Why your workout should change with each new decade with Gabby Reece

Staying fit isn’t just for athletes — it’s a lifelong commitment that evolves with age. But how do we maintain strength, resilience, and motivation through different life stages?

She’s joined by Dr. Federica Amati, Head Nutritionist at ZOE and best-selling author of Every Body Should Know This, who explains how our movement and nutritional needs change over time.

Together, they discuss the science behind exercise at every age, why midlife fitness is crucial for preventing frailty, and practical strategies to stay active for the long run.

Whether you're starting fresh or looking to refine your routine, this episode will inspire you to train smarter and stay strong for life.

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Transcript

Jonathan Wolf: Gabby, thank you for joining me today. 

Gabby Reece: Thank you for having me. 

Jonathan Wolf: It's a pleasure. And Federica, thank you for joining me as well. 

Federica Amati: Hi, Jonathan. So good to be here. 

Jonathan Wolf: 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 we have these very strict rules, you can say yes or no, or if you have to, a one sentence answer. Are you ready for that?

Gabby Reece: We have rules at the top of this interview. I like it. Let's go. 

Jonathan Wolf: Okay. Gabby, can you only reach peak fitness when you're young? 

Gabby Reece: Peak fitness, no. You can continue older.

Jonathan Wolf: Federica, should exercise stop in pregnancy?

Federica Amati: No. 

Jonathan Wolf: Do your fitness needs change with age? 

Federica Amati: Yes. 

Jonathan Wolf: Gabby, is peak fitness something you can measure on a machine at the gym? 

Gabby Reece: No.

Jonathan Wolf: Finally, you have a whole sentence, Gabby. What do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to lifelong fitness? 

Gabby Reece: 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.

Jonathan Wolf: I love that because I've 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.

Gabby, I know it's public, you're 54 years old, and you're continuing to dedicate your life to fitness. That really started, I think 40 years ago or something, as a professional volleyball player. So this has been a consistent period of time. 

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. 

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 best selling book, Every Body Should Know This.

I'd like to start, Gabby, if that's alright, 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?

Gabby Reece: I'll try to keep it really brief. So I was what one would call a late bloomer. I was very tall. I'm 190 or 6'3 depending on where you live. And 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, you know, squats and burpees, which was sort of more of my era, 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 the true 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 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: And when you say grinded it down, what do you think…? 

Gabby Reece: People don't realize repetitive motion, from any sport, I don't care what sport, repetitive motion, doing something over and over and over, there's a give. 

Something's gonna give and unless you're training to balance that out, which I do now, 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: I have a son, he's almost 17 and he's really got into the gym in the last six months, and I'm constantly saying, Oh, be careful about that, you might hurt yourself, your form's not good. 

He doesn't hurt himself. He's fine. He puts on muscle overnight. I feel like he could just get away with things where I'm constantly worrying about whether I injure myself, and I certainly don't make much progress. 

Gabby Reece: 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?

Certainly when you're young, especially male, you just want to bulk up. When you're a woman, unless you're doing a sport, you want to be trim and have your butt look cute and jeans, 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.

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 sports and also help you recover and avoid injury. 

You'll see tennis players now they have prehab. They don't 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. 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: Federica, as you're listening to this, imagine someone in their twenties thinking about movement and nutrition, what does the science say today about like what's most important?

Federica Amati: Well, it's interesting, Gabby mentioned that if you do the same thing again and again and again, it does wear, especially your joints, they suffer. 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 this the same way.

So in your twenties, you're very resilient, your metabolism, your metabolic fitness is good. But if you're constantly challenging your metabolism throughout your twenties. And when you get to your thirties, you'll start to notice that actually that's not working anymore. 

I've never thought about 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, Were 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 was and In-N-Out burger because you're in LA, right? 

Jonathan Wolf: I'm sort of struck that you're describing sort of the start of your athletic career and probably the point where you pushed this really hard and you're saying actually in some ways it was much less sophisticated than you are now.

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?

Gabby Reece: There's life fitness, where you can do all the things you want to do and enjoy them, or maybe take on a, say 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. 

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. 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.

Jonathan Wolf: Well, look, I think it's clear that you've spent your whole life revolving around training, just listening to you. You're like, 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. So 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 from the point of becoming pregnant and during motherhood? 

Gabby Reece: 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 am gonna get in the shape of my life.

However, you can have a continuous story of your level into your pregnancy, minus a few exercises. But if you're feeling good enough. Because 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, it's that combination.

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. 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 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: Federica, you said in the quick-fire questions that you can do exercise during pregnancy. You know, Gabby's pulling her face as 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 protected in cotton wool. And you're both looking at me as I'm an idiot. So what does the science say today? 

Federica Amati: Yeah. I mean, the science is actually really clear that fitness and pregnancy is really important. But exactly as Gabby said, you don't want to suddenly start running if you've never been a runner, for example. 

So there's certain things that our bodies are 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 the birth itself.

So women who train in pregnancy at whatever level they're at tend to have easier births. So, 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, 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 of them 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 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 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 sit down.

Listen to your body. It will tell you if 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: So Gabby, you came in with a big benefit, right? So you're basically an athlete. That's about as big as you can be. 

Gabby Reece: I had momentum.

Jonathan Wolf: 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. So they'll know both 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, you often, many people layer this on.

I think you've layered this on three times, you have three children, right? 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 layer on three children and the reality of that.

When was this hardest? And be honest, was there not a point where you just gave up for a year? 

Gabby Reece: 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 my time. 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 get spit out 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 a schedule. I always say I scheduled it now as my kids got independent, more independent, and bigger, sure my workouts got longer and more elaborate.

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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 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 were taught to feel guilty or weird about that. And I think it's so important to go, 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.

Jonathan Wolf: So did you timetable this in? So I'm thinking back to the point when, you know, let's say you have three small children.

Gabby Reece:  See, I spaced mine out. So I want to also say that if people have three smaller kids, 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? 

Everyone, you know, and everybody has to do it. I never put my kids really on a rigid schedule. There are plenty of moms 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: So that's funny. Because I would have assumed, again, this is my pure bias as a non-athlete. 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 am and then runs through till 8 pm and everything is carefully organized. 

Gabby Reece: 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 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 wellbeing, 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: I mean, I love that. 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 perfectly run.

Gabby Reece: 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 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, where are the kids at, what are the needs, and where can I slide it in?

Jonathan Wolf: 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, I would really like to talk about how do you approach working out and fitness today? What is different and go from there?

Gabby Reece: Well, first off, you know, mindset. 

I'd like to invite everybody that, 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.

I'm getting older, it's okay. So it's sort of the mindset of how old are you? Well, you're alive. 

Federica Amati: Right. 

Gabby Reece: You're not dead. So how old are you? Well, I'm alive. And the other thing is, 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.

Because I think that that reinforcement of, I'm this age and I can't do that now that I'm in my forties, I'm in my fifties, I think that holds us back. I do think it has a physiological impact on our hormones, on our cells, on our vitality, our life force. 

So just to kind of reinvite people to go, be playful, have fun and pay attention to your vital spirit first, your life force, 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. 

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 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 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. 

Federica Amati: 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. 

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. 

Jonathan Wolf: Is this true? 

Federica Amati: Yeah, so our approach to aging is a huge predictor of how we're going to age. 

Jonathan Wolf: 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 what your workout across a week looks like. Could you?

Gabby Reece: Sure. I can line it out for you. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, this morning, I did a form of HIIT training. 

So there's some weightlifting because muscle is a priority period, end of story. And as we age, if you want to talk about the important things. 

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 supportive it is for them to have muscle 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 a 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.

Jonathan Wolf: And Gabby, can I ask, sorry, it's not obvious to me. Why are you doing a lot of backward walking?

Gabby Reece: Well, everything we do is so forward and shortening. And this is an opportunity and you'll feel it right away. 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 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 are 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 know, 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.

Jonathan Wolf: I just want to, I just want to make sure I'm painting the picture. Are you out in the street, walking backwards, trying not to fall over? 

Gabby Reece: Okay. I want to say I have a good fortune of living near a wide beach, but if someone goes to the park and they can find just a strip backwards and they're not embarrassed, 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. 

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. 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.

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.

Jonathan Wolf: Amazing. I want to clarify one thing because you talked about functional patterns and I don't know what a functional pattern is. 

Gabby Reece: Well, most of us are working on one plane and we're not kind of working in all these other multi-dimensional planes that we live on. 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. 

You'll hear people talk about core. Well, that's in a way almost ridiculous, right? Sit up is almost ridiculous. A core is literally from right underneath your chin to right above your knee. So how do you stabilize in every pattern when you work? 

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 work well until I'm not here.

Jonathan Wolf: And so you're thinking you might be more unstable and all of these things rather than just a very fixed pattern that you might do in a gym or in a squat or something like that. 

Gabby Reece: Yes, all the planes of motion. I think something really important is that 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 you maybe you have someone who can teach you, you want to move in these independent patterns.

Jonathan Wolf: So Federica, how does this fit with the science and what's the role of movement in midlife? And then I'd love to talk a little bit about nutrition as well. 

Federica Amati: Yeah. So, I mean, what you've just said is brilliant, because the planes of motion are 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. And they pull their back out. 

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 like, reach across, or say you stumble backwards that way, catching yourself in a diagonal is not something we normally do.

What's really interesting about the foot strength is in older age, this is really fascinating trial where they put people in care homes in barefoot shoes and then compared their falls and trips compared to normal shoes. And ever since I've known this, I'd really notice, when you see older people walking in the street, they often have these ridiculously high-soled shoes.

We have to remember that as we age, our peripheral nervous systems, 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. 

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. 

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 in 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, recovering from that fall is harder as we get more frail. 

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.

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. 

So there's fascinating science around this. And I think especially as women, we've mistreated our feet for so long. Do you remember when I was in my twenties, the shoes I wore, I wouldn't even touch them now.

High heels, high, not just the heel, but the front of it was high, teetering around. I used to run in those things. That is not good for your feet or your joints or anything, or your posture. 

Gabby Reece: But they're cute. You know how that is.

Jonathan Wolf: I was going to say, maybe very good for balance?

Gabby Reece: No, 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 if you're hanging out, working on your desk or something, just slide them on and they just open up your toes and lip 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. 

Jonathan Wolf: I'd love to start talking about how we can translate some of this to advice that's really helpful for our listeners.

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 them to that. And I think the number one question we had actually about this episode is, how do I break out of this cycle of sort of start and stop with doing exercise? 

Gabby Reece: 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 you're walking backwards day and I'm going to lift something. The thing is people hear lift heavy weights. It's whatever is heavy for you. It doesn't mean these massive weights. It just means time under tension.

I'm gonna 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 are 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 the internet, 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. 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.

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 the way your skin looks. Whichever language, Oh, you want less wrinkles, lift weights. Whatever it takes, but you need a friend too. 

Federica Amati: I love that because it reminds me a lot of our philosophy with food, right? It's not about perfection. 

I think often 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 a $200 gym membership. 

You're setting yourself up to fail because life happens and you can't be perfect. So being consistent is much more important, and it's the same with diet.

If you can do it 80 % of the time, then 20 % of the time life happens and you just crack on.

I also love what you just said about finding something you love, right? So it's the same thing with food. 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 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. 

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 how do you do it? And 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.

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. 

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 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 prioritizing it as something we have to do.

Gabby Reece: 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 Farmers 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. 

Federica Amati: 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 say death, but it's death. But it's a really good predictor, yeah. 

Jonathan Wolf: 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.

Gabby Reece: Well you sleep better too.

Jonathan Wolf: It definitely helps with the jet lag. Various scientists have told me this and I definitely feel the effect.  

There are two things I'm thinking about there. 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 I haven't really got the point most of the time when I'm actually enjoying it while I'm doing it.

Gabby Reece: Well, maybe it's about having someone to do it with, but also you call it the gym. It 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, write down some routine, and see if breaking it up here and there, lunge across the park. I mean, the thing is there's no rules on this stuff. 

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 villainize the sun. I know sometimes it's winter, there's not a lot of sun. 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 child's play for me at this point. I think real fit is what I call the distance between my response time from the stimulus. 

How do I keep having that length of feeling good, feeling calm, and being outside? It 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? 

Jonathan Wolf: 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 this happens. 

I think for a lot of people for whom this hasn't just been an essential part of their life from when they were a teenager, it falls off and then it feels like it's sort of gone. 

I think when people talk about stop start, often there's 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? 

Gabby Reece: Well, okay, 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, it hasn't been going the way I want for a myriad of reasons, what can I do today that will support me? 

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 take away my one worst thing I've been doing. 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. 

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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. Are you just going to be like, Oh, you know what? This kid, it's a wash. Nevermind. 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 giving up is when 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, you know, 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?

Jonathan Wolf: Federica? Is it ever too late to make a meaningful change to your health?

Federica Amati: No, literally. So the evidence on this is 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 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.

Twenty 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. And on average, adults spend 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 became 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. And then he was training the 50-year-olds who'd had a heart attack in rehab. So, it's never too late. And he was not an athlete. 

It's the mindset. 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 something that helps me grow and helps me stay fit.

You know, 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. 

Gabby Reece: 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, give yourself 90 days of suspended kind of opinions about it.

Create a strategy and just say, okay, I'm going to reevaluate at 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 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 more calm, all my digestion is better, whatever the things are. 

So I also sometimes you just have to kind of have that period of time of faith. 

Federica Amati: 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 a health change or an exercise change with the goal of losing weight or being skinny or getting a six pack. Right. 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, fitness and nutrition can help you feel better, is it more important to have visible abs?

I saw some hilarious statistic today, which is only 3% of people over 35 actually have visible abs or something like that. Is that your goal? Or are you going to reflect on your sleep, your mood, your satiety, your hunger, how 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 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 motivation piece. 

Jonathan Wolf: 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. 

If I remember one thing out of this, Gabby, it's a story that if your friends are telling you that you're too old to do something, then replace your friends. 

Gabby Reece: Yeah. Or tell them to stop. Just [say] when you're in my presence… If I have gossipy friends, I go, I don't want to hear it, not around me. Same thing, save it. 

Jonathan Wolf: This idea that we're all athletes, we're meant to move.

Then I love this thing you were saying about, 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. 

Then we talked about, so what could you do? And I think you started by saying, if you listen to this, you're saying, well, 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? 

Gabby Reece: On a calendar, write it down. 

Jonathan Wolf: Write it down. So you're a bit more organized than you admitted before I feel.

 Gabby Reece: I didn't say I wasn't organized. 

Jonathan Wolf: Okay. Now the calendar's coming. All right. Now we're going to 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, literally someone you're going to do this with who's going to motivate and you're going to be able to do that. 

Gabby Reece: 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. Yeah, training friends. 

Jonathan Wolf: 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. 

I think you said, if you're a woman and you might have been brought up with concerns about that, it's 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 balance and being off your sort of normal sort of straightforward plane is really powerful.

Gabby Reece: But it'll make your knees and back and hips feel really good. 

Jonathan Wolf: Bare feet. And you shared this amazing study, Federica saying that it reduced risk of falls in care homes by 80%. So that's crazy. 

I thought the other thing I took away was this idea of if it feels really painful, how could you reimagine this to be something that's good? So you were saying it sounds to me like my gym is prison, so what about if you went outside, and suddenly this thing could be fun? 

Gabby Reece: Play. We work out, and it is hard, but you could also be like, how am I going to play today? 

Jonathan Wolf:  I love that. And looking at my children, that 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. 

I think I 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, is it's never too late. So I think the story of Federica, your grandfather, he was 81 and did his first marathon after having had a heart attack previously is 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 that 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. 

Gabby Reece: Yeah. And if you're late to the game, your body's not worn out. I already have an artificial knee. See, there's some people man, they got fresh joints and they're good to go. They can start. 

Jonathan Wolf: That's good. And apparently you were saying that being really tall has some disadvantage. I wouldn't be quite clear what they were.

Gabby Reece: Absolutely. Long levers move in a different way. 

Jonathan Wolf: 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. 

Gabby Reece: Thank you. 

Federica Amati: Thanks, Jonathan.