Hello, everyone. This is your host, Susan Rosen. And my guest today is my new best friend, Eileen Block. And I'm really looking forward to having a discussion and learning more about her. So welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. My name is Eileen Block, and I am the founder of Silver and Strong Fitness.
And part of what I wanted to come on and talk to your listeners about is my journey, because I have felt like this is my new calling at 65 to really spread the word to other women. My age, my little saying is, it's never too late for a new beginning. I spent 40 years yo-yo dieting, and I realize now eating as little as possible to be skinny. And Yeah, really. I always weight trained. I did lots of cardio, and it was always for this goal to be skinny.
And as I approached my 60th birthday, five years ago now, I was like, All right, enough is enough. I'm tired of this. This is not working. I'm going to give myself permission to not diet for my 60th year. So I didn't. And I didn't like, gorge or do any of that stuff. But I didn't necessarily have great eating habits. And I can't remember now exactly, but I probably gained 15 or 20 pounds. And my 61st birthday was approaching, and I remember thinking, All right, you need to do something.
And I was on Instagram, and at the time, I would post pictures of my dogs and my kids, my husband's an Ironman triathlete in his races. And this post came up by a woman named on Instagram, she's Train with Joan. And it showed that she started a transformation at age 70, and she was 74 at the time. And it was a remarkable... She was very round at 70. And at 74, this woman had muscles popping out of her arms. And I was like, okay. And that's how I found the Wonder Woman.
Her daughter was the founder of this program. And I was like, Okay, the universe is speaking to you. Here, you asked what to do. Here's the answer. And what I learned in the program that was life-changing for me was this concept of eating to fuel your body, counting macros in macronutrients, not calories. I knew what macronutrients were, but I'd never heard of this concept about looking at protein, fat, carbs, not just how many calories you ate. And for me, that was the missing piece.
I was already weight training, but I realized I had gotten into a rut where I did the same thing every training session versus is this idea of lifting heavy to build muscle, to be strong and fit as you age, not, again, necessarily to be skinny. And the last piece of it was this idea about your mindset. And I don't know about you, but I think many of us are really unkind to ourselves. I would say things to myself that I would never say to another person, particularly looking in the mirror.
And so it was learning the idea of, okay, be aware of how you talk to yourself. Be aware of maybe limiting beliefs you have. And so through that process, I lost 40 pounds. It took me a year. And I learned how to eat to fuel my body. I said, instead it be skinny. And so then I spent a year in maintenance. I did a little bit of a build to build muscle. And then I moved to another coach because when I was in my 30s and 40s, I'd always wanted to do a bodybuilding show.
I thought the opportunity to do that had passed. I think a friend mentioned that she was thinking about doing it. I was like, okay, what the heck? Let's see When I started it, training, I lose track of time. I think I was 62. Let's see. I was because it was in 2022 that I ended up doing the show. I moved to, actually, the founder, Michelle McDonald. Her husband trains people for on the stage. And so I approached him. He had never trained anyone in their 60s.
And I said, Are you up for a challenge? And he's like, Let's do it. And so I spent six months working with him and did two bodybuilding shows in November of 2022 at 63, was the oldest competitor there, which was a badge I was proud to wear. And my whole point was I wanted to feel like I belonged. And I did. In the course They don't have a category of 60 plus. One show I did was 50 plus, and there were four of us. The next closest gal, I think, was 57.
The youngest was 53. And then the second one I did here in Hawaii, the oldest category was 55 plus, and it was just me, which was fine. But what it did for me was say, Hey, you did that thing you never thought you could do. What else could you do? And that was really life-changing. And so as you and I chatted a little bit before we started here, I had spent 40 years as a corporate lawyer, and there are parts of that career I really enjoyed and other parts not so much.
So at this point, let me just say, I eat double the calories I used to be. I lived on like a thousand calories for 40 years. I eat like 2,000 calories a day I'm maintaining the lowest body weight I ever maintained. I can bench press with 50 pound dumbbells, which I did in my 20s. And I am healthiest and the strongest, and I think the fittest that I've ever been. Now, granted, Good. Time to warm up. I didn't do that in my 20s. I have to take time to recover. I didn't do that in my 20s either.
But I just felt like I had this new lease on life. So rather than just retire, I went and got a number of certifications and started Silver and Strong Fitness with the idea of focusing on women like us, right? Fifty plus. All of my clients are postmenopausal, which I think is a fabulous place to be. My youngest client is 56, the oldest is 71, and they're a phenomenal group of women. My mission now is to let women know you're not too old, it's not too late.
You can change your life and be be fit and strong and healthy in, I don't know, what do they call it, your second act or whatever. Age in good health and be strong and independent and be able to carry your own groceries and get down on the floor and play with your grandkids and get up off the toilet as you... All those things, right? To be independent and have a quality of life. And then I will just end it with, this is way more fun than practicing law.
Not that that's a big surprise, but it is way more fun than practicing law. So I'm on this mission to get the word out to people, particularly to women in the group that, come on board. There's plenty of room, and it's a lot of fun, and it's a great community. Yeah. Oh, no, it sounds like it. It sounds like it. So how does Silver and Strong... I mean, is it like you have groups online or you have- Right.
It's all online, although I do have a client here in Maui, but it's online, one-on-one coaching. And so I meet once a week on calls with my clients for the first so many weeks. And then we go to every other week. And then I do a group call with all of my clients, where we might talk about nutrition issues. Most women don't eat enough protein, and so we We talk about ways to get more protein. We might talk about some training.
One of the big cornerstones of the training program is making sure you're lifting heavy enough. It's another thing most women aren't willing to push themselves to lift heavy enough. And we talk about so RPE8, which is rate of perceived exertion. So the idea is by the end of your set, you could maybe squeeze out two more reps. And then we talk a lot about mindset.
And one of the things I realized I used to do when my coach would send me a new workout and there might be a new exercise, and I'd look at it and go, Oh, I can't do that. I hadn't even tried, but I didn't even realize that that conversation was going on in my head. And so a lot of it's just a realization around our own limiting beliefs so that first you have to realize you're even doing it before you can change it. So that's part of the conversation as well.
And the other reason I started the group calls is one of the biggest gifts my transformation program gave me are friends that... I just came back from Sedona. I went with three of the friends I met through this training group who become some of my closest friends because making a decision to live this lifestyle, I don't have a lot of people in my life who have a lot of interest in talking about macros or PRs on your deadlift or whatever. They'll humor me.
But having people who are also doing those things and having those conversations is awesome. And making new friends that become really good friends in your 50s or 60s is such a gift. Having these women being able to meet each other, they're just all fabulous. And they live all over the country. My newest client is from Australia, but from California to Nevada, to Texas, to Minnesota, to Connecticut. They're all over the place. So that's the program.
I provide them with macros and workouts, and we talk about them weekly. I have some clients whose goals were to lose body fat, but I have other clients who came in who didn't need to lose weight, but they weren't really good about how they were eating and they wanted to get strong. I'll just tell you a story about one of my clients, Anne, who I just love. She's 5'2. She came in at 115 pounds, and she said, Look, some days I only eat one meal.
I really don't know what proper nutrition looks like, but I want to get strong. She had been doing yoga for years. She started out at 1100 calories. That's interesting. Yeah. She had strong arms, and she could do hand stands, but she'd never really weight trained. But she was only eating 1,100 calories, and sometimes it was just in one or two meals. We slowly started increasing the amount she was eating. She started a weight training program. She lost three inches in her waist.
She was really inflamed from the way she was eating. She's been working with me for 15 weeks now. She's eating almost 2,000 calories a day, and she's lost 5 pounds. And we'll increase her macros, and then we'll stay there for a couple of weeks, and then she gets hungry again because her body wants more food. And now that she's eating it and lifting it. She's funny. She's like, This is awesome.
She used to share a steak with her husband, and he said, You need to get your own now, because her piece was getting bigger and bigger. And it's just the idea. I love it. But it's the idea of eating to fuel your body. It's, I think, a change in certainly the message that society and social media had given us for so many years. So that's what I'm doing, and that's what the program looks like.
We're going to start a group coaching program because we're pretty full on the one-on-one in August, which will be very similar. But instead of the one-on-one calls, there'll be weekly group calls. And I'm excited about that. We're going to add some more coaches that are also 50 plus. That's the other thing is, I want... Part of why women come to me, first of all, they watched my transformation online. So they know that I know how to do it.
But it's different to have a coach who is in your age group, particularly who's gone through menopause, who understands what that means, who understands what it's like to be Postman and Apostle versus someone who's in their 20s or 30s, or to be frank, even 40s. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. You got to be past the- Yeah. It really makes a difference. It just does. It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. Physically, it's huge. Yeah. So that's what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and who I'm doing it with.
And it's really been one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. I did enjoy some aspects of my legal career. I worked with a lot of business owners directly, and that was great. But this really is one of the most fabulous things I've ever done. So I love it. Oh, yeah. No, it definitely agrees with you. No, thank you. It's very fulfilling. Again, I know what it did for me going through this, particularly answering a question or a desire that I had been attempting to deal with for 40 years.
But to pay it forward to others is really There's no better feeling than being able to do that. No, I agree. I totally agree. Absolutely. Yeah. So how very exciting. So what... I mean, when you When you talk about even like now you have the one on one, but then you're going to change to more or add. Tell me a little bit about how it actually works. Sure. So it's interesting Interesting. I've been talking to a lot of people this week, and a lot of people don't really understand how macros work.
So one of the things we start with is talking about macronutrients and the idea of eating protein. So my program, people eat five times a day. I was laughing. Someone said to me, Oh, you should take this supplement on an empty stomach. And I said, My stomach's never empty. I said, I eat all day. And The idea is to eat around your weight training because, again, you're looking to feel your body. So we talk about eating protein at every meal and the amount of carbohydrates you eat change.
You eat more before and after your training and less later in the day, particularly if you're trying to lose body fat. And so we talk about that, and we go over what their proposed macros are. And then we talk about weight training. I have some clients who had never lifted a weight before. I have one client who's 68. She'd never weight trained before.
So we may start with just bodyweight exercises, which if you haven't done squats, or even if you haven't done squats in a while, doing bodyweight squats where you actually squat down to your quats in parallel, particularly if you do it where you hold it for a minute or two, you're lifting your own body weight up and down. So starting with that or push-ups, whether they're from your knees or against the wall, again, depending on where you're starting.
There's plenty of body weight exercises you could do or starting with whatever weight. I have my clients choose the weight. We talk about the concept of an RPA that you want to push yourself to where you could only do two more reps before you reach failure. But they need to decide what the right weight is for them. People start slowly and cautiously, which is That's exactly what I would want someone to do. I have clients who start with three-pound weights, five-pound weights.
Particularly- I have some two-pound weights, personally. Right? Well, yeah, it's wherever you are. The client who's ever trained before, She started with three and five pound weights, and now she's using 10 and 12 pound weights. All right. And that's the improvement we're looking for. Everyone is on their own. One of the things I definitely learned with my own transformation, we all have our Our own path. We all have our own timeline for progress.
We bring our own history, our own physiology, our genetics. All of that make a difference. My whole thing is consistency, not perfection, because perfection doesn't exist. These are my mantras. I repeat to myself on a regular basis. Discipline, not motivation, because Lord knows I'm not always motivated to go work out, but I always start. And sometimes it ends up being a great workout, and sometimes it's just an okay workout, and I just get through it. And comparison is the thief of joy.
Because it's- Comparison is what? I'm sorry. I missed your part. Comparison is the thief of joy. Because sometimes it's hard not to compare yourself to other people. But it doesn't matter. I use a story because it makes me laugh when I think about it. So I have a friend, Tanya, who is 58, and And she did her first power lifting competition last year, and she won the Canadian National Championship for her age and her weight group. She is ridiculously strong. Yeah, she's amazing.
Ridiculously strong. My PR, my highest weight I've ever done in a deadlift is 20 pounds lighter than what she warms up with. She lifts like 100 pounds more than I do, which is fine. She inspired But if I tried to compare myself to her and say, Well, you should be lifting what Tanya lifts, what would be the point of that? It doesn't matter. All that matters is what's heavy for me because I'm trying to improve my strength.
And sometimes it's hard to remember that with all of what you see on social media and even what your friends may be doing. Well, yeah, social media, that's a whole another conversation. That's my third little mantra. It's consistency, not perfection, discipline, not motivation, and comparison is the thief of joy. And I repeat those to myself on a regular basis for all sorts of reasons. Those are things I talk to my clients about.
And so it's eating their macros, doing their training, being kind to themselves. As you talked about- Isn't that novel? Well, right. Because I would look in the mirror and say things to myself that I would never say. We all do. Right? Exactly. And Where's the benefit in that, right? Of being so nasty to ourselves. Really, even having the awareness that you're doing that and finding a way to stop it is really all part of the program. And having patience.
As long as you don't give up, you will get there, wherever there is. And maybe it's a current goal, and then maybe when you get to that goal, you set a new goal. But the I think there's a lot in our society of, I want it now, and it needs to be immediate.
We chatted a little bit before the podcast about how I got just destroyed on Instagram when I just said I was sad that Oprah talked about Ozempic and that it was the be all and end all solution to her weight issues rather than her ever talking about whatever challenges led her. Man, I got destroyed. And I think part of it was because she gave people an easy answer. It's like, Oh, well, I must have this problem. I'll just take this drug and lose all this weight. That doesn't change her habits.
I would be shocked if anyone who lost weight on Ozempic and then went off it didn't gain all their weight back because there's a reason you gained the weight in the first place. So slow and steady, the answer is there, but it takes work. But what better investment investment than investing in yourself and your health? Because I think we all would like to live to a ripe old age, but if you don't have quality of life, what's the point of doing that?
So that's really my message about healthy aging, that you can take control of your life and age in good health. It just takes you being honest with yourself and being willing to put the work in. And then it's just joyful. It's just joyful, I have to say. Wake up every day grateful and happy. And not say I don't have aches and pains. I have rotator cuff issues from years of doing too much without giving my body enough time to rest.
But overall, I will tell you, I had made a goal that I wanted to be able to do an unassisted pull-up, and I always wanted to do that. So I am nothing, if not stubborn and focused, sometimes to my detriment. So I did pull-ups every day. I can't remember now. It was either 13 months or 15 months. I don't remember how long it took me. But I did it, and I was able to do, I remember, it was three or five unassisted pull-ups. I was very proud of myself.
But in the course of doing pull-ups every day for that long, I irritated the crap out of my rotator cuffs. And And I couldn't do any pushing motion, and I couldn't squat for six months because I couldn't bring my hands back like this and hold on to the bar. So with age comes a certain amount of system, but sometimes we have blind spots. Sometimes you forget how old you are. Well, I have to.
I just turned 65 last month, and I really I do, because sometimes I think about my age and I think, Holy cow, you are old. But I don't feel old. I don't know about you. I lost any emotional attachment to my age when I turned 50, because I remember thinking, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I don't know how you're supposed to feel at 50. I just forget. And that's okay, right? How old do you feel? No. See, I'm 69, and I look forward to every birthday. I look forward to every year.
And the reason that I ended up how I am, because everybody's different, everybody's got age issues, good, bad, whatever. I have three older brothers, and they're all a lot older than me. Thirteen years, 11 years, six years. Not because it was planned, just It was the way that life worked. And so I have been spending my whole life trying to get older. I've been trying to catch up. That's awesome. So I love having birthdays. I love telling people how old I am. You look amazing.
I will tell you, I would never in a million years have guessed that that were your age. And Yeah, it's a gift, right? It's a gift to get over. That's the other thing. Every year is a gift. I mean, what's the alternative? Well, that's true. But we also live in a society that it's all about looking young and being young. And that's the whole thing around all the plastic surgery, which look, your body, your choice. I'm not saying people shouldn't have it. It's their choice.
It's why are you is a reasoning. And sometimes it's necessary. Sure. Absolutely. That's the thing that people talk about plastic surgery. Well, plastic surgery got started because it was necessary. Well, absolutely. And again, I don't have a problem with plastic surgery. No, I'm just saying things get a bad route. Well, yes. Well, because there's lots of... Well, let's go back to Ozempic, right? Ozempic It was created to help people who have diabetes.
And in fact, I know people who've had a hard time getting a hold of it because it has been used for this other purpose now. So, Yes. I agree. I had jaw surgery. I've had braces three times. I had them at 13. And then I was like 50. And my dentist said, I think you need to go see an orthodontist. I'm like, What are you talking about? And she said, Well, your teeth are point to point. Anyway, after I got my braces off at 13, I guess my lower jaw continued to grow.
And so I had to get braces again at 50. But part of that was they detached my upper jaw from my skull and moved it forward. And that was done by a maxiofacial plastic surgeon. Yeah, that was quite an experience at 50, which was fine. And just having your jaw wired shut for five weeks is not- Oh, gross. Yeah, it was. And me being me, I took two weeks off, and then I went back to work because I was a self-employed lawyer at the time.
I walked into the office and my partner said, Well, I was going to give you a hard time, but you look so pathetic. I just can't do that. I worked for the next three weeks until they unhinged me. And only then did I realize how little I would... Because I can only drink, right? You can only get so many calories in. I wasn't thinking all that clearly, it turns out, until I was getting more food in. But anyway, sorry, went off on a tangent.
My point being, the guy who did the surgery was a maxiofacial plastic surgeon. It was funny because I said, well, what happens if I don't do the surgery? And they said, Well, eventually your teeth will break off. I was like, Oh, okay. Well, it wasn't like I had a lot of choice to it. Yeah. Wow. There you have it. So, yes, plastic surgeons for all different reasons. Yes. No, that's true. Although I may visit one one of these days and have them tighten up my face or something. I don't know.
I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. We'll see. No, it might look good for a little while, but they always end up looking really bad. People get older and everything changes. Well, that would make sense, right? Well, part of me is like, Well, I don't want the downtime either. I like my daily schedule. Not to mention the pain. Well, that's true. Well, and here's the thing. Something wrong with getting...
That's why I go back to, something wrong with getting older and looking like... I love my lap lines. I was looking at my pictures from the bodybuilding show I did, and I was smiling. And so I have all the lines, and I have them, too. I have them, too. Yeah. Well, we all do. And there's no way to look at that. No. It just shows that we've had a life. Yes. And that we've laughed a lot. So when you look at these women who's faces can't move. Oh, my God. Yes. Their choice.
But I'd much rather look like... Well, although she's had a lot of plastic surgery, I Yes. But I think Jane Fonda certainly has wrinkles now, and she talks about that. And again, it goes back to your listening around it. If you're in Hollywood and you think you have to look younger to get roles, that's just unfortunate. That's true. Anyway. So now that we've gotten off of the exact subject, but it actually has something to do with it, really, because it's all involved, right?
Yes. Okay, well, great. We should probably wrap up. Okay. Why don't you let people know where they can find you, and I will share it in the show notes. Sure. Okay. So my website is silberandstrong. Com. S-i-l-b-e-r-a-n-d. Oh, A-N-D? Yeah. I actually think I might have the ampersand one as well that points you there, but it's the word and. If they are on social media... Well, by the way, I have a free Facebook group. If they're on Facebook, that's called Silver & Strong Fitness.
It's free to join. It has all sorts of tips about nutrition and training and mindset. Great. And so I welcome and encourage people to join that. And it's also a great community. It's a great community of women. And it's the same Silver & Strong? Silver & Strong Fitness. It's all that. If you just type in Silver and Strong Fitness under groups, it should come up. And then if you are on Instagram, I'm on Instagram at Silver and Strong. Same thing, all the same. Good. Same thing.
There's like today on Instagram this day, the way it's Transformation Tuesday. So I will post pictures to show where I started from and where I am. But As we've talked about, my message is the same, which is you are not too old. It is not too late. The power is all within you. Sometimes it's just a matter of educating yourself. It may be getting a coach who can provide some accountability and some guidance and finding your community because that community support, I think, is a big part.
Particularly if you don't have people in your physical proximity who are prioritizing health and fitness. It's really nice to have a community. As I was mentioning to you, I have clients all over the country and outside the country now, too. The same thing, the Facebook group, there's women from all over the world, from Australia and Sweden and England. So it really is a worldwide community of really awesome women. Sounds like it. Happy to add anyone else. Yeah. So that's where you can find me.
And by the way, on any of those places, you can send me a message. If anyone has a question, I'm happy to chat. It's really my goal to spread the word. Okay. Sounds good. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Oh, my pleasure. A lot of really great information. Glad to. Sure. And let me say that, finish up with my normal, which is that neither of us are doctors, and this is not to be seen as medical advice. With that, I will see everybody next week.