276 🔥 Burn Fat, Boost Energy & Heal Your Gut in Midlife with Brian Keane

Episode Transcript
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>> Brian Keane (00:00):
You change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And when

(00:02):
you shift the way you're moving through the world and raising that
frequency and vibration. Yeah, we all want to look better
and feel more confident when we see that reflection in the mirror.
But it becomes nearly a byproduct of the way you're living
versus this monomaniacal goal that you're working
towards that's coming at the cost of all the other things that are important. And I think
that's, a nice, framework for people to see
everything through.

>> Wendy Valentine (00:24):
Hey there, beautiful. I'm Wendy Valentine, your host
of the Midlife Makeover show where it's never too
late to wake up to your best life. Whether you're
navigating a career change, empty nesting,
menopause, or wondering what's next, you're in the
right place. Every week I'll bring you real
talk, laughs and inspiring conversations

(00:44):
with experts and extraordinary women who have
transformed their lives from self care and
relationships to starting over and finding
freedom. This is your time to
reinvent, rediscover and reignite the
woman you were always meant to be. So hit that
subscribe button and let's rewrite the rules of
midlife. Your new adventure starts

(01:06):
now.
I have some amazing news for you. My brand
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(02:31):
Makeover Show, Women Waking up. And most
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(02:52):
Welcome to the Midlife Makeover show where we dive
deep into the topics that matter most. Health,
mindset, relationships, and creating a, life
you truly love. Today we're joined by a
powerhouse in the world of health and fitness,
Brian Keane. Brian is a three time
best selling author, the host of one of Ireland

(03:12):
and the UK's top health podcast, and
a globally recognized expert in mindset
in fat loss. Oh yeah. He's
spoken on stages around the world including Google,
hq, Welfest Ireland and
Mi Fit Dubai. And has pushed himself
to the limits in some of the world's toughest endurance

(03:33):
races. Think marathons in the Sahara
and Arctic. But beyond the
accolades and the ultramarathons,
Brian has a personal story that many of
us can relate to. Struggling with gut
health, extreme dieting, and a
toxic relationship with food. Today,
he's here to share how to maintain a healthy

(03:55):
gut why losing stubborn
weight. Thank you very much. In midlife,
if you've ever felt like your metabolism isn't
what it used to be. word. Or you're confused about
what really works for you, then this
is the show for you. Get ready to
rethink the way you approach your health and fitness.
Please welcome Brian Keane to the show.

Wendy, what an introduction. And the energy. Oh, I'm so
matching that energy for the rest of this podcast.

Let's take a moment and appreciate your
awesome accent. I think you're the
first, I think you're the first guest I've had that is
from Ireland.

I will take that. That is, that is an honor, an accolade that
I will cherish until my dying days.

And like I told you, I can actually understand you
again because we're meeting.

At this, at this stage in life I lived in. I said to you right
before we went on air, I lived in the Bay Area in Northern California
when I was 19 and 20. And you can only
have so many conversations where people just tilt their head sideways
at you when you're speaking, where you know they don't understand what you're saying,
where you have to enunciate your words and actually pronounce everything that you
say. So in terms of we slur Irish people, like

(05:05):
we blend words together and they're slang.
And I learned to like actually speak proper
English when I was in the States. So I think it's, it's, it's held and
traveled nicely since I've came home again several years
ago.

And like I told you, I lived, or I live in
Portugal majority of the year now. And I think The
Portuguese are easier to understand.

Yeah. Like, there's. There's parts of Ireland that I don't understand. There's
literally counties in Ireland where people are speaking going, I have no
idea. I know we're from the same country, but I have no idea what you're saying. I was
like, you just need, like, a teleprompter. Beside them, like, are
the captions that are on, like, YouTube reels or Tik Tok reels. I
was like, I just need those following you around.

Oh, my God, you're so awesome, and I'm excited
to learn from you. you know, the number
one episodes are about weight
loss. On my show, it's either weight
loss, divorce, or
menopause. It's one of those three. Those are my
top downloaded episodes. So it's
good that you know a thing or two about weight

(06:07):
loss and most importantly,
health. I mean, I would say that's probably number one.
Right.
So tell us more about your journey
from being, I guess, a health nut
to discovering that you had some health issues
and then how you made that recovery.

It's interesting because it actually ties in nicely because I
didn't have any health or gut issues until I moved to the States.
And very interesting. And not to,
say anything negative about the United States, but I was
perfectly healthy and fine before I left. And when
I moved to California, I
started to follow and pick up a couple of bad habits. One

(06:45):
of them was coffee for breakfast,
which isn't an Irish thing.
We have food for breakfast historically. But
I went to the States, and then everyone I was living with were like, oh, just coffee
and, you know, skip breakfast. I was like, okay, that's perfect. Stimulant. I'm high.
I'm good. I'm fine. And the way we go, that was number one.
The second thing that we didn't have in Ireland at the time

(07:05):
were protein bars. And I remember thinking, oh,
my God, fitness protein bars. These chocolate bars taste
amazing, and there's protein in them. So I started to have several
of those every single day. And the third
thing, which I now realize was because I
ate a lot of meat. I eat very little meat now, but when I was
19, 20, I ate a lot of meat. I was a fitness person, I played

(07:25):
sport, I was into the gym, etc. And I started to eat a lot of
meat. And I remember the first time I landed in the States and
I went out for dinner, there was a piece of chicken on my
plate that was the size of my face.
I had never seen a chicken Breast that big. And what
I didn't know then was the
antibiotics, the hormones, all of that, that was pumped into the meat.

(07:45):
Because we have very strict regulations in the EU and in
Ireland. I grew up on a farm, so most of the meat we
ate came from the farm. And living in the
States and living that way. And I was also drinking
way too much alcohol. Let's not call, let's call a spade a spade here. But I
was drinking a lot of alcohol in Ireland at the time too. It was just that it was like a
perfect storm of everything. So I was drinking too much

(08:06):
alcohol, having coffee for breakfast, skipping meals,
having a lot of protein bars, eating a lot of highly
processed or hormonally antibiotic based food.
And my gut just hated me.
And I was at a, fraternity party
in Berkeley where I was working
and I was having, I can't remember was a vodka
or. It was the spirit. I was drinking and I started to get this like gut

(08:28):
wrenching pain in my stomach and for the first time I ran to the
bathroom. And I've got sick from alcohol in the past.
That's not anything new for an Irish person or some of the
different kind. This was a, this was a different time. I wasn't drunk,
but I started to spit blood. and then I was
like, oh my God, that's never happened before. I
was like, that's, that's new. And I was

(08:48):
very worried. I was 19, I had no idea what was going
on. And then the same. Then when I was having bowel movements, there
was blood in my stool. And I was thinking, I've done something
wrong here. So I had to be hospitalized. And
to cut a very long story short, I was
at that point that I realized that I had been living
in a way that was very unhealthy.

(09:09):
Although I was quite fit, I was still playing sport, going to the
gym, I was relatively lean, etc. I was very
unhealthy. And something that I've tried to promote on my
channels, my podcast, my social medias, is the
divergence between health and fitness because they're two different goals. It's really
ironic because a lot of people lob them together. Like I used
to compete in like bodybuilding shows and fitness

(09:29):
model. I used to travel around the world as a fitness model when I was in my
20s and I was very fit, but I was very unhealthy because I
was very calorie depleted and I looked quote unquote,
quite muscular and lean. But I was really
unhealthy. My gut in particular. And the same with the
ultramarathons you mentioned. Like, I was very fit. I'm able
to run six back to back marathons through the Sahara, but I

(09:49):
was very unhealthy. But there is a point where there's this sweet
spot, like a seesaw. And what you're looking to do in midlife
is find the sweet spot between both, particularly if you're perimenopausal or
menopausal, you're looking for that sweet spot between, I feel
healthy, I feel energized, I feel good. But
I'm also fit and my body fat is low and that
stubborn area around my stomach has reduced and my
hormonal balance is good. And it's this sweet

(10:12):
spot. And I spent probably the next
decade researching the different
modalities in health, in wellness, in fitness, trying to
blend this whole world together. So that was kind of my
origin story for improving health and going into kind
of health, wellness and fitness. And now it's about, you
know, having great conversations with the likes of you. Wendy, doing the
same on my podcast, you know, chatting to great guests. I know

(10:34):
I'll have you on, when your book is out. Like, all these amazing things I get
to do do when it comes to serving people in a meaningful way.
But that was the origin story to how I kind of got here.

I've said this before on the show, but I've. There's
one common thing that all of my guests have,
and that is they are the guinea pigs of
their own teachings. Right.
Like, whatever they had learned through their trial and error is
what they end up teaching, which is great. I mean,
it's sad that we, myself included, right. We have to

(11:04):
go through all of that to learn. Like, okay, that
didn't work. This does work. But then you turn
it around and you're able to teach others and you're able to
help others. Do you find a lot of people
will in trying to find that sweet spot? They give up
because they're so frustrated with what to eat, what to
do, how to do it, when to eat, all the do's

(11:25):
and the don'ts.

Yeah. And it's, completely justifiable.
Like, I always think if you were spending
days, weeks, months, years trying
to, you know, break through a rock
and nothing was happening, you'd be like, I'm out.
What am m I doing? And that, that's how health
and fitness can feel like sometimes. And one

(11:47):
of the things I try and bring awareness around because awareness is the
first step towards change. But
really you also have to be directionally correct. The
analogy I use is it's like climbing a ladder, but you have to make
sure the ladder is up against the right wall. So what you're
doing is really important how you're living. So I work a
lot, historically, with a lot of yo yo dieters, people who have

(12:07):
been on and off dietary fads, who have emotional
or miseducation around food because of
years of jumping on the scale, checking the weight,
weight going up, weight going down, rebounding, and yo yoing on
diets. That's a big core part of who I work with.
And as a result of that, it's.
You can see the frustration because

(12:28):
the entire principles are wrong. There's a
whole miseducation there and an unlearning element.
And the same with weight loss. Like, one of my most popular.
I've had several viral pieces of content on this
explaining the difference between weight loss and fat loss, that
they are two completely different things.
And when you understand that

(12:49):
weight loss is reducing numbers on a scale,
fat loss is reducing the amount of fat on your body
and that you can have one without the other, or you can have
both at the same time, that changes
everything because your metric changes. You know, the analogy I
use, and again, it lands more with the men versus
the women, but again, equally here, I think is like, you know, you

(13:10):
don't measure the number in your bank account to track how good you are in bed. Those
numbers are two different numbers. And that's what,
that's what weight loss and fat loss is like. Yeah. Yeah, thank God.
Yeah, exactly. 100. Or maybe not.
I don't know. I feel like there's a whole other podcast
unpacking that. but they're two different things. And
people will be looking for fat.

Loss or just only focused on that
number on the scale. I have always been highly
against that because, because of that, like,
even for me, especially with working out, I'll
gain muscle, but, you know, and I might
lose some fat. But maybe the number on the scale does
not change or it does change and not to

(13:50):
get so attached to that number.
I mean, I feel like, I hope, hopefully
with society that is starting to change a little bit.
You're, you're more than just the, the number on the
scale.

Oh, 100. And I think. But the number on the
scale is an educational thing. That, that, that,
that's, that's a miseducation. Yeah, it's, it's,
it's a metric. And I always tell.
Similar to food, one of My books, the Keen
Edge, which is a book on yo yo dieting, emotional eating,
etc. Mastering the fat loss for our, mastering
your mindset for real lasting fat loss as a subtitle. But

(14:24):
what I speak about in there is the same as food that
separating food into good and bad categories generally isn't helpful
for a weight loss goal. You know, and it's not
because certain foods aren't quote unquote healthy.
There are certain foods that are really nutrient dense. But you know,
food good and bad are morals we project onto the food.
Like a chocolate bar is not going to stab you down the back alley and a broccoli is not
going to save you from a burning building. Like we project the morals

(14:47):
onto the food and as a result of that it can
underpin the miseducation around how we approach
food that look, there's some food that's going to be highly
nutritious and really, you know, low
caloric value or low nutritional value. And there's, you
know, your chocolate bar doesn't have a lot of nutrients but it
tastes really good. But the calories are really high and it's
very processed so it can affect your gut microbiome which actually

(15:10):
might not help you in the long term. But if you love.
I'm a chocolate person. I don't have a sweet tooth. I have sweet teeth. I love
chocolate. Like if you took chocolate out of my daily routine,
I actually would. Life wouldn't be worth living. But I
don't have 10 bars every day. I have a small amount
and with nutrition you can have anything. You just
can't have everything. So if I'm having chocolate,

(15:30):
I'm not having a beer that day. Or if I'm having chocolate,
I'm not going to go for a takeaway or fast food. Like I'm going to
balance that out and, and that's how that
can be a good foundational approach for
anyone midlife looking to lose weight and be
sustainable with their fat loss over time. Because the weight training
you mentioned earlier, Wendy, is so important, so
important in midlife for your bone strength, your

(15:53):
metabolic rate and your metabolism, like your hormonal
production, particularly coming into any sort of perimenopause or
menopausal age, like heavy lifting and strength and
weight bearing exercises, like all the studies, like I go into the weeds
on this, all the studies suggest that you have to lift
heavy in that so that your bone density, your
metabolism is going to support you for the next decade. And

(16:13):
that's an approach that sometimes doesn't get spoken enough about
in what I think is kind of an underserved market, for sure.

Yeah, I just, in the last year, have gotten
more into weight training, and it
makes such a huge difference, more than I
thought that it would. I mean, I did weight training for a while, then I kind of
got into just cycling and lots of
cardio. Like, kind of bored
with it. And weight training, I think, is very

(16:39):
exciting. I mean, it's like you can actually
see some results even while you're in the gym, which
is pretty neat. But if you think about it
in your 70s and 80s. I mean, I
plan to live until I'm 111. Right.
But the key is that you want to be able
to get out of bed. You want to be able to.
Okay, tmi, but. Right. You want to be able to sit on the

(17:01):
toilet. You want to be able to get back up from the toilet, like all
those. You want to be able to sit on the floor and play with the
grandkids. You have to start thinking about those
things. Even the, the. The basic moves of
the human body that we take for granted as
we get older. And it's like, oh, shit, I wish I had
strengthened those bones and those muscles and.
And had nice lubrication in my joints so that

(17:24):
I can move around freely.

It's so interesting, Wendy, and I don't want to be a focus
group of one here, based on my narrative, but I think
about my two parents. Thankfully, both my mother and father are
both alive, but my mother is in her
mid-60s, and mom still plays soccer,
goes to the gym and plays Gaelic football, which is our national sport,
literally, with women in their 20s. M M.
Mom's a badass. My dad needs help putting on

(17:49):
his shoes in the morning. and I remember as kids,
me and my sister are both very active, very similar to my mom.
I remember my mom, when we were kids, in her 40s,
in her 30s, in her 40s and her 50s, always going to the gym,
sprinting outside, hiking up mountains. She
always trained. My dad played sport, and when he
retired at 32, he never worked out again after
that. And I, feel like if both of them could see

(18:12):
30 years in the future, that one would still be
playing soccer, and five aside and going to the gym
three to four times a week, and the other would need help putting on
their shoe, they would have invested in their health pension a
lot sooner. And sometimes when you think about your
40s and 50s, you're like, oh, okay. Things are starting to kind of
clock on now. Maybe I should look into this. But think about how

(18:33):
you'll be in your 60s, in your 70s, in your 80s.
That's why it's so important. This is both genders and non
binary, but male, female, like this is for everybody.
And sometimes you have to like do your forward projection, your
psychological term of like picturing your future self
and. And what will they thank you for today?

Exactly, I've said that too. I always
think about like, what would, you know, 90 year old Wendy,
you know, be saying to me, like, I want her to be like,
thank you so much for taking
care of this body. Because like that's it's the
only one you like. It's the vehicle that carries your soul,
you know, through this lifetime. Like put some good

(19:10):
fuel into it, right? Like you wouldn't put subpar
fuel into. I wouldn't put that in the rv. I wouldn't get
anywhere.

M. Right.

You got to put good fuel into your body.
But you know what, I want to go back to what you're saying.
I totally agree with you. Like for in the United States,
unfortunately we have some very unhealthy
food. And no joke, I've been back,
let's see, maybe about 10 days
and my stomach has been a wreck ever since I got

(19:38):
back. And I eat well, I eat very healthy.
And even still it is
challenging because, and I think I had heard
this, I don't know if this is accurate, but
that 50% of. And you were even saying
in, you know, like in the UK or in Europe that
I think it's like 50%, of
what they don't allow over in Europe.

(20:01):
We have in our foods
here. So it's hard, but it's like even if
you have great intentions, so how, what
do, what do we do here in the States
to be able to eat as healthy as we
possibly can?

Unfortunately, there is an answer,
but like most things, it comes at a cost and in this case
it's financial. You can get really good
foods in the us it just tends
to cost more. Yeah, but a, flip I put
on that for people is similar to what I talked about
my mother and my father earlier. Which one is

(20:38):
your future self going to thank you more for?
And if you're eating mostly
organic and in the EU in Ireland,
in the uk, this isn't as strict because we don't have
glyphate in our foods. We don't have all these
issues and preservatives added in. We have very strict
regulations. Over here you don't have.

So awesome.
That's that's when you really want regulations.

And, strict a hundred
percent, but the US doesn't have that. So there's a element of kind of
work with what you got and just being educated around how to make better
choices. And yeah, it's probably the
downside is it's going to probably increase your food shop by,
you know, hundreds, maybe a couple of hundred dollars a week
even in some cases, especially if you have a family
bush. It's, I would argue

(21:23):
now I'm very biased. I'm a nutritionist. I'm certified in
that space. So. And I know and understand
the chemical makeup of poor quality nutrient foods
versus higher quality alternatives. So it's very
easy for me to say. And also I'm in a very luxurious position
where I can potentially afford that even if I was in the US
Based on the living that I make, not everybody can. Some people

(21:43):
are really struggling to make ends meet. So this advice,
I don't want to make it sound like it's coming from a place of a lack of
awareness because for some people it's like, where am I going to get an extra
couple of hundred dollars a week for my food
bush if it means that you might have to potentially
cut back somewhere else? It's the thing that I always
think of your food. And although

(22:04):
weight management, losing body fat, your stubborn area in
particular, I spend a lot of focus and attention on content around
your stubborn area and reducing belly fat and body fat and how that
works in terms of, you know, how everyone is different. Some people
reduce in what's called localized regional areas. Others
reduce overall. That is you windy and then
another alternative, Atanas beside you, you lose body fat in
your stomach and then your back and then your legs and your hips. And

(22:26):
Tanner loses it a little bit from everywhere. So people lose body fat in
different ways. So it's important to understand that because comparison
is the thief of joy. When people look and go, well, her belly fat's coming down, why isn't
mine coming down? The body fat uses differently for different people.
But when it comes to your nutrition
and making the healthier food choice, I always think that
energy is the currency of the world, really. And when you

(22:47):
have higher quality food, you tend to have more energy
actually moving through the world. You tend to sleep better, you,
you hormonally feel better, you tend to move more.
And what normally happens. Now I'm probably biased, so
feel free to correct me and be like, Brian, this does not happen in my world.
But what I normally see happens is when people have higher energy
levels, they tend to feel happier in

(23:08):
themselves. So they can put more focus and attention into things that
they love. Their fitness, their family. And in
other cases, people will end up setting up side hustles. They'll end
up doing other things that actually generates revenue, and then that revenue
can go back in to make healthier food choices.
So it's weird because when you are low energy, when
you're approaching midlife, when you don't feel that good, you feel a bit

(23:28):
fluffy, you feel a bit bloated all the time, you don't feel as good as you
did 10, 20 years ago. It's hard
to be in that position to go, well, I can't even imagine feeling that much
more energy. I've just resigned myself to the fact this isn't going to happen
now. When in reality, there's a lot of things you can do
in terms of the supplements you can take, the healthier food options you
can make the. The movement patterns, that is the strength training we

(23:48):
talked about. There are things that will compound very
positively over the space of weeks and months. I'm not
even talking years, because it's
astronomical over years, but you'll notice those
changes in weeks and months. And then again,
it's investing back into yourself. And as I said, I
don't want to be blind to people's situations, but just from
what I've seen, when you're able to increase people's energy

(24:11):
and they feel better about themselves, life feels more like
it's worth living. And that's ultimately what it's about.
Keeping your frequency high, keeping your vibration high, keeping your
energy high. I think all those words can be used
interchangeable. And your food is definitely one way of doing that.
Garbage in, garbage out.

Yeah, very well said. It's funny because I think
it's. A few days ago, I posted,
I posted a video of me dancing in the rv,
because that's what I do comment.
And they're like, I got to know, how do you have so much
energy? And I get, I get the question
a lot. Or that comment. Oh, gee,

(24:47):
gee. And, and it's exactly
what you said. And there's. It's not
rocket science. It really isn't. It's how
I value, number one, how I look at
the vehicle that carries the soul through this
lifetime, what I want to do with
my soul during this lifetime. Right. And
the foods that I put into my body, I do the best that I

(25:10):
can, even despite, like, sometimes my body goes in shock
when I come back to the. Okay, I
guess I'm not eating out for dinner, you know,
but. And it's really, to me, it's like, it's the
basics. And I think the number one thing, even
in my, in my book I talked about this.
The ABCs of Health and your same thing,
it's awareness and it's

(25:32):
a, is awareness and it's okay, what,
observing yourself. How, how are
you? How are you right when you wake up in the
morning? How are you thinking? How are you, how are
you feeling about yourself when you go look in the mirror, you're like, oh,
crap, like I look like crap. Or you know, are you like,
oh, hey, you know, I mean, I'm not
always chipper, I can tell you that.

(25:55):
But I am aware of it. If I'm
having a down moment, I'm like, down women. You
know, I accept it. But, being aware
of how you're eating, what you're eating, what
you're doing, how you're moving, like really just
being conscious of what the heck you're doing.

Every day, you know, it's a
controllable. There's a, it's weird because I learned
this in kind of ultra events and running through the Arctic
and running to the Sahara when I was chatting to other ultra runners.
But it's very applicable here. And the famous line in
those circles is control the controllables and
your food is a controllable. The media you consume

(26:32):
is a controllable. Your movement patterns for the most
part are controllable. There's a lot of things you can't
control. You can't control what's going on in the government,
you can't control what's going on potentially in
your work if you've got several people over you, if you're not self
employed. There's a lot of things you can't control, but your food
and your nutrition is one of them. And again, I know there's
barriers. Cost is a big barrier as I've mentioned,

(26:54):
but the same as barriers. Is there a way around it? Is
there a way through, Is there a way over it? Barriers are there.
They're not complete blocks as a wall, you can get over them, around
them or through them. And maybe just shifting your mindset to more
of an open state versus a fixed state to okay,
how can I eat healthier versus the I can't. Because
we know this. The cognitive neuroscience is very clear on this. You tell yourself

(27:15):
you can't do something, all those compartments in your brain shut down
and you have no options. But when you ask, well,
how Can I? Everything starts to open up and your brain looks
for solutions. We're problem. We're problem
seeking machines to a degree, but we're also problem solving
machines in terms of how our brain has been evolved over the last
10,000 years. And it's really important that the way you
speak to yourself, how can I move more?

(27:38):
How can I lift those weights? How can I eat
better? Framing it that way versus the
automatic fixed mindset shutdown if I can't.

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and everything to gain. It's funny, you hear a lot about,
like, how to properly ask chat GPT

(28:52):
to get the right answers. Why
haven't we said that? Just like what you said, why don't we ask
ourselves the right questions? Yeah, the right
answers. Instead we're focusing.
Our computers can respond.
Right.

I'm so stealing that line, Wendy. Like
we're worried about the prompts on ChatGPT
when it's like, well, what's the questions we need? What's our own prompts? What's our
internal prompt? How do I live a happier life? How do I make my
sole purpose my sole purpose? Like, they're better questions
that we don't think to ask to ourselves, but
we would do program into a machine.

Yeah, and I think that's, I mean, that says a lot too. We're
looking for answers outside of ourselves when it's
just, it's right here. It's, you
know. You know, I was thinking too, I would
rather put my money towards my health
now rather than having to put my money towards
my sickness later in life and think about how
much illness cost

(29:49):
and I mean, no matter where you are in the world, it's
expensive and it's like well, then,
okay, grow a garden. You know, like what
I had, What's his name? Udo
Sarasmus. I don't know if you know, he.

Yeah, yeah, he's been. He's been on the podcast as well. Yeah, yeah.

Is he not a hoot or what? But I remember him
saying his number one suggestion was like, grow
a garden. If you have a yard,
grow a garden. Like, that is the best thing you do.
Because, like, to your point, it's something you
can control. You can control what you're
planting in your own garden, how you're eating it,
how all of that. And. And it's so good for you. Just the

(30:28):
act of doing it is good for you.

Yeah, it's a, Actually, you know what? It's a beautiful metaphor and analogy for
life, too, because I think about podcasts like this,
Wendy, similar to my show, that
you get to choose what you consume. And,
like, we're having a big thing. I'm not sure when this episode is going out, but,
Conor McGregor was over with Trump in
something, and it's going all viral here, and people are
really, really angry about it. Somebody asked me about it on social media today.

(30:53):
I put it on my stories. I'm like, okay, look, if you're really angry about
this, I'm like, turn off your phone and switch off your tv.
Like, you, know, I was like, you're choosing
what to put into your mind. You're choosing
to get angry about this. And I
had to spend years cultivating that patience,
seeking in with those dark nights of the soul to

(31:13):
why I would react to things instead of respond and know that
most of those problems were myself. You know, if you're
replying or responding hysterically to something that's
probably historical, meaning that it's something that's been
activated and triggered within you, and now you're feeling anger
or rage or sadness or loneliness or frustration. It could, et cetera,
insert feeding here. And I think that's a really important to
kind of just remind me with the garden with terms of physical food.

(31:36):
But I think your mindset is just equally equivalent and it's, again,
holistic when it comes to the happiness and feeding your
soul, because ultimately, as you mentioned, it's the vehicle that you're moving through
this world in. So you need to look after your physical body, you need to look after
your soul. And sometimes the mindset is actually the gateway
to the soul in terms of what you're consuming. So you can actually feel that
happiness, joy, and fulfillment.

Yeah, well said. And no one else can do it,
right? I mean, we can learn from others and
we can learn from you and how you do it. People can learn from
me. But it's ultimately up to each individual
person to take care of their garden, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Wow. You and I both love these
analogies. So I think of it
as your mind is like, there's a ticker tape
of thoughts going across, like in watching the, like here in the
States, you know, we love CNN and Fox News. And you're
watching the ticker tape going across all the crappy news.
You have the power to change that.
You have the power to change that ticker tape of thoughts going

(32:35):
across in your mind. And just like you said, if something's
bothering you, shut it off. Like, I
mean, no matter what it is, whether it's
TV or social media or your,
your friend or supposed to be your friend
or whatever, like you have that power to
do that. And I think that affects everything. I
mean, I know, like, all right, this episode is supposed to be about

(32:58):
fat loss and, you know, taking care of our bodies,
but that's really a lot of what it
is.

I'm going to tie it all together because
when you're unhappy or
frustrated or angry, it's
a lot harder to make healthier food choices and move your
body because you're operating at a lower frequency, a lower
vibration. And one of the
impediments for weight loss and fat
loss isn't always nutrition and it isn't always

(33:28):
exercise. It's literally the reason why I write books around the
mindset of fat loss. In a lot of cases now, the books have
the nutrition and the training, etc. But the mindset
is equally important. And, and one of the
lines I wrote in my second book, rewire your mindset, was don't
plant apple seeds and expect oranges to grow.
And that goes for nearly everything that if you're around

(33:49):
negative people, if you're consuming negative media,
although it doesn't directly feel like it's going to impact your
belly fat, it does. It's stress, it's
cortisol, it's a hormonal physiological response.
And if you have too much excessive cortisol going on in your
body, your body will hold on to fat. It's
literally a survival mechanism that's been evolved for thousands of years that

(34:09):
kept your ancestors alive 10,000 years ago, but
now it just makes us fat and unhappy
and not like the mirror reflection we see.
And it all ties together because there's foundational
principles of nutrition you know, eat more whole foods.
If you're in the US listening to this large portion of
people are, try and eat organic as much as possible. Go to
sprouts, go to whole foods, go to the alternative

(34:32):
locals farmers markets as much as you can. You know,
eat. If you're eating meat and fish, try and eat
wild fish, try and eat free range meat if that's your
choice that you're deciding to go. In terms of nutritional protocol,
move your body more, focus on your step counts or your
cycling or what you enjoy doing. I'm a big believer
in like life is too short to do things you
hate. And if you hate going to the gym, look

(34:55):
for an alternative way to move. Like yes, the science
and the research says you should lift more because you're perimenopausal
or you're menopausal. And if you do five
sets of six repetitions on a squat or
deadlift, it's going to improve your bone density, it's going
to improve your metabolic rate as you age. But if
you hate that and your soul cries every time
you step inside a gym, look at alternative ways of doing

(35:18):
this. Look at alternative.

Like you said too, like that in itself can cause stress because
you hate it so much, 100%.

And it's so weird.
It's like this like chicken and egg scenario on, you know,
I hate the gym, but I need to work out, but I've got so much cortisol
because I hate the gym. And you're like, you don't want to be in that cycle either.
So look for alternative ways. There's so many things out
there that are going to potentially help. Yes, you can
optimize and do the thing that's optimal
100%. Like there's macro splits and calorie

(35:45):
targets and nutrient elements are targets we
need to hit and reps and sets and all of these
things. But ultimately check in, tune in.
Intuition is a big thing, and
particularly female intuition. I think women naturally,
I don't want to, you know, speak down of non
binary men, et cetera. But like women's intuition is a very strong
thing and that's something that I trust in my life with the women. I have very

(36:07):
powerful women in my life. My mother, my sister, my partner. I've got a
daughter, she's nine. Like I want her around those strong
women so she's like that. But that women's
intuition, that's something that I have to really focus on as a
man. That seems to be very natural to the women. In my life
and checking in with that, what does my body need? What
do I need today? What does my soul need? What does my physical body
need? What do I need? Am I over

(36:30):
saying yes? Am I people pleasing? Am I over
committing to things that I don't really want to be doing? These are all things
that will impact your belly fat and they will impact your
waistline. Although sometimes we don't directly think that they
do.

You know, it's one thing too, like thinking back in the
80s, it was like the fad diet,
you know, decade. And a lot of
it was, don't eat that, don't do this, don't
eat that. It was, don't, don't, don't. No, no, no. And I think this
matter of fact, I think I saw on your Instagram, this is something about
the elephant.

I have a few. I've got a. I've got a couple of elephant lines. I'm
not sure what you refer to. I do like the elephant as a metaphor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like you said, okay, you
can't do that. Then you're like. All you're thinking about, like, it's. All you're
seeing is that elephant.

Pink elephant. Pink elephant theory.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's. I
think that's where we kind of go wrong with this. It's the
negative. Like, don't. Obviously do not is
going to be negative. And so instead of thinking like, oh,
I can't have this. I can't do that. And I mean, even for
you, like, okay, I eat chocolate. I'm not going to deprive myself
of eating. I love chocolate. I'm a French pastry chef. Of course

(37:38):
I'm going to eat, you know, But I'm not sitting around
eating, like, chocolate croissants all day long. Right?
So it's like too much of anything is a bad thing.
Except for love, I think. But. Right. Like,
it's. It's the balance of it, and it's not
to deprive yourself. It's. It's actually. I feel
like once you get it, you actually

(37:58):
get more than you were before.
And you're not. You're happier, you're not feeling
deprived, and you're moving your body better,
you're feeling healthy. Like, that's. Isn't that what we all
want?

There's two things I want to unpack there because I was so beautifully said,
Wendy. Like, I'm a big
frequency, vibration, love, peace,
acceptance, person. That's something I had to do. A lot
of internal Work on. And
the irony of somebody that
wants more love is to give out more
love. It's it feels very paradoxical, but that's the

(38:33):
truth. You want to receive something, put it out there.
You want acceptance, accept people. You want
peace, be peaceful towards people.
Again, it's vibration, it's frequency, it's
energy. The pink elephant theory,
which is if I say, Wendy, do not think of a
pink elephant, first thing in your mind is a pink
elephant. And so it comes

(38:56):
counter intuitive to, or it's actually a complete
counterbalance to what I've said there in terms of that what you put out is what
you get back. So if I say you cannot have
chocolate, that's what you want, first thing you want.
Can't have the French pastries, first thing you want.
So straight away understanding,
there's a lot of psychological underpinnings and research done
on this pink elephant theory, on all facets of life.

(39:18):
You always have people who are like, I always want what I can't have. I'm like,
that's, that's a self fulfilling prophecy that you've conditioned
yourself to think and with nutrition and
the 80s fad diets, because it was all no, no, no,
don't have this, eliminate this. And
as soon as you do that, that's what your brain is going to want and crave.
When you understand that

(39:39):
food has different
purposes, one of them is to fuel your
body and other can be psychological and
social. Like the French pastry might taste
amazing. You might be having it with a friend or a family
member or a loved one and then that's literally feeding your soul.
One of the questions I ask all my one to one clients is what's
your soul food like? S O U L, what's your soul

(40:01):
food? What's the food that your soul is like? I love
that. Chocolate's my soul food. And the
reason I ask it is because it's a pattern
interrupt. Because a lot of people who come to me have worked with coaches
before and they normally get put off a lot of their
favorite foods and they eliminate their favorite foods. The
first thing I'll ask is what your soul food? Because I will build a plan around

(40:21):
the soul food. Because I love that,
because that's what's going to lead to sustainability ultimately. And it
means that people can stick to it, they enjoy it, etc.
So it's a pattern interrupt that anybody could do
themselves and then just reverse engineer the plan from
there.

Really? That's genius.
So you, so you probably just answer my question.
but do you guide people on like this is what
to eat, when to eat it, because so I think, I feel like so
many people nowadays need this like 1,
2, 3, like these bullet points, very
structured diet so that they can

(40:58):
follow, otherwise they're just lost without
depends.

And one of the things that we've built out, we historically always
did group based programs and then online
there would be some people that would be kind of the more one to
one. But in the group based
programs we have all the programs set there nutritionally. So
it's, here's the program, here are the recipes,
loads of options. But you pick what's going to work for

(41:24):
you with one to one and this goes for
everything. And this isn't a pitch to work with me. There's loads of great coaches,
nutritionists out there. It's square pegs into square holes. Find whoever you
like. You have a great coach in Portugal. Find whoever you like, who you
think you will fit as a good fit with and then work with that
person potentially. But with one to
one and nutrition, so many different things

(41:44):
work for different people based on underlying issues.
If you're somebody with thyroid issues or PCOS or
you're perimenopausal and you're having horrible symptoms,
you're, you know, nightly hot flashes, etc, yeah, you're going to have
a different approach than someone who's 25, 26 with no
underlying issue, who just wants to lose weight or body fat because
they have a bikini holiday in three months time. Like a very,

(42:04):
very different approach. So with nutrition
it never has been and never will be a one size fits all.
There's loads of protocols and you, you know, I've had people
do intermittent fasting, I've had people track calories,
I've had people do keto, I've had people do principles
approach. I've had people, you know, just work off, you
know, whole foods and eat clean

(42:25):
foods and reduce your processed foods. I've had others who
will do a very strict Monday to Friday and a flexible weekend because
they love the rigidity Monday to Friday and they love being able to go out with their friends at
the weekend. And all of those options can work. It's
just about finding what ultimately is going to be the best fit for you.

I love that. Now, it's not a one size fits all, no
pun intended. Right.
So can you typically tell
personality wise, when you meet with someone what
will, what will work and what will not work as
far as the structure of.

It, not from meeting, but three or four
probing questions. I can. Yeah. Like, generally,
what's your relationship like with food? What has
historically worked for you and why and
what is. What does the future
you want your life to look like in terms of your food
relationship? You know, I've had, one of my clients who signed up last

(43:14):
week was, I just want to be able to. Like, his whole goal,
he wants to lose weight, but his whole goal was, I just
want to be able to keep chocolate in the house. He was like, I can't keep it in the
house. He's like, if I keep it in the house, it's gone.

Yeah.

And it's. And I get it. It's so weird. It's like, you know, is it
Odysseus sirens, where it's like screaming at you from the cupboard and be
like, brian, Brian,
Wendy, I'm in the cupboard. The French pastry. Come
get me. Like, it can feel like that sometimes when it's in the house. So
I totally get it. As someone that had a history of, you know, a not so
healthy relationship with food. And so his goal was,
I want to lose weight, but I also want to be able to keep chocolate in the house.

(43:49):
So his approach. And we're not going to do that straight away, we're going to
build to that and gradually incorporate a plan that works and
a strategy that works for that. So
it's important. And I can tell with three or four
probing questions what's going to work.
And the beauty of coaching, and this isn't, as I said, it's
not for me, any good nutritionist or coach will do this with
you, is you're working with them for the

(44:11):
accountability and the flexibility. So if something's not
working, you try the next thing. Like as a nutritionist, as a
coach, same as a chef. You have tools in your arsenal
that I could never dream of when I came. Like a French
pastry. I would be able to pay
for a French pastry that's as high, as close as I
could get to it, because the ingredients put it
together. No idea. I don't have that skill

(44:33):
set. And as a
coach, when you're looking for a coach or a trainer or
anybody, you're looking for someone who has the skill set that, okay,
that's not working. Let's try this. That's not working. Let's try
that. And because ultimately, you know, you don't want to
be with your coach forever. If you're building a codependent relationship with a coach,
you're with the wrong coach. No one wants to be in a co dependent
relationship. And you don't want to be in a codependent relationship with your

(44:56):
coach. Your coach should be arming you with the knowledge,
the tools, the education that you need, that you can go and do it yourself.
And that's, you know, the best business model of all time.

Raising kids, you know, like, okay, they're in the nest and
you're teaching them how to be an adult.
And then once they leave the nest, okay, you're set. I taught
you everything you need to know. Hopefully.

Yeah, you got this, you got this. Like that. I think of my daughter
all the time with that. Like, you're empowering her to make decisions,
to think for herself and be a confident young woman. Like everything
I filter through that lens that I'm not going to be here
someday, either physically because she's gone off, or
I could die or whatever, loads of things can
happen. Life is short. And you're always thinking,

(45:36):
okay, well, who does? It's a weird one. Because
my daughter, I'm like, who? What's the skills I want to give her so
she can navigate life, but with nutrition, it's the same.
What's the skills I want to acquire so that I can navigate
food? And you're just flipping the wording, but it's nearly
identical. The person you become is more important than what you do.
And you're just making sure that you're consuming the right information

(45:57):
or working with the right people who can work towards that
idealized version of yourself. Obviously, idealized version isn't the correct
terminology. There's no perfect person. We're all perfect
inner imperfections. But in terms of what your future self
looks like, in terms of the food choices they make.

Yeah. And I would say too, I mean, as far as a lot
of women out there dealing with the perimenopause and
menopause, and I'm, I know you're not supposed to say post
menopause, but I'm post menopause.
But I think a lot of women will
find that as they eat better
foods and they take care of their bodies and
they change that mindset, a lot of

(46:33):
those symptoms will go away.
Whereas I feel like nowadays, and it's great, the menopause
is being spoken about and the hormones, it's
great and amazing. But again, the
answers are within you and also within
your. The makeup of your body. Like we were.
I, feel like the whole thing about menopause is

(46:54):
like as if that's this and it can. I mean, I had
horrible symptoms, horrible. By Menopause
is not a disease. It is a phase. Just like
puberty and even pregnancy, anyone
gone through pregnancy, it's, it's just, it's a phase
and you have to, and sometimes you have to change stuff
up to, to be able to get

(47:14):
through that and to thrive through it. And I mean,
I'm, I'm proof that you can. I mean, I had to
change up, a lot of what. And I already ate. Well, like I said, I
already took care of my body, but I had was like, oh, okay, let me fine
tune this, Let me try that, let me try that. And
you, it's like you're, you are your own little guinea
pig. And figuring out, okay, this works, this doesn't

(47:35):
work. Oh, I feel better. I slept good last night. Let me make a mental
note of that. You know, and it's just figuring out
and, and it's okay. It's like, you're not broken.
It's, it's just the body evolving and
growing and changing and you have to, you have to change
with it.

Yeah. And it's so beautifully said and I
nearly don't want to add anything because as a
man I'm never going to experience it,
but there's such a beautiful
phrasing of that. It's a phase of life, a
season of life, you know, and to come at it with a place of
non judgment, like we don't judge the trees for losing leaves in the

(48:10):
autumn, and yet we can judge the phases and seasons
of our life. And I think you said that absolutely
beautiful, Wendy.

Thank you. Yeah, like, not, don't fight it.
Just, just, you know, love it for what it is and love
your body for what it is. I mean, I, I, I mean
I don't, I don't expect my body to look like
a 20 year old, you know what I mean? I don't. Or to
feel like that, actually. I mean, if anything, I, I feel
better nowadays than I did in my 20s

(48:37):
because of mostly my mindset and the
acceptance of my body and my
acceptance of life. And to me it's
like, it's almost like it washes out all
the other things that you would because you're, you're more in
love with yourself and with life than you don't you kind of forget
about that other stuff.

Yeah.

Just like you said, the energy you put out there. Right.

It's like, yeah, you're valuing the valuables, like
ultimately your peace, your love, your acceptance. How you're showing up
in the world with the people around you. And
it's funny, when you shift your priorities, there's an old
line. I don't know who it's attributed to, but, when you change the
way you look at things, the things you look at change. And when you shift
the way you're moving through the world and raising that frequency and
vibration. Yeah, we all want to look better and feel

(49:22):
more confident when we see that reflection in the mirror. But it
becomes nearly a byproduct of the way you're living versus
this monomaniacal goal that you're working towards that's
coming at the cost of all the other things that are important. And I think that's a,
nice framework for people to
see everything through.

You're so wise, I feel,
you know, like. Yeah. Has everyone ever told you, like, you're an old
soul?

I've heard it on occasion, for sure. Yeah.

You remind me of my middle sons like that. He's such an old
soul. I mean, he's like. He's 27, but
he's, like, going on 6, 67, you know, I
love that. It's a deep thinker. Deep
thinker. So you have. You have the pod. What's the
name of the podcast?

The Brian Keane Podcast. Yeah. So amply
named Easy. Easy to search SEO. Very, very
easy.

Yes. Brian Keene. I love it. and then you've got the three
books, which is awesome. I'm on book number one,
and I'm like, I can't imagine what that would feel like.

I'm m so happy for you and great and excited to
chat on my podcast about it. It's an incredible thing to
get a book out there because it's not. It's.
It's not easy and it's not
belonging to you after a certain point, because
people will put their own lens and experience and buy
it.

Yeah.

And. And that's okay. And it gives us the art and the practice of
letting go because it doesn't belong to us anymore.

I know. Isn't that a nice feeling, though? We had
to go through the dark nights of the soul. I had several in
order to even write the book, you know?
Right.

Oh, you're. Oh, you're telling me. Preach it at the converted,
Wendy. Preach it to the converted.

Yeah. It was worth it.

So.

And then do you provide coaching as well?

Yeah, I do, I do. I've got a waiting list for it at the minute, but
anyone that ever wants to apply for it, I kind of have strict protocols with
it. I take. I work with five people at any one time and then one
has to finish up their 12 week block for someone else to come on. And then some people
stay. But yeah, I love my coaching. It's one of my favorite things that I
do.

I bet you're so good at it. I
mean it's probably just comes so natural to you.

I think it's not even that I'm good at it. It's that
square pegs fit into square holes. And I know who I'm a
good fit for and who I can serve and help.
And I'm the first to tell people that I don't think I'm the person that's going
to help you on this next phase or journey of life. And for those
who are a good fit, I'm the first to say, yeah, look, we'll do good things
together.

Love it. And last question, where can we find you?
I have a feeling I know what you're going to say.

I'm actually on everything. Believe it or not. I have
omnipresence on all the social channels. But Instagram is the
best place. It's the only place you'll get me directly. Instagram DM is
what I check. I do all my own DMs
on Instagram. Everything else will go to my assistant or it's automated as a
reply. but I'm on Instagram. Briankeen Fitness for
anyone that does want to reach out directly.

And website. Website is brian keane.com,
correct.

Brian briankeen fitness.com is the website.

Briankeen fitness.com K E A
N E. Correct.

That's the one. That's it.

You're awesome. Great, great chat. I look forward to chatting
with you on your show.

As do I, Wendy. Thank you so much again for having me on.

Everyone have an awesome day.
Did this podcast inspire you? Challenge
you, Trigger you to make a change or spit out your coffee
laughing? Good. Then there are three ways you
can thank me. Number one, you can leave a written
review of this podcast on Apple iTunes.
Number two, you can take a screenshot of the
episode and share it on social media and tag

(52:49):
me Wendy Valentine. Number three,
share it with another midlifer that needs a makeover.
You know who I'm talking about. Thank you so much
for listening to the show. Get out there there and be
bold, be free, be.

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