Still following the fitness rules from your 30’s and wondering why they aren’t working anymore? Hilary is here to tell you: It’s time to break up with the punishing workouts, the rigid food rules, and the guilt-tripping voice in your head. At 52, Hilary is in the best shape of her life. She’s leaner, stronger, and more energized than ever, and she’s doing it without tracking macros, counting calories, or wrecking her body with HIIT workouts. In this refreshingly real episode, Hilary breaks down the five shifts that helped her finally get the results she wanted, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too. From unlearning outdated fitness “rules” to adopting a mindset rooted in self-devotion (not self-discipline), she shares how tuning out the noise and tuning into her own body changed everything. You’ll hear about her exact lifestyle habits, how she makes working out something she actually enjoys, and why flexibility matters just as much as strength. No shame, no extremes, no performative BS, just smart, doable shifts that honor where you are now. Episode Highlights: The real reason your old routines aren’t working anymore Why pushing harder might be hurting more than helping The mindset shift that changed Hilary’s entire approach to fitness Her go-to workouts, food philosophy, and everyday habits How to prioritize yourself unapologetically—at the gym and everywhere else Episode Breakdown: [00:00] Fitness Wake-Up Call [01:44] Listening to Your Body [03:10] From Punishment to Self-Devotion [06:10] Defining Strength + Health on Your Terms [07:12] Habits That Actually Support You [10:11] Prioritizing Yourself [11:14] Making Fitness Enjoyable [15:26] Self-Devotion > Self-Discipline Ready to break the rules and feel amazing in your body again? Let this episode be your permission slip. Want to go deeper? Check out Hilary’s Self Devotion program to turn this mindset into your everyday way of being. [https://hilarysilver.com/self-devoted/]
Chapter 1: Why are old fitness routines failing as you age?
If it's getting harder and harder to stay fit as you age, and what you used to do no longer works, and if you're tired of punishing your body with workouts that hurt, or you're confused about what to eat and all those shoulds that you are supposed to be doing to stay fit and look a certain way, this conversation is for you. I'm 52 years old, and I'm in the best shape of my life.
I'm leaner and stronger and more confident than ever, but I don't count calories, and I don't track my macros, and I quit high-intensity workouts years ago. And while I'm not a nutritionist, a personal trainer, or a fitness influencer, or anything like that, I get these questions all the time. What do you eat? And what are your workouts? And what's your secret?
How do you stay so fit, especially in your 50s? What are you doing? So today I am sharing exactly what I've been doing to achieve these results, and it's really about letting go of all those shoulds. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Hillary Silver Podcast. Thanks for tuning into the conversation today.
Chapter 2: What mindset shift helped Hilary transform her approach to fitness?
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It's so weird for me to be having this conversation today because I never in a million years would have ever thought of myself as an example for fitness. I'm five foot one, and I don't exactly have that body type, but here I am having this conversation with you because it is one of the most commonly asked questions that I get.
So I'm sharing what I've been up to in the last few years, five changes that have gotten me into the best shape of my life, gave me my best body, and along with it, my peace of mind, which is way more important than anything. anything. So the first thing that I did was listen to myself. I literally hit the pause button on what I was doing, like blowing the whistle and taking a timeout.
Chapter 3: How can you prioritize self-care in your fitness routine?
All that I had been doing for my workouts and my fitness routine had become such a habit that I was doing it all on autopilot. Which, of course, on the one hand is great because I have a daily habit of working out. But I was doing it all without paying attention to myself. And what I had been doing in my 30s and 40s, especially to bounce back after babies, just wasn't feeling good to me anymore.
Chapter 4: What are effective habits that support fitness over 40?
But I kept doing it. I was doing hardcore HIIT workouts and boot camps and Orange Theory and going all out and running long distances just to see how far I could go and even how fast I could go. I was lifting super heavy weights, like ridiculously heavy weights at a gym that's meant for bodybuilding. I did it all.
But as I approached 50, I began to feel like it wasn't energizing me anymore, but it was fatiguing me. And I wasn't feeling fit, but I was feeling inflamed. And it was taking me longer to recover and to rehydrate, and I just felt like I needed to rest during the day, which is just not how working out is supposed to make you feel. It was actually making me feel old.
But I kept pushing forward, as usual, noticing the fatigue, but not changing anything, but pushing through. So one day I had a come to Jesus moment with myself and I literally heard what I was saying, my inner monologue. And what I was saying was really important information. For me, I was doing all of that to prove that I could. prove that I could. That's crazy.
Chapter 5: How to make fitness enjoyable instead of a chore?
I had been the last picked in gym class in elementary school, little Hillary. And I really always thought of myself as unathletic. And so there was this subconscious need to prove I am fit. I am a badass. I can do these hard things, proving to myself that I can. And I realized, holy shit, that is just not a kind and loving thing way of being. It was actually rather punishing.
How I was approaching all of my workouts was discipline. So I just stopped it immediately. This is not how I want to treat myself or talk to myself at all. So I encourage you to tune in and listen to yourself. What are you saying to yourself about your body, about your workouts? Are you proving? Are you punishing? Are you being too critical of yourself?
Maybe you're saying things like, this is just the way my body is. This is just my body type. I'm doing all that I can. It's not my fault. Nothing is really working. I just want you to listen to what is your relationship to this part of your life. Because as we all know, our old friend Einstein said, doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results is insanity.
I just call it denial. So are you happy with the results of whatever it is that you're doing? Because if not, it is time for something different, a different approach, a different workout, or a different mindset. This leads me to the next change that I made. I tuned out all the noise of all the people telling me all the things that I'm supposed to be doing.
The keto, the paleo, the intermittent fasting, the macros and grams of protein and eating for your body type or your blood type, making sure you get 10,000 steps and lifting heavy weights. There's so much. I even bought that little device that you blow into to measure whether you're burning fat. There's just, it's ridiculous. There's just too much information.
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Chapter 6: What are the benefits of self-devotion over self-discipline?
A lot of it is conflicting and they're passing trends and passing fads. And it can just overwhelm anyone, cause analysis paralysis and overthinking. And that is no way to live. And that's what I was stuck in. So I decided to just stop all of it. I literally broke all the rules and decided to do things my way. I'm kind of a rule breaker anyway.
I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to follow a set of arbitrary rules that are rigid. It's a setup for failure. And I've never, ever been able to follow a diet and count calories. Telling me to do something specific every single day just doesn't work for me because what if I don't feel like it? What if I don't want to? Or what if I do want to? And then I would beat myself up.
or feel bad for not being able to stick to it. I once had a trainer ask me, what kind of body do you want to build? And I couldn't answer her for a minute because that didn't feel right to me. And what I realized is I don't want to build my body. I don't want to look super muscular. I wanna be strong, but not to have the biggest muscles that I can have.
So I decided what I want to look like, not what the influencers say and not what the aging doctors say or what fitness people say, but what I want to look like. And what is ideal for me is maybe not ideal for you. We all get to choose.
Being strong and having muscle as we age is important, but I decided to get to a certain place and then work to maintain that baseline for myself, but not to keep building as much as possible. For me, I want to have a lean tone and feminine form. And I not only want to be strong, but I also want to be flexible. because that is just as important for avoiding injury as we age.
So just tune out all the noise and break all the rules. Make your own rules. Be unruly. It's better to just adopt a lifestyle with guidelines rather than rules. It's like having bumpers instead of guardrails. to gently keep you in line. It's a kinder and more loving and more gentle approach towards yourself. Now for change number three, I'm gonna share my lifestyle habits.
Again, it's a high level set of rules or bumpers or guidelines for myself. And as long as I stay in balance, I'm good. And while I'm getting to the specifics here, what is more important is the psychology of it all. the mindset about it. It's how I feel about it and my approach. So I'm going to share with you my kind of guiding principles that I live by.
And the first one is that I move my body every single day. It's just a part of my life. It's just what I do. It's a non-negotiable. I don't think about if I'm going to work out today. I don't even think about when. It's a given. I just wake up and I do it every morning like a habit, like brushing my teeth. There's no deciding. There's just doing.
And I don't even take rest days because I'm not overexerting my body so much that I need to rest the next day. Sometimes I work out in the morning and do a walk in the afternoon in the summertime because I want to. I sit all day for work and so it just feels good for me to get up and move. And sometimes it's more about my mental health than it is anything else.
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