Redefining Health and Fitness: Beyond the Scale with Rob Maxwell

From struggling with my weight as a teen to becoming a fervent exercise physiologist, my journey has taught me that true health extends far beyond the numbers on a scale. Join me, Rob Maxwell, as I share personal anecdotes and professional insights that debunk the pervasive myths surrounding fitness and weight loss. We'll uncover the real markers of health, and I'll introduce you to individuals like Zach and Jeff Hawk, whose commitment to fitness transcends personal gain and touches the lives of those around them.

In our latest episode, we explore the oft-overlooked aspects of health and fitness that matter more than just appearance. I'll take you through stories of transformation that are not defined by shrinking waistlines but by the beating of a healthier heart and the strength in muscles that once faltered. It's a narrative that celebrates each step towards vitality and redefines success in the gym, not by pounds lifted but by the resilience built within.

Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to. There is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell, I'm an exercise physiologist and I'm a personal trainer. I own Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994 explaining to people that there is a method to the madness. In other words, there is a science behind health and fitness and it's not what your little influencers keep telling you all the time. So we are going to talk a little bit today about health and fitness and body composition.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Before I get into that, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gilden Group at Realty Pros. They are the best, they are true professionals in the real estate world. We need true professionals in all industry. Jonathan actually has a degree in real estate from Florida State University and his beautiful wife, lynn, has an MBA. They know business, they know real estate and you know what they know fitness. Jonathan went out and ran a 5k yesterday which is Saturday, because I'm recording this on a Sunday with his son and he believes in taking care of himself and so does his wife and it's so important. So if you need help, give them a shout. 386-451-2412. Speaking of 5Ks, I was at one yesterday myself a different one from our sponsor, because I like to do this one over in DeBerry. It's a cool little 5k that they put on every year the Pat and Ed Northey 5k put on by the Rotary Club over there. It's a good event. I just really, really like it.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Where I come up with my information for podcasts and emails and all that stuff. I mean people ask me a lot. They're like, how do you come up with your content, how do you come up with things? And the answer is when I go to places or when I listen to my own podcast, and oftentimes when I'm working out myself, I just start thinking about things and I share with you what I'm thinking about. And these are the things I think about because I love health and fitness, like it's not only my job but it's my hobby. I think it's really cool trying to better yourself. I mean, you know I've shared before, either on podcasts or, I know, in my books.

Speaker 1: 2:45

You know I went through a period in my adolescence where I was overweight and I felt like crap about myself and I started to turn that around. And then since those days in my really my teens, you know, I just fell in love with health and fitness and I understood that what we put into it, we get out of it. So you know, we can complain about the way things are. We can say you know what? I got myself out of shape because I eat too much, so I'm going to get myself back in shape by not eating too much. And then we start to work on our other areas of fitness in the same way. So it's easy for me to come up with content because it is not only my job, it is my passion. So when I see things, when I think about things, I love to try to figure things out. I read different things, I'm constantly researching, so it just comes to me and then I investigate it a little bit and then I bring it to you. So that's what I'm doing today.

Speaker 1: 3:49

And what I thought about yesterday was one of the people that runs with us a lot. She kind of creates our team max fit when we go run. It's kind of cute because she's just so into it. She was talking about how to her like. It's not about all like when you look around you see all these runners and they're so thin and they're fit and you know that's often true. But then there's a lot of people who don't look the part per se but are also great runners, and she was talking a little bit about that and that just kind of sparked my brain and we got into a conversation and then I started thinking about it a little more and definitely this is something I've always believed anyway. So I kind of put some information together to share. And that is that.

Speaker 1: 4:44

You know, oftentimes in the health and fitness world the only thing people think about is weight or body composition and as a personal trainer and physiologist, it's extremely I don't know if annoying is the right word but it's also disappointing, because there's so much more to health and fitness than that. I mean, the key word is health and I remember when I was working on my master's degree in the early 90s, there was still that big push from the Berkeley wellness movement that came out of the 80s. It was still kind of alive, which was kind of cool because it was all about health and fitness. And you know, there's always been people that need to lose weight. There will probably always be people that need to lose weight, but it wasn't the obsession it is now, and I don't know if that's because more people are overweight now than then.

Speaker 1: 5:51

It's not like we were doing a fantastic job in the early 90s. It's not like the 60s and 70s, where we only had about less than 10% obesity. It wasn't like that. It was certainly better than it is now, but there just seemed to be a different movement towards health and fitness, and I want to use the keyword health and fitness. So the keyword is health versus weight loss.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Now it seems to be all about weight loss, and that's needed in some areas, but what I want to convince you of today is that there is more to this. There is more to fitness than that. You know, we can be healthy and fit and still not be lean. There's a huge difference between obesity and being a little bit overweight and please, I'm not advocating getting overweight. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is, maybe if more people focused on just getting healthy, improving their performance, versus improving their appearance all the time, how much healthier we would all be. And the ironic part is how much better someone would look when people are focused on health.

Speaker 1: 7:26

So what does that look like? That means, when they get up in the morning, they have a healthy routine of probably exercise, maybe meditation, and then they have a healthy breakfast plan, which, if you don't know what that is. It's because you are not paying attention to what nutritional science has been saying for a long time. Not what you're hearing from your influencers, not what you're seeing from your billion dollar diet industry trying to push bullshit onto you, but from what the health experts are saying. But from what the health experts are saying. So health is a high fiber, high, low glycemic complex, carbohydrate, carbohydrate source, lean protein. That's what health foods are. Right there, hardly any processing, hardly any fat, hardly any added sugar. Right, that's what they. That's what health is.

Speaker 1: 8:26

So when somebody gets up and they're focused on health, not restricting, because they're like got themselves in a pickle and gained 15 pounds and now they need to get the weight off, so now they're restricting or they're overly restricting to take off a few pounds, that's not healthy. That's weight loss, and weight loss done over and over and over again is not healthy. That's a cyclical weight loss individual and it is not healthy. People are far healthier to maintain a nice, healthy weight for a long period of time versus yo-yo go up, go down. They're far healthier to maintain a nice, healthy weight for a long period of time versus yo-yo go up, go down. They're far healthier to maintain a healthy weight. So that's what that looks like.

Speaker 1: 9:13

And when a person does that, when they have their health as their top priority and they get up and they exercise for their health and they meditate or do some other form of wellness or internal reflection for their health, when they have a healthy breakfast planned and eat that healthy breakfast, then they also start to look better. I mean, come on, when we're healthy, we look better. We have better hair, we have better nails, our complexion is better, our skin is better. Everything is better. We have a better glow about us when we're healthy. So the funny thing is is people focus so much on appearance and they think they have to be a size two or whatever that is Like, and I barely even understand like what that really means in inches and everything. I just know so much about it because as a personal trainer, I hear it all the time oh, I used to be a size this, now I'm a size this. It's like okay, we focus so much on weight loss and we don't focus enough on health and I promise you health is going to give you more of what you're really seeking, which is peace of mind.

Speaker 1: 10:33

So yesterday at this 5K, you can look around and see all shapes and sizes of individuals out there and, of course, I don't know what their motives are. Some might be out there because they had to be. Some might be out there because they're Rotarians and they just thought they should be there. Some maybe are out there because they want to try to win the race overall or they want to win their age group. Some might be out there because they are using it as a way to lose weight. Some might be out there because they know it's just a healthy lifestyle to walk or run the distance. I don't know I can't speak for everybody, but I can tell you this I don't know I can't speak for everybody, but I can tell you this You're not going to be able to judge their performance on how they look. I promise you that you can look. It's funny.

Speaker 1: 11:59

I've been doing this for so long. I like doing 5Ks for all of the reasons I just mentioned, other than weight loss. I do like to go out there and challenge myself and see if I can run a better time than my previous race. Not from my previous past, because I've been doing this a long time and that would be an unrealistic expectation, but I do want to do better than my previous last one that I did. That's kind of my goal every time. That's one of them. I also like the healthy lifestyle. I like pushing myself. I like being around people who are looking for a healthy lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 12:36

I do like to try to place in my age group. It's not my top motivation by any means and I'm able to keep it in perspective, but it feels good when you can take home a little plaque or a trophy for winning or placing in your age group. Like yesterday I won my age group and I felt proud of that. It wasn't even close to any of my best times and it is by no means fast by any kind of standards, but it does make me feel good and if I didn't I would still feel good and that's okay too. So I like to do it for that reason.

Speaker 1: 13:12

But as I sit there at the start line and I look around and I see you know some people who are like, look like prototypical runners, and then I see some that don't, and I'm kind of laughing because I'm like you know, I don't know who, but some of these non-prototypical runners are going to run by these prototypical looking runners and it's going to be so entertaining to watch. And I also know on multiple occasions that I've gotten passed by people that do not look like prototypical runners. Maybe they, you know, are a lot thicker than you would think they should be for somebody running that fast, or maybe they're, I don't know, too tall or too short, a little heavy. Maybe they have big, big calves and you think, man, how's this person with big calves running by me like this? I don't know. There's been so many different occasions where it happened and you know I just go, you know, more power to them. I mean great Cause. I know, I know you cannot judge a book by their by its cover.

Speaker 1: 14:16

And, by the way, if somebody is running faster than they used to, that does mean that they are more healthy. There's no doubt about it. Like, those things just don't happen by accident. There is so much more to fitness than your weight and your body composition. So if somebody is running pretty decently and who the hell knows how to judge that? But like, let's say, they're running by you, what that means is that their stroke volume is in really good condition, and what the stroke volume is is the maximum amount or the amount of blood that your heart can pump with one beat. So the more fit and healthy you become, the more you improve your stroke volume. So if you've improved that, that means that when your heart beats it's pumping more blood than it used to. So if it pumps more blood than it used to, it doesn't have to beat as much. So therefore your heart rate stays lower, which means you have more in the tank to push. So if you're at your maximum or close to your maximum in your VO2 max or your maximum heart rate, you don't have any more juice to push. So that right there shows that an individual who is running with good performance and more performance than they used to, one of the variables that they improved is their stroke volume. And if they're improving that, not only is their performance better but they're healthier, because now their heart is healthier. And there's been a lot of statistics done on VO2 max and heart disease and the higher the VO2 max, the less risk somebody is for cardiac disease. So there's a huge correlation between performance and health and I didn't say body composition and health in this regard and the way that that stroke volume actually improves is by your training your heart to become stronger.

Speaker 1: 16:22

I don't want to get too far in the weeds and too technical, but that's basically called left ventricular hypertrophy. So what that means is the left ventricle of your heart, which is the chamber that's responsible for pumping the blood to the systemic system. So it's the one that pumps the blood to everywhere where it needs to go. It pumps it out of the heart to the system. When it is exercised, that part of your heart actually gets a little bit bigger, a little bit healthy wise not cardiac myopathy, where all of your heart chambers are thicker. Now just the left ventricle hypertrophies a little bit, which is actually a good thing. So it gets stronger and because it gets stronger, it pumps more blood. So again, that is one area where our performance is indicative of improving our health. So once it does that, then we now have an improved cardiac output, which means that your heart now pumps more blood per minute than it used to. So again, it doesn't have to beat as much if it's pumping as much blood as it used to do, but now it is simply more efficient. So by doing that, we've improved what we call our VO2 max.

Speaker 1: 17:35

So no matter what if somebody is running or power walking or cycling or whatever they're doing better than they used to do, regardless of their weight. They are improving their health and fitness. So, as I sat around yesterday and as I do it every 5K that I go to again, I look around and I go. I wish more people would get this message that it's not about how you look all the time, because these people are out here improving their health and fitness. Some skinny little runner get their butt handed to them by somebody a lot bigger than them just simply because they're more fit and because they're more fit, they're more healthy in that regard. So it isn't all about just appearance. It is not all about that by any means. You just simply cannot judge a book by its cover, and I don't know how many people I heard say that yesterday.

Speaker 1: 18:36

At least three people in my circle said that because we would look at people coming across, because there was both the 5K and the 10K and the 5Kers, which we could see the 10Kers coming in, and some would come in at really good times. You'd be like God. You just wouldn't think that. And then you'd see some people coming across who were really, really thin and they'd come in later and you be like God. You just wouldn't think that. And then you'd see some people coming across who like were really, really thin, and they'd come in later and you're like, geez, I would have thought they would have run faster. I mean, that's not a fair judgment either, because, again, just because you're thin, it doesn't mean you're an overly great runner and they might have just started running. So who knows. But the point is is it's not all about performance.

Speaker 1: 19:16

I want you to think about how do you improve your health. Sure, weight is one of the components, but it's only one. There are many, many others. How about your resting heart rate? How do we lower that? If you lower that again, you're having a healthier heart. How about your blood pressure? Is your blood pressure in good, healthy limits? I mean, even if it is, maybe it can be even better. In a lot of cases, lower is better. How about your triglycerides? Have you had them checked? If you haven't, it's probably a good time. We want those as low as possible, because triglycerides are blood fats. Blood fats are not healthy. How about your low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, in other words, your LDL cholesterol? We want that as low as possible. Part of that is genetics, like many things, but we still want to strive for a low rating on that.

Speaker 1: 20:16

How about your submaximal heart rates? That is a great indicator of health and fitness. In other words, if you know what your heart rate is typically as you exercise at a given level, is it getting better as you go? That's one of the ways we always point out to our clients that they're getting in better shape. We have them grab the handles the heart rate handles on the bike or whatever they're on and say you know, look, your heart rate is lower here than it used to be at this same level, which is indicative of improving your fitness.

Speaker 1: 20:49

We have one client we work with on Tuesdays and Thursday nights who totally gets this. She totally gets that. It's about improving her performance metrics and so with her, she wears her. I think she has a Fitbit or a Garmin, I don't know what she has, but I know that it tracks her heart rate better than most of these tools that we use. And with her we look at her heart rate as she comes off the treadmill, because she does typically the same level and same intensity on the treadmill, the same grade and the same speed. So we look at that when she pops off. Then we look at it immediately after her squats, because she does Smith squats and that tends to spike her heart rate more than any other exercise in the gym. So we look at that and that's typically her peak heart rate of the workout. And then we look at it a couple other times as we're going around, but always when she's finished, after she cools down on the bike, we look at her peak heart rate and we look at her average heart rate and if those numbers are improving which they have been over the last two months they've been going down, down, down, down.

Speaker 1: 22:00

I point out, and she already knows this very, very smart person. She knows that this means that her health and fitness is improving and it's awesome because since we've been training, her weight has never come up one time. Weight's never come up and you know, it's an area that maybe, if she really wanted to, it could be something that she would want to improve. But she's not overly concerned with it because she's concerned with other variables and she knows herself and she wants to try to control the things that she can. So those are all ways to say you know, am I getting better, without worrying so much, is my weight getting better? And you can literally look at it like if you do certain events you know is your 5K times getting better? Is your triathlon times getting better? If you play tennis, are you improving your game? Like, are you putting your focus on trying to become a better tennis player, which comes from adding local muscular endurance, comes from adding cardiorespiratory fitness, comes from improving your diet so you are healthy enough to have the protein and the carbohydrates you need for energy.

Speaker 1: 23:13

How about when you go to the gym? Instead of always worrying about your body weight when you get there and check in, are your weights going up on your selectorized machines? Are your weights going up on your free weights? I mean, there are so many ways to think about your health and fitness other than weight that you may really, really, really want to start thinking about. So my goal for you is to start thinking about your health journal. Write it down in your fitness journal, if you keep one, if you don't start and ask yourself am I getting healthier and what do I have to do to get healthier? What areas am I slacking in? Am I really inflexible? Well, if you are, start working on that part of your health. Are your blood numbers? Are your lab numbers not so hot? Well, if they are start using health and fitness as a means to try to improve that, which they absolutely, absolutely does.

Speaker 1: 24:10

How is your cardiac health?

Speaker 1: 24:12

How would you know that? Well, your blood pressure and your resting heart rate Work on improving that. Are you weak in the gym and you don't care? Well, you should care. So are you weak? Well, how do you know? Well, you know, if you're using the minimal amount of weights when you go to the gym, you're not overly strong, and that's setting you up, because you know that's some frailty You're setting yourself up for maybe potential breaks or falls or whatever down the road. How's your balance? Do you test your balance? All these things are health parameters that you can be improving without ever thinking about your body weight. All right, so let's do the opposite of what everybody else is doing right now and let's really focus on getting healthier.

Speaker 1: 25:00

Speaking of getting healthier, zach and Jeff Hawk, who own Overhead Door, that's their big deal. I mean, I don't know. I mean they might weigh themselves here and there as they come to the gym, but they want to be healthy so they can serve you all out there and they can serve their families, and they really do improve their health all the time and it shows because they have the best garage door company in the state of Florida and we're lucky enough to have a branch here in Daytona Beach. They have the best customer service. They have the best product. Check them out at overheaddoordaytonacom.