How I Quit HIIT and Got Super Fit at 50!

You are never too busy for yourself. You can be too busy to do a favor for somebody.
You can be too busy to clean the kitchen, but you are never too busy for you. Hi, it's Hillary.
Welcome to the Hillary Silver podcast. Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the conversation. Today, I'm going to be sharing with you five truths, my five truths, what I hold to be true about exercise, nutrition, fitness, and health.
And the reason we're having this conversation today is because I've been getting asked this question all the time. What do you do to work out? How do you stay so fit? What do you eat in a day? How do you stay so motivated? I'm almost 52 and I'm only five foot one.
So I kind of think it's hilarious because if you know me and I hope that you do, you know that I'm not an exercise influencer, a fitness influencer. I'm not a personal trainer.
I'm not a nutritionist. I'm none of those things.
So the conversation is not going to be debating the science of macros and 10,000 steps or any of that shit. Today's conversation is going to be more about what I know the best, which is our psychology and our mindset and how we approach things, how we think about things.
It's not what we're doing so much as who we are when we're doing it, how we are being. And so this conversation today is for anyone, man or woman, who works out and wants to keep working out, who wants to work out and doesn't yet work out, is having trouble with their workouts.
Really, it's anybody who values being in great shape. Before we get started, I just want to celebrate.
I have only published 12 episodes. And while I was away in Spain, I was completely unplugged with my family.
And I came home to my June stats, basically the analytics for my podcast. And we have over 17,000 downloads just in the month of June alone.
And holy shit, everybody, that is thanks to you. And we have over 125 ratings, five-star ratings.
Oh my gosh, I'm celebrating that for myself. And I am in such a state of gratitude to all of you for listening, for sharing with your friends.
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it. Creating this show takes work and energy and effort, and I love every minute of it.
But when I get feedback from you like that, it tells me I'm doing something right. It encourages me.
It's affirming for me to keep going. And so thank you.
Thank you all for your ratings, your reviews, for your shares. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.
And if you haven't yet done that, please do rate, review, subscribe, share with everybody that you know. That's all I got to say.
So without further ado, let's just get into the conversation today. I'm going to share, like I said, the five truths, how I approach this part of my life.
And so the first one is really to listen to yourself. Listen to yourself, number one.
What do I mean by that? Well, when I turned 50 almost two years ago, I am almost 52. When I turned 50, I literally stopped all my hardcore workouts and got into the best shape of my life.
Was I already in great shape? Yes. Especially if you start looking at BMI or the community at large or Americans at large, I was always in great shape, but I got an even better shape.
And that's because I started listening to myself. What I had been doing, the high intensity interval training, orange theory and sprinting my ass off and getting my heart rate so high and killing myself, basically.

That might have worked for me in my 30s and 40s.

But what was happening was I was starting to feel depleted by my workouts instead of energized by them.

It was taking me longer to recover.

I was finding my body was hurting, not from like a muscle soreness,

but just overall hurt, hurt. It just hurt.
I couldn't rehydrate as quickly. So rather than continuing to push and push and push, which I did for a while until I realized, hey, I'm not liking this anymore.
This doesn't feel good anymore. What I started to do was really tune in to my conversation that I was having with myself.
And what I realized, what I came to hear in my own head was this strange competitive edge. I wasn't competing with anyone else in the room because I was doing this kind of stuff, even when no one was looking.
If I was outside on a run, I was running as far as I could, or I would do sprints and go as fast as I could, or whatever that was. So it wasn't that I was necessarily competing with anyone else, but I was being competitive with myself.
And what after listening to myself and really hearing what I was saying to myself, the reason that I was pushing myself so hard was because I was approaching my fitness from a place of needing to prove something. I was trying to prove I could do it, prove I could handle it, prove I was doing the absolute best that I could do.
And I was going all out and I was the most badass that I could be. And what I then realized was that's not very kind and loving and accepting of myself.
It was more punishing than it was self-loving. And so I stopped completely.
I stopped all that hard shit because actually what was also happening

simultaneously was I was starting to feel that my workouts were traumatizing my body. I was feeling a little bit like I was causing inflammation because it was a stress response in my body.
The cortisol that my body was releasing was a stress response and I wasn't actually in better shape. I was starting to feel bloated or bigger than I wanted to be.
And actually, I also stopped all the super heavy weightlifting for a while I was doing some really heavy weightlifting. People had said, as you get older, you need to lift.
And so it was lifting and lifting and lifting. And I was building this body that was not the body that I wanted.
I did not want to be super muscular. As I said, I'm only five foot one.
So listen to yourself. So that's me.
But I will tell you, when I go to the gym, I see a couple of the same people. One man in particular is coming to mind, bless his heart.
He's there every single day as I am. And he is on that elliptical working and working and sweating and sweating in 30 minutes or more.
And he's just grinding it out and nothing is changing for him. He's overweight.
And I don't know if he's trying to lose weight, but he's there acting as if

he is. He's doing the same thing every day, day after day, and nothing's changing.
So if we're to apply this concept and this kind of suggestion to him, my curiosity leads me to wonder what is he saying to himself. Maybe he is saying, I'm here every day.
I'm working as hard as I can and nothing's changing, but I'm doing what I need to do. I'm doing what I'm told to do.
So when you start listening to yourself, what do you hear? Like I said, I heard, I have to do this. I'm proving myself.
I'm badass. I'm badass.

I'm badass. I felt this need to prove I'm badass.
It kept me doing the same thing over and over again that was no longer serving me, no longer helping me meet my goals, and it started to hurt me. In this guy's case, he may be saying things like, it's not my fault that I'm overweight.
I'm here. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
And I would offer an alternative thought, which is if you're doing the same thing over and over and over again and nothing's changing for you, then it's time to make a change. If you keep doing what you've always done, you're going to keep getting what you've always got.
So listen to yourself. Are you blaming other people? Are you blaming your genetics? Are you making excuses for yourself? I'm too busy.
I don't have time. It's all that I can muster.
It's not my body type. My body just is meant to look this way.
Challenge your thoughts because if any of you who have signed up already for my freebie on my website, it's called This Changes Everything, then you know, and if you haven't, I suggest you go visit my website, hillarysilver.com. It's just right there on the homepage.
Sign up for it. It's basically the self-centered approach asks you to ask yourself, what am I saying?

How am I contributing to whatever it is that's going on in my life right now?

So if you listen to yourself, you will find the answers that you need that will guide you to understanding your relationship with working out.

And it may help you see that you need to make a change like I did. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty things that I've done that are different.
In this episode, we can have that conversation another day. Number two.
Okay. So first is listen to yourself.
Number two is break all the rules, make your own rules, and then break your own rules. Be a rule breaker, be a rebel.
And what do I mean by that? Well, there is so much information about there about how to work out and what you're supposed to eat all the time. And it's too much, much, much, too much.
I've tried paleo. I've tried keto.
I've tried intermittent fasting. I've tried lots of things.
And full disclosure, right now, I am not eating meat. I am mostly plant-based.
I do eat some still, but my goal is to get fully vegan. But it's not because I'm restricting food groups.
It's a moral issue for me. Something else happened when I turned 50 and I became a softie, and I'm glad for it.
Once you see certain things, you can't unsee them. So from that perspective, I choose not to eat animals or animal products.
But that's not the same thing as restricting what I'm eating because I am being punishing to myself. So breaking the rules, breaking the exercise rules, even the rule that we have all heard these days about walking 10,000 steps, where did that number come from? Again, I'm not going to debate the science of it.
Maybe there is some science to it. I don't know, but I don't fucking care because all I can tell you is having rules around fitness and exercise makes me want to break them every time.
And because if I can't meet them, then what happens here? What happens here mentally in my head is I failed. I let myself down.
I start beating up on myself. I ate shit today.
I didn't walk 10,000 steps today. I didn't work out today.
When we live by an arbitrary set of rules or rules that are imposed upon us by whatever trend is popular at the moment, we overthink things. We get confused.
We don't know what to do. And if you go back to step number one, listen to yourself.
What I do now when it comes to eating is I eat when I'm fucking hungry. I eat when I'm hungry.
Imagine that. If I wake up and I'm hungry, I eat a little something before I work out.
If I wake up and I'm not hungry, I don't eat. And then I work out fasted and I eat when I get home when I feel hungry.
I want for all of you to give yourself a fucking break and to stop trying to fit yourself into the box. That whatever popular trend is happening at the moment from all the influencers that are noise in your ears telling you how to do things, throw it all away and start listening

to yourself. What works best for you? Eat when you're hungry, to me, is the absolute best way to go.
There's probably science against that, but your body knows best. Now, for me, what matters when I'm eating, when I'm hungry, is I have to not overeat.
And that requires me to be with myself, which we're going to talk about as number five. So I'm going to put a pin in that and come back to that.
My workouts now are kinder, gentler, more self-loving, self-accepting, and pleasant and joyful and easier on my body. And like I said, I am in the best shape I've ever been in, and I look better than I ever have.
I have the body that I want. I'm not bulky.
I'm not overly muscular. I'm agile.
I'm flexible. I look the best that I've ever looked.
And that can be what happens for you when you start listening to yourself and you start making your own rules that works best for you. And as long as you are continuing to pay attention to your own rules, you can edit them, shift them.
Maybe you call them guidelines, call them whatever you want. But rather than all of that, it's the truths that we're living by today.
So when I say I eat what I want, when I want, it's within limits because I'm not eating crap. If you're somebody who likes to eat junk food or you eat fast food, that's not what I'm talking about.
So for me, I do eat healthy. But here's the thing.
I'm not cutting out major food groups. I like to eat sourdough bread.
I love bread. And I want to eat pasta when I want to eat it.
And I want to eat rice when I want to eat it. So within limits, I'm not giving you like, don't say Hillary said I could eat fast food.
That's not what I'm saying. So sorry.
No, it doesn't work like that. The other thing I also don't do is drink alcohol.
alcohol i only drink very rarely i maybe have a glass of wine when i go out to dinner or once in a while maybe one or two drinks a month and that is something that changed for me i've never been a big drinker but when i hit 50 i also just decided to stop drinking so much and i do believe that that choice has contributed to me being in the best shape of my life and it doesn't feel like a restriction for me. That's the thing.
I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. And it's not hard for me to do that.
So now when I say eat and drink what I want when I want, that's because my choices are typically healthy. If you struggle with that, that's something to work on.
But it doesn't feel hard for me. And that's just one of the things that I felt like I needed to share.
So number three, you must make working out a habit. I work out every single day.
I work out every single day. And the reason that people say you need rest days is because you're working out too hard.
I needed rest days before because I was hurting my body and I needed to rest. But if you're not hurting yourself, then you don't need to rest.
There is something that you can do every single day to move your body and work out. It must be a habit.
Sometimes I find myself at the gym by sheer force of habit. I don't know what I'm going to do until I get there and I make it up as I go, but I'm still there doing it every single day.
You are never too busy for yourself. You can be too busy to do a favor for somebody.
You can be too busy to clean the kitchen. You can be too busy to volunteer.
You can be too busy for a lot of things, everybody, but you are never too busy for you. Period.
Make that promise to yourself. Every single day you work out or you move your body or you exercise in some way, there's always something you can be doing.
Even if I work out and I lift weights every single day, there's always a different exercise that I didn't do the day before and a different body part. I work out my arms and my ass every day.
Ass every day, people. Arms every day.
But I'm not doing it to the point where I'm hurting myself, so I don't need to rest. I hope that makes sense.
This must be a habit, something that you do every day. Now, I said I wasn't going to share, but I'm going to share a little.
I might work out in the morning and do a weightlifting routine, and I'm also going to walk twice a day. The walking is more from my mind, my psychology, my mental health, my emotional well-being than it is anything else.
But at the end of the day, when you have moved your body, you will feel better. And doesn't that feel so much nicer to just say to yourself, I did something rather than I did the right thing or the right amount of something? Don't count your steps.
Don't count your steps. Do what you can.
Otherwise, you're going to have recrimination appear in your brain, and you're going to feel bad about yourself. Just do the best that you can, the most that you can, and that's it.
That's the kinder, gentler, self-loving, self-centered approach to being your most fit. You're not going to rebel against your own self or rebel against convention if you are the one making the rules for yourself.
Okay? Number four, you must make it enjoyable. Don't force yourself to do something that you don't want to do.
Don't make yourself do something that is not fun, that is unpleasant, that hurts.

I used to run a lot. Sometimes I would run seven or nine miles just because I wanted to prove that I could.
And then it would like my body started to hurt. My body started to ache.
And now when I run, I do it because I want to. And it's usually like three miles and I'm done.
I do it because it feels good. I work out at the gym and when I do,

I am enjoying every single minute of it.

And here's what, like a hot tip, everybody.

When you're working out, it is not time to learn.

You're not listening to a podcast.

Turn me off, turn everyone else off. Not when you're working out.
It's not time to listen to an audio book. If you're working out, I want you listening to music.
That is my personal best suggestion because number five, when we get to number five, you'll understand why. But it has to be enjoyable.
That means that you need to mix it up. You need to do something different every day or you're going to get bored.
We need variety. So for me, what keeps me motivated is I like having great outfits to wear when I work out.
And I know that might sound silly, especially to you guys out there. But if working out is such a big part of my life and your life, then when I get dressed every day, I want to be motivated.
I do it even if I'm in my basement and no one's looking at me. I want to feel good.
I want to look good. I want to enjoy myself.
So what I put on, especially if I'm at the gym and there's mirrors everywhere, I want to look great. So I continuously upgrade and add to my fitness wardrobe.
That might sound really shallow, but I don't care. I look forward to getting dressed in the morning and putting on whatever outfit I'm going to work out in.
And some days it's this and some days it's that. I also change my music.
New music fuels me. Mixing up the playlist.
Sometimes it's chill, sometimes it's like hardcore, sometimes whatever mood. But when I'm working out and I am giving myself this experience that's pleasurable, that's a big part of it.
So no podcasts, no audio books, and I would say not even silence. Music is going to motivate you, inspire you, thrill you.
It's going to take you to another place deep inside of yourself. I start like thinking about my future and my past and who I am.
It's really just a way to inspire you. And last but not least, number five, when you are working out, I want you to be with yourself.
So what do I mean by that? I mean, again, not by listening to a podcast and trying to escape yourself, not trying to avoid it. If you're doing an exercise or a motion or a movement and you're dreading every minute of it, so you're trying to have this mental escapism, you're doing it wrong.
Your workouts are your time to connect with yourself, be with yourself, be present with yourself. And so when I'm walking or running outside and I have my music on, I am in my inner world and I'm visioning for myself and I'm appreciating my life and I'm going to my deep place of gratitude for who I am and who's in my life and what I have and all the struggles I've overcome and all the hardships that I've experienced that have allowed me to be who I am today.
And I start feeling powerful and invincible and unstoppable in this life. And you can't experience that when you're trying to be somewhere else because you don't like what you're doing.
When you're at the gym, I want you to look in the mirror. I want you to look at yourself in the mirror.
And I want you to see yourself and watch yourself and admire yourself and look at your muscles and watch how you're moving. Know yourself that way.
Know like in your mind, if you were to imagine watching yourself as if you were outside of yourself like looking at someone else, I want you to be so intimately familiar with how you move because you are looking at yourself enough that you see yourself that way. Self-awareness is huge.
If you could put a drone around you and get a 360-degree view of yourself, that is important. It's being self-centered.
It's knowing yourself inside and out, what you look like as you walk and how you move and how you carry yourself and admire the hard work that you're doing in the gym. And if there's self-criticism going on, you need to know about that.
If you don't like what you see, you need to hear yourself saying those things and give yourself extra love to those parts and say, okay, if this is a body part that needs an extra love, what am I going to do to work on that? It's so important. Those are the five things that if you approach fitness and health and working out in that way, you too will always remain in the best shape of your life, period.
You will. It just takes accountability.
It takes being like taking radical responsibility for yourself. And that's all I got to say.
So thanks for listening and I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for joining the conversation today.
I hope you learned something new or heard something that inspired you to take action in a new way. As your

greatest champion and someone who truly cares about your love, happiness, wealth, and success,

I always want to encourage you to ask yourself this question, how have I contributed? You are

the only person who can ask this and the only one who can answer it. This doesn't just change your life.
This

changes everything.