Speaker A
Hey
Steven Bartlett shares his home gym setup, ketogenic diet, supplement routine, and fitness motivation in this Men's Health feature.
Key Takeaways
- Consistent daily exercise and accountability groups can significantly boost fitness motivation.
- Monitoring ketone levels helps Steven maintain his ketogenic diet effectively.
- Prioritizing sleep and managing diet based on mental and physical demands improves performance.
- Discipline in diet is crucial, but recovering from setbacks with self-compassion is equally important.
- Cooking skills and cultural food heritage play a role in Steven's nutrition and lifestyle.
Summary
- Steven Bartlett showcases his home gym with adjustable dumbbells and explains how he uses it as a backup to his main gym in LA.
- He details his ketogenic diet, including his use of a keto reader to monitor blood ketone levels and his preference for low glycemic foods.
- Steven emphasizes the importance of supplements like omega-3, vitamin D, and creatine as part of his daily routine.
- He shares insights on his morning routine, hydration habits, and how he manages nutrition to maintain focus during long podcast sessions.
- Steven discusses how his diet and fitness habits changed profoundly during the pandemic, including prioritizing sleep and scheduling.
- He talks about his cooking skills, influenced by his Nigerian heritage, and his monthly cooking competitions with his girlfriend.
- Steven reveals foods he avoids due to gut issues, such as bread, pasta, sugary sodas, and sweets, while maintaining a mostly ketogenic baseline.
- He candidly describes late-night eating struggles and the importance of discipline and recovery after setbacks.
- Steven explains his motivation for consistent daily workouts and how a competitive fitness group helps him stay accountable.
- He highlights the balance between discipline, motivation, and self-compassion in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker B
Hey Steven, it's Men's Health. We're here to see your gym and fridge.
Speaker A
Men's Health.
Speaker A
Come with me.
Speaker B
Let's go check out your fridge.
Speaker A
I know exactly what you want to see.
Speaker A
When I first got this fridge, I was like clawing at it, figuring out how to open it, but you just press and it
Speaker A
abracadabra.
Speaker B
Wow, that's fancy.
Speaker A
And this is my fridge.
Speaker B
What's your morning routine?
Speaker A
So I come downstairs, I go into the supplement cupboard, which is over there.
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I'll have the same sort of three basic supplements. I'll have omega-3, I'll have vitamin D, and I'll have creatine.
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Supplements that I think everybody should be taking.
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And then I use this little device here.
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Which is called a keto reader.
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And I prick my finger, I put this little slip in there.
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And it tells me my blood ketone levels, which is the amount of ketones that are in my blood.
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And a lot of the year I spend in a ketogenic diet.
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So this tells me if I'm in ketosis or not.
Speaker B
What do you always have in your fridge?
Speaker A
So because I don't eat sugary things, I have my substitutes.
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And so some of them are things like blueberries.
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Raspberries as well, and sometimes I freeze these and eat these.
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I also love watermelon, so you can see how much watermelon is in my fridge.
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Which is my girlfriend cuts this up for me every day.
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Is empty because I love watermelon and it's suitable for a ketogenic diet.
Speaker A
What else is imperative?
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I would say
Speaker A
probably eggs.
Speaker A
I eat a lot of eggs.
Speaker B
Oops, sorry dude.
Speaker A
I won't eat that one.
Speaker A
I'll leave that one for someone else.
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I have a lot of eggs, so I always have boiled eggs in the fridge and sometimes I'm going to be honest, I just come across it.
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And when I'm time poor, and I'll just eat the egg.
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And then for hydration, it's all on this end.
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So in the morning before a podcast conversation or a busy day, I go up here.
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And I have one of these little shots, which makes me incredibly focused.
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I have my hydration products down here for when I'm working out or I'm going for a run or when I'm in the gym.
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And that's really it.
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Those are the staples.
Speaker B
How has your diet changed over time?
Speaker A
My diet has changed profoundly since the pandemic.
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And so is really my fitness regime.
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And the big things are sleeping.
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I I changed my calendar to make sure that there's nothing in my diary before 11:00.
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No meetings, no appointments at all.
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And the reason I do that is because sometimes I stay up late working on something because my team's all around the world.
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So what it does is it means that sleep still has a chance of not ruining the next day.
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The next thing in terms of my nutrition is thinking about the glycemic index of the food.
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So I think about my food and my diet based on the demands that I'm going to place on my body and my mind that day.
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So if I'm podcasting for nine hours in a day, there is no chance I'm going to eat a food that has a high glycemic index.
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Because I used to do that and I used to find halfway through a conversation, I couldn't think straight.
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I couldn't articulate myself clearly.
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I found myself stumbling over my words trying to say simple sentences.
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And you learn your lesson and you just go, what life do I prefer?
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It it requires a little bit of discipline to to stay away from certain foods.
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But when I think about the trade-off, I like the trade.
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I like the fact that I can give my podcast guest, who might have traveled 15 hours across the world to tell their story, a great interview.
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And I don't ruin it based on what I had for breakfast that day or dinner the night before.
Speaker B
Do you know how to cook?
Speaker A
I can cook and actually me and my girlfriend have a cooking competition once every month.
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We both have to cook a starter, a main, and a dessert.
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And I've never not won.
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I'm currently the cooking champion.
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I was raised in a restaurant by my mother, my Nigerian mother.
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And I started working in the restaurant about seven.
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My job was just like chop stuff.
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And you kind of graduate through the kitchen and you start making things that are a bit more sophisticated.
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And really what it taught me is like flavor.
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A lot of the things that I'm good at cooking are jollof rice and jerk chicken and those kinds of things.
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Because that's the home I was raised in.
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And I'm a big fan of steak.
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So at the moment I'm trying to figure out how to cook the perfect steak.
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So there's it's trial and error.
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Learning how to cook a steak is a is the journey of a lifetime, you just gradually get better at it.
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And I'm I'm trying to get better.
Speaker B
What will we never see in your fridge?
Speaker A
Oh gosh, yeah.
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There's several things you'll never find in my fridge.
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You'll never find a full sugar soda in my fridge.
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You'll never find bread, not that people put that in a fridge.
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But you'll never find bread or pasta in my fridge.
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Not because I don't love it, listen, I love it.
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It's because my gut doesn't love it.
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So if I ate bread, I would have pains in my stomach for about one or two days.
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I just I just can't.
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You'll never find sweets in my fridge.
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Let me be clear.
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I eat carrot cake, I like cookies.
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I'll have ice cream.
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I try to make my baseline close to ketogenic.
Speaker A
You've just knocked on my door and caught me at a moment where I am deep into the ketogenic diet at this moment in time.
Speaker B
What do you grab from your fridge at 2:00 AM?
Speaker A
2:00 in the morning.
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I make some bad decisions at 2:00 in the morning.
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I know I should be eating.
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I know I shouldn't be eating.
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All these scientists on my show have told me, don't eat three hours before you go to bed.
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I've heard it, I understand it, but I'm hungry.
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This is why these bowls are here.
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Make the easiest thing to grab is healthy as possible.
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If I opened up this fridge and there was a big carrot cake right there.
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I might lose the debate.
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And what I mean by lose the debate is, you know the debate that you have in your head.
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Where you go, I know I shouldn't and I've got that podcast tomorrow morning and I'm going to feel like shit, but maybe this time I won't.
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Like
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you might lose that debate.
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You never crack discipline and motivation.
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You never crack it.
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It's really about figuring out what you do after you've made a mistake.
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Because one thing is for sure.
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Life happens.
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I'll go for three months being absolutely possessed like I feel right now.
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And then something will happen and you'll have a month where you're just kind of like hanging on for dear life.
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And it's just about finding a way to get back on, understanding that you falling off isn't evidence that you're inadequate in some way.
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It's what happens and uh slowly step by step you can pick yourself back up and get back on.
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It's that time of day where I'm going to
Speaker A
go downstairs and start my workout, so come with me.
Speaker B
All right, are you ready to work out?
Speaker A
I use this gym
Speaker A
kind of like a backup gym.
Speaker A
Typically I leave the house and go to a gym in LA called High Map.
Speaker A
But if I don't manage to get out of the house, I have some things here that I can use to get a little bit of a workout in.
Speaker A
So
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the most important thing for me in this room is these incredible new dumbbells.
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That I just based on the weight that you want.
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So
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if I want to go up to 55 lb or 60 lb weight.
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I can do that as well.
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You don't need a big rack, you just need to turn the handles and the weights get bigger.
Speaker A
Which I love.
Speaker B
How often do you work out?
Speaker A
I work out pretty much every day.
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I became consistent with exercise when I said to myself that I work out every day.
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And I tried to work out every day.
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Because it became routine.
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And actually we track it with my friends.
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So me and my friends have this WhatsApp group called Fitness Blockchain.
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10 people in it, whoever works out least that month in terms of days is evicted from the group.
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We have a guy in there whose only job is to track everybody's data.
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So he looks at our Apple Watches and our Whoops.
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And he makes these graphs and every single day he posts the graphs in the chat.
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And I've been in that group for four years.
Speaker A
I haven't been evicted yet.
Speaker B
That is awesome.
Speaker B
Way to go.
Speaker B
What keeps you motivated?
Speaker A
Like everybody else, I want to look good, I want to feel good.
Speaker A
I want to live long.
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I want to extend my health span.
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And I think people think a lot about life span.
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But for me it's like how long can I be healthy for?
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And when I say that, I I want to be active while when I'm old.
Speaker A
I remember being in Bali with my girlfriend.
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And we went white water rafting.
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And to get to the white water raft, we had to walk down 70 stairs vertically down in this like cliff face.
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And I remember as I was going down those stairs asking myself,
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could my dad do this at his age now?
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And unfortunately, the answer in my head was no, my dad couldn't walk down these stairs now.
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And I thought that was such a great shame that there's experiences in life with your kids or with the people you love that you're robbed of.
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If for whatever reason your health doesn't hold up.
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So being able to walk down those stairs when I'm 70 so that I can go white water rafting with my kids and the person I love.
Speaker A
So that's a big motivation for me as well.
Speaker B
Do you have any scars?
Speaker A
I do have a scar.
Speaker A
I have a scar here.
Speaker A
Do you want the the truth or do you want the hero's journey story?
Speaker A
Because I can do the whole dragon was eating the orphans and then I saved.
Speaker A
Or I can do the like my brother threw a pot noodle at me and the noodle burned me when I was a kid.
Speaker A
Which one do you want?
Speaker B
Your call, man.
Speaker A
Okay, my brother threw a noodle at me and it burned me on the arm when I was a kid.
Speaker A
And so that's what that is.
Speaker A
I also have a scar in the back of my head.
Speaker A
I was training for Soccer Aid, which is a national football tournament, which is televised in the UK where they get legends from the game.
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And public figures to play in a match arena.
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And when I was training, a guy ran into the back of my head, his tooth went into my head and he collapsed on the floor and was unconscious for about 5-10 minutes.
Speaker A
The ambulance came and I just have a scar from that.
Speaker A
Which was about six months ago.
Speaker A
I think that's it, really.
Speaker B
All right, it's rapid fire time.
Speaker A
Workout time.
Speaker B
7:00 AM or 7:00 PM?
Speaker A
7:00 PM.
Speaker A
Really 11:00 PM if I can, but
Speaker A
I'll go for 7:00 PM.
Speaker B
Squat or deadlift?
Speaker A
Oh, I kind of hate them both, but
Speaker A
I'm going to go for deadlift.
Speaker B
Favorite song on playlist?
Speaker A
Uh, I'm going to say Burna Boy Last Last.
Speaker A
I just think it's proven to be really timeless for me.
Speaker A
So Burna Boy Last Last.
Speaker B
CrossFit, yay or nay?
Speaker A
It's one of those things that's like broccoli.
Speaker A
I know it's good for me, but I hate it.
Speaker A
So yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
Pull-ups or chin-ups?
Speaker A
Pull-ups.
Speaker B
Dumbbells or kettlebells?
Speaker A
Dumbbells, of course.
Speaker A
Can do much more with them, I think, so much more versatile.
Speaker A
Dumbbells.
Speaker B
Run on the treadmill or the great outdoors?
Speaker A
The great outdoors.
Speaker A
It's actually better for your brain, I learned this from a neuroscientist that told me that when you run outside,
Speaker A
it's better for neuroplasticity and expanding your brain because you're seeing more and you're stimulating more.
Speaker A
So outside.
Speaker B
Cardio or weights?
Speaker A
I'm going to say weights.
Speaker A
Of course.
Speaker B
Big legs or big arms?
Speaker A
Big arms, of course.
Speaker B
Biggest compliment, jacked, ripped, cut, or swole?
Speaker A
Ripped.
Speaker A
When my girlfriend calls me ripped, I take it as a compliment.
Speaker A
When she says that I'm swole,
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I think I've been eating too many carbs.
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So yeah.
Speaker A
Okay, before my arms fall off.
Speaker A
I'm going to have to ask you to leave, time is money and I've got to get on with my day.
Speaker A
So thank you for stopping by.
Speaker A
That's been my gym and my fridge.
Speaker A
That's been Men's Health.
Topics:Steven Bartletthome gymketogenic dietMen's Healthfitness motivationsupplementscookingnutritiondaily workouthealth routine
