategy to ease my way back into a positive momentum? Federica, is it ever...

too late to make a meaningful change to your health? No, literally. So the evidence on this is like overwhelming that you can have an intervention in people who are in their 80s with quite high frailty scores in a nursing home and see them transform their health in three months. So like nutrition is extremely powerful in this.

But we also know that movement. So it's interesting you mentioned walking outside, just a simple getting outside for 20 minutes, 20 minutes a day. That is not a long time. I think people often have this busyness thing. And obviously we are all very busy. If you might have a family career, you might have other caring responsibilities, but

But on average, adults spent like two hours and 20 minutes on social media. You can find 20 minutes, right? So 20 minutes to get outside has a transformative impact on mental health and on circadian rhythm regulation. So helping with that sleep pattern.

So both with diet and with movement, even if it's as simple as a 20-minute walk outside, can have a transformative impact on health. And it's never too late to do it. You can start at 40, start at 50, 60, 70, 80. My grandfather actually...

the oldest marathon runner in Rome after a triple bypass. He had a heart attack and then had a triple bypass and decided to start doing fitness seriously. He was 81. 81. 81. And then he was training the 50-year-olds who'd had a heart attack in rehab. So like, it's never too late. And he was not an athlete. It's just, it's the mindset. Like if this is something you put your mind to and you're like, actually, I want to do this and it's going to be, it's going to be something that helps me grow and helps me stay fit. You

It could happen to anyone and it's never too late. And it's always worth doing, even if it is 12 minutes, lifting some weights while you're watching TV, whatever it is, it's worth doing it. And if you're just starting out again, let's say you looked up and you're whatever age and you go, I've been raising kids and working and just grinding it, give yourself 90 days of suspended time.

kind of thought like opinions about it, create a strategy and just say, okay, I'm going to reevaluate at the end of the 90 days. But for 90 days, I'm just going to do my best. If I blow it one day, I'm going to get back on the horse the next day. Because after that period of time, especially if you've been more sedentary or been, you know, sort of here and there, I think that's when we really have a chance to look in the rear view mirror and go, wow, I do feel better. I'm sleeping better. I'm

you know, I'm more calm, my digestion's better, whatever the things are. So I also, sometimes you just have to kind of have that period of time of faith. And I think that's a really good point that you just brought up there. I think often people have the wrong goal. So sometimes people embark on like a health change or an exercise change with the goal of losing weight or being skinny or getting a six pack, right? And

I'm not saying that these things aren't desirable, but is that really what you're going to measure your success against?

when we know that health and fitness and nutrition can help you feel better? Like, is it more important to have visible abs? I saw some hilarious statistic today, which is like only 3% of people over 35 actually have visible abs or something like that. Like, is that your goal? Or are you going to reflect on your sleep, your mood, your satiety, your hunger, how like calm you are, how resilient you feel? Because resilience is such an important concept.

And when you encourage people to start measuring those changes, it completely changes the way you approach it because it can be really difficult to struggle with your weight and to try and lose weight and to feel like you're always, you're quite never able to get to your ideal weight. It's not a real way to measure progress.

So switching that up and measuring progress in much more holistic ways that are actually relevant to health outcome for the long term, I think can really help with that, the motivation piece. Yeah, big time. I love that. And I think it's such a beautiful place to wrap up. I think that is the point to go. I'd love to try and do a quick summary. And we've covered a lot of different things. I'll try and see if I can pull it together. Yeah.

If I remember one thing out of this, Gabby, it's this story that if your friends are telling you that you're too old to do something, then replace your friends. Yeah, or tell them to stop. Just go when you're in my presence. It's like if I have gossipy friends, I go, I don't want to hear it. Like not around me. Same thing. Save it. This idea that we're all athletes, like we're meant to move. And then I love this thing you were saying about like,

even at the point when I have a lot of family obligations, recognize that I'm going to be really resentful if I just drain myself completely and create no time for myself and I won't even end up being the best person over time. So even at the points when you're under a lot of pressure, you should still be protecting some time for yourself. And then we talked about, so what could you do? And I think you started by saying, if you listen to this, you're saying, I want to do something now, have a plan. So figure out, I've got this much time, I know I need to sort of

cover these sorts of things. How do I create that? On a calendar, like write it down. Write it down. So you're a bit more organized than you admitted before, I feel. I didn't say I wasn't organized. Okay. Now the calendar's coming. All right, now we're getting started. Write it down, be clear what you want to do. And then the thing I took away most of all was...

You can't pull this off on your own. So find a friend, like literally someone you're going to do this with, who's going to motivate and you're going to be able to do that. And the more, the merrier. Actually a couple, because then I have plenty of friends I train with. I don't hang out with them. That's what we do together. Training friends. Yeah.

So I love that idea. And you talked about some of the specific things. So you emphasized, make sure you're doing stuff that is weight bearing within this. And I think you said if you're a woman and you might've been sort of brought up with concerns about that, it's like, actually, no, you really, more than anybody should be thinking about weights. And we've talked about this on some of the podcasts in the past about how important that is.

You then came up with some brilliant ones I haven't heard before. So backward walking. So I love the idea that people around the world will now be backward walking in their park this weekend because you believe all of this stuff about like balance and like being off your sort of normal sort of straightforward plane is really powerful. But it'll make your knees and back and hips feel really good. Bare feet. And you shared this amazing study, Federica, saying that it like reduced

falls in, you know, in risk of falls in care homes by like 80%. So that's crazy. I thought the other thing I took away was this idea of like, if it feels really painful, how could you reimagine this to be something that's good? So you were saying like, it sounds to me like my gym is prison. So what about if you went outside and suddenly this thing could be fun? Play. We work out and it is hard.

But you could also be like, how am I going to play today? No, I love that. And I think about, I mean, looking at my children, they do a lot of, the exercise is fun. And the younger they are, the more that's fun. And the older they get, the less it's like that. And I think I have definitely don't really have that in my life, where it's sort of like it's a fun thing. And the thing I wanted to finish with, though, is like it's never too late. So I think the story of Federica of

Your grandfather, he was like 81 and did his first marathon after having had a heart attack previously, is an amazing. So I'm not suggesting I think that everyone should do a marathon when they're 81, I assume. But the point is, it's amazing what you can still achieve. And you shouldn't feel like if you weren't an amazing athlete from your teenage years that none of this is accessible. Obviously, people have different skills, but really you can do more than you think you can. Yeah. And if you're late to the game, your body's not worn out.

Like I already have an artificial knee. See, there's some people, man, they got fresh joints and they're good to go. Oh, I love it. They can start. Oh, that's good. So I'm right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And apparently you were saying that being really tall has some disadvantage. I wouldn't be quite clear what they were. Absolutely. Long levers move in a different way. There you go. Gabby, Federica, thank you so much for joining me. I really enjoyed that. I learned a lot and I hope you enjoyed it too. Thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. Bye-bye.

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