Mikki Williden, PhD, Auckland (2025)

30/08/2025

If we want to age well and reduce risk of death from disease, it’s being active, building and protecting muscle and building a strong heart, lungs and blood vessels.

There’s no two ways about it. Statistically women post menopause are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than anything else.

We need muscle to pull glucose out of our bloodstream: this is where we store it. The more muscle we have, the more of a storage reservoir there is and the more protective it is for our vascular system. Too high blood sugar levels over time damages blood vessels, makes them stiffen and more likely to block, causing cardiovascular disease and heart attacks (among other things).

Cardio (aerobic and anaerobic) exercise strengthens our heart, lungs and blood vessels, allows us to be fit enough to move easily in everyday life, uses fuel like glucose and fatty acids in the process and therefore protects our cardiovascular system. It also helps burn excess calories that can stop the formation of fat tissue around our organs - the visceral fat that is more inflammatory and further damages our cardiovascular system.

You cannot bottle exercise up and sell all of the benefits. There is no pill. You gotta do the work. In both areas.

So if you’re wondering whether strength or cardio is most important : they both are. Equally and for different but the same reasons.

29/08/2025

I am totally passionate about improving metabolic health - this is the underlying health issue that is driving chronic disease in men and women of all ages.

But to blame fruit is just a real head scratcher and I think gives people in the ‘low carb’ space a bit of a bad name.

I totally advocate most people reduce their carbohydrate intake if they want to manage blood sugar, improve body composition, make room for other nutrients etc.

And most people eat more carbohydrates than they need for the energy expenditure they put out on the daily.

I’m talking stop basing our meals around the pasta, rice, cereal etc and have a focus on protein with these other foods as a side dish and not the main event.

I am sure I was over zealous about fruit in the beginning of my lower carb journey.

I think there ARE people who need to lower their fruit intake. If you have fatty liver disease, if you have type 2 diabetes, if you eat 6-8 pieces of fruit a day, then definitely let’s think about your fruit intake. Especially if other nutrients are overlooked. In nutrition it is always opportunity cost. Whenever you’re eating one thing, you’re NOT eating something else. 
But to correlate an increase in fruit consumption with a worsening of population health is sort of alarmist and does nothing but make all low carbers look bad.

There are bigger fish to fry. Even if (as I’ve also read) the fruit today is way more sugar than fruit historically had. Even if we have fruit available year round rather than seasonally.

I just don’t think it’s the fruit.

27/08/2025

First pic on left is June 2020. Almost 43y old. Just after a workout.

Second pic on the right was yesterday right before lunch, 48y old. A kilo heavier.

This isn’t going to be the most remarkable transformation you see on the internet today. Lol

But I saw the June 2020 pic pop up on my Apple memories and thought ‘wow that’s a shift.’

What changed? In June 2020
👉🏻I hadn’t ever really tracked calories or macros.
👉🏻Was very inconsistent with eating breakfast.
👉🏻This was pre-protein days, didn’t really focus on it. Assumed I was getting enough but in reality (when I started tracking) saw I was regularly below 100g
👉🏻Was committed to doing strength work but didn’t really lift heavy or hard enough.

And then things shifted a little. Started listening to the likes of Layne Norton, Alan Aragon, Mike Ormsbee, Dr Gabrielle Lyon and later Brandon Dacruz

✅ Tracked calories
✅ Weighed myself daily. Data.
✅ Started eating more protein - now I get between 110-150g a day. This is above 2g/kg BW for me which suits my appetite, recovery, digestion. Good hit at breakfast
✅ More carbs,from 80g/day to ~150-180g (including fibrous carbs) on normal days and 250-300g on longer run days (way less fibrous, more starchy). My normal carb intake is still lower carbs.
✅ Tracked FREED me from this pervasive restriction mindset. No longer did I catastrophise sharing Makiki fries with Hubster, or a meal out. This has been HUGE for me.
✅ Started strength training like I meant it. Lift until it feels heavy, or lift heavy. Listen to likes of my smart friends (Daz, Hailey, Cliff, Stacy) about this. 2-3 x per week as per normal (depending on run schedule)
✅ Eat breakfast at least 12/14 days (the days I don’t I’ll be out running, NOT just avoiding breakfast)
✅ Eat more calories. Tracking helps me to eat enough, as I have a tendency to under eat.

Basically, I’ve learned a lot about how I respond to the inputs.

And like I said - not a huge transformation, and truthfully I think the mental transformation over the last few years is bigger than the small change in my delts.

Though my sister from another mister I looked jacked. I’ll take it.

PS also the chin ups!

25/08/2025

🤢
As if Lady Shake bars and shakes aren’t enough, here’s another trash product that has nothing good about it.

They state it’s got 30g of ‘quality protein’ but the first ingredient is collagen. I do love collagen, but it’s not a primary protein source for a meal, missing the amino acids that are required for muscle protein synthesis. If you could call this a meal.

Most people don’t feel satisfied when they drink their meals. Even with shakes, clinically I see people do way better when there is an element of texture and thickness. A soup for a meal doesn’t cut it.

You’d be way better off heating a tin of tomatoes and adding onion, 🧅 garlic 🧄 maybe some salt and perhaps a grated carrot 🥕 then adding lean cooked chicken, some mussels or white fish as a meal.

Not this awful product.

22/08/2025

After the age of 35 years, adults are at risk of losing muscle mass purely because we are getting older.

If you do not protect that muscle, and actually accelerate that by a low calorie, no strength training plan, then you are setting yourself up for fragility as you age.

Did you know that over the age of 60y, if you suffer a fracture that leaves you bed-bound there is a pretty high risk of mortality up to 5y post fracture?

Muscle protects bone. Without muscle, a trip can very easily become a fall. Falls are the biggest contributors to fractures in our older age.

Muscle is bloody hard to gain and just so easy to lose. When weight regain occurs post-diet, you are gaining fat - not muscle.

I think it’s wrong to actively encourage weight loss without strength training.

If you’re losing weight and someone is saying to you that you don’t need to OR you shouldn’t strength train (which I have heard), I would question them about this.

Easy not to think about it when we are in our 30s, 40s and even 50s.

What’s the point if you aren’t leading to a strong, independent future? Surely we want to be independent as we age.

This shouldn’t be emotional. But I feel quite emotional about this. This is fact. It’s hard when people around you are doing protocols that allow them to lose lots of weight not to be swayed into it.

They might have emotional support but emotional support doesn’t protect muscle and bone 🦴

Don’t be swayed. It’s not worth it.

PMID: 8164542
PMID: 25010545
PMID: 17095635
PMID: 19190316

21/08/2025

Everybody is different but this is something I see time and again. It is relatively simple to follow a diet and exercise plan - literally they are in front of you to follow like instructions. However when things don’t go to plan, and you ‘fall off’ (so to speak) it can make it that much harder to align your eating with your goals IF your goals are purely aesthetic.

How good you look was enough when you were in your 20s. Let’s face it, most of us looking back probably looked pretty good. But now, we are older, this being the primary reason for why you want to change your behaviour is not enough.

You need to dig deeper. You need to really uncover what you truly want. What your ‘why’ is. It’s not ‘woo woo’ to think this way, and if you think it is - well, that’s your work on.

Until you really understand what’s driving your desire to change, you will be continually struggling to actually make meaningful change.

20/08/2025

Let’s be real. The majority of adults are at risk of the chronic disease that reduces lifespan and healthspan.

There are groups that would say that you can be healthy at any size. And absolutely, if you carry excess body fat yet have an awesome eating approach and are physically active, you are somewhat protected in mid life. This tends to diminish as we age though.

The reality though is that most people aren’t overly active or don’t have awesome diets which is what lead them to carry excess body fat that places them at increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (the BIGGEST killer of adults, men and women), neurological disease and cancer.

Dieting, therefore, is actually a fundamentally smart thing to do, to reduce levels of excess body fat and improve our cardiovascular health.

It’s gotta be done right though. You have to focus on protein, you HAVE to exercise (if you could place in a pill what exercise did and sold it, you’d be a billionaire), you have to reduce calories so you are able to burn that excess body fat as energy. You HAVE to protect muscle. You have to choose an approach that is sustainable and that you can do long term.

Bad dieting doesn’t do the above. It doesn’t encourage strength training. It doesn’t give appropriate amounts of protein. It doesn’t provide a sustainable foundation for fat loss. You lose muscle mass, you rapidly gain fat when you are unable to adhere and then you end up fatter than you were. You might get smaller when you lose weight but you also get squishier.

Don’t diet bad.

Bad diets give dieting a bad name.

19/08/2025

You can’t just eat less to lose weight and keep it off.

Of course, you need to eat fewer calories to lose weight, however it doesn’t HAVE to foster a deprivation and restriction mindset that comes from just eating less.

Gaining weight is about eating more calories than you are burning for sure. So you do have to eat less of them.

However those foods that are part of your current diet are likely playing a role in making you overeat. They are driving your appetite to eat so, to just eat less of them is just making things so difficult.

If you shift your focus to eating MORE of the things that allow you to regulate your appetite, that helps protect muscle, the provide the foundation of a meal that we know are important for fat loss.

✅ Protein (minimum 1.6g per kg bodyweight - but 2g per kg bodyweight can be better for appetite regulation)
✅ Fibre - if you tolerate it, filling your plate with low calorie, high fibre vegetables and some fruits that help manage blood sugar and send signals to your brain that you’ve eaten enough
✅ Texture: crispy, smooth, soft, hard, different textures keep it interesting
✅ Flavour: herbs and spices, sauces that aren’t calorie bombs (or used in small amounts) that you vary the flavour profile can help keep your taste buds interested.
✅ Appropriate carbs: choosing starchy potato/sweet potato and fruit as major sources of carbs, and adding in extra for activity can be a great way to ensure you’re making good choices once you’ve set your protein and fibre for your plate.

If this is how you’re eating already, and struggling, then you may well need to reduce down those foods currently in your rotation. For you: weighing your portions to get a sense of that can go a long way.

However, most people do need to change WHAT they eat, rather than just focus on eating less.

18/08/2025

More food doesn’t have to equate to more calories. A lot of the time, if someone is struggling to lose weight and they change their diet, they end up eating more overall food volume (and food) that equates to less calories. The higher volume, high nutrient and low calorie options of protein, vegetables, fruits, smart starches take up a lot more room on their plate than previous choices.

So it does feel like they are eating more calories. But they aren’t. They’ve changed their choices from smaller amounts of energy dense food and they have created a calorie deficit.

So don’t equate this to more calories. I hear a lot from people that they think they need to increase calories in order to lose weight.

But this will ONLY work if by lifting calories you start having MORE energy and you start doing more. IE you start being more active. This shift in energy expenditure then needs to be greater than the number of calories you’re eating. You then create a calorie deficit required to help you lose weight.

Merely lifting calories won’t magically create a calorie deficit required for fat loss. It does the opposite.

15/08/2025

Any diet will help you lose weight. But what’s the point if all that happens is that you regain the weight and then some?

Success is actually the ability to execute the habits and behaviours that allow you to both achieve weight loss and keep it off.

It’s skill development. And it’s not easy.

That is: prioritising menu planning. Shopping. Food prep. Time for exercising. Strength and aerobic. It’s prioritising moving and being active in general. Prioritising getting to bed. Practice saying no to foods that don’t align with your goals, and enjoying these when it IS worth eating them. Practice eating in a way that allows your brain to keep up with your stomach and you don’t overeat.

It’s working on a mindset that means you don’t catastrophise deviations from your diet. That you recognise it’s about consistency, not perfection. That you don’t berate yourself for choices you make and instead try to figure out if you can do it better next time (or not).

Thing is, you can lose weight without spending time or effort on most of the above. And then what?

You risk being stuck in a pattern of yo-yo dieting where your success or failure is predicated on the scales. This is 💩 for your physical and psychological health long term.

You also miss the most important transformation that occurs when you develop these skills. That only comes when you do the hard work. And that has nothing to do with the scales and everything to do with the person you become.

15/08/2025

The secret sauce to not dying - menu of what he’s currently eating.

TBH I would feel like time went on forever if I didn’t eat past noon. But perhaps that would change.

And a lot of his supps (Blueprint Longevity) which makes sense given that not dying is quite expensive and how do you fund this?

Reposting because it’s so interesting and also - outside of no meat and eggs and fish which are super healthy - it’s full of nutrients and (goes without saying) clearly well thought out.

What money and time can get you!

Saw this on FB. Predictably hilarious comments on it also.

15/08/2025

If you’re trying to lose fat by dropping calories but not strength training, they’re essentially delaying inevitable problems—like muscle loss, slowed metabolism, poor body composition, or rebound weight gain.

In other words, you’re addressing the symptom (weight) without addressing the root cause (muscle preservation/metabolic health), and it’ll come back to bite you later.

Protein is important, yes, and there is some lean tissue preservation when you optimise for this. But nothing compared to placing mechanical load on your muscles and bones and making them work.

And many people have already been here, done this, now back for more because of the problems listed above.

A week, two weeks, three weeks of the diet, not major in the big scheme of things.

Don’t go 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 18 weeks before you start doing wall sits. Pick up a dumbbell. Press up against the wall. Stretch a resistant band.

Hard is relative. Heavy is relative. Start where you’re at.

But start.

Mikki Williden, PhD

30/08/2025

29/08/2025

27/08/2025

25/08/2025

22/08/2025

21/08/2025

20/08/2025

19/08/2025

18/08/2025

15/08/2025

15/08/2025

15/08/2025

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