Bill Maeda is in it for the long haul. With decades of workout experience under his belt, the fitness influencer continues to perform incredible feats like deadlifting 135 pounds with his teeth or doing weighted, hanging hip-flexor training. At 56, he maintains statuesque muscle definition. But beyond his physical appearance, he’s focused on making sure his body and brain can continue to operate in tip-top shape no matter what life throws his way—especially after surviving stage 3 colon cancer in 2012.
Since Maeda began posting his workouts on YouTube during the 2020 COVID lockdowns, he’s secured brand deals and drawn wider attention to his Honolulu fitness center, where he works as a personal trainer. He may not be the only super-jacked quinquagenarian on the internet, but Maeda’s positive attitude, nontraditional exercises, and cool-guy aura has brought his social media following up into the millions.
After years of experimenting with every diet and supplement under the sun, the self-proclaimed sugar addict now eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
“It’s okay if you have chips, ice cream, or whatever,” he says. “I believe people should live and enjoy life a little.”
We chatted with Maeda about his favorite supplements, his love affair with Tsunami bars, and his soft spot for taro chips and dried apricots.
GQ: What’s your diet look like?
Bill Maeda: I eat, what I would consider, a normal, comprehensive diet. I have experimented with almost every diet that everyone else has, but my metabolism is a little unusual, in that it is very fast. I’m 56 years old now, and luckily my metabolism seems to be the same way it was literally when I was 15. So because of that, when I had tried to go low-carb, keto, or do intermittent fasting, I quickly got depleted. So just now I fried myself up homemade corned beef hash patties over rice. There’s a lot of carbohydrates. I also ate half of a scone, and you know, a lot of people would say, “Wow, that’s kind of not a real healthy diet.” And for certain individuals that might be true, but since I got out of high school I have never worked a job that required me to sit at a desk. I’ve been a trainer since forever—this was not a fallback plan for me. I don’t want to give people the wrong idea, but I feel like I can practice a more conventional and not very strict diet, due to my unusual metabolism and also my lifestyle factors. So my body has been trained to just eat, and then you go, you’re on your feet, you’re working, and that works pretty well for me.
I’m sure a lot of people, even at my age, 29, wish for a fast metabolism like that. Are you counting your macros?
No, I don’t. When I was more into bodybuilding, I was taught to eat until you’re pretty full, and just make sure that you’re always full. Now I’m kind of the opposite: I eat til I’m not hungry. I don’t practice a certain diet in terms of how I manipulate nutrients and macros. Now I have principles I didn’t when I was younger and body-building. I was eating to grow. And everything I was taught about that was you eat til you’re full and then two hours later you eat again, and then two hours…. You never want to be hungry. Hunger is the enemy. You’ll go catabolic. You’ll start burning all your muscle. Now, that’s all not true, but back then, I operated on “being hungry is a bad, negative thing.” I don’t care about being huge like that anymore. At my age, that doesn’t matter as much. So now it’s kind of flipped. I eat until I’m not hungry, but I don’t eat til I’m full or I’m stuffed or I’m feeling uncomfortable.
What’s your favorite thing to eat?
Every day for years and years, I scrambled three eggs with white rice and butter—I don’t leave the house without that. Lunch is kind of random. Sometimes I will eat a hamburger steak. In my refrigerator, there’s always steak. And then for dinner we eat out. I like Vietnamese pho. Sometimes we go to Taco Bell. I don’t eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. I try to. I had colon cancer about 13 years ago, so I got my colon removed and I got a bunch of chemotherapy, and since then vegetables don’t seem to really sit well with me, and that’s okay. I don’t feel like that’s having a negative effect. I feel, in some ways, better.
Do you supplement that with vitamins or anything?
I wasn’t even using vitamin supplements up until a year ago. I started last year, taking vitamin D. That’s helped a lot. Magnesium is something I’m taking now, and I feel like that’s been helpful to me. And something called NAD.
What do you think these are doing for you?
I don’t need to take naps like I used to in the afternoon. And just for anyone who wants to know: I have never, ever used steroids, growth hormones, or performance-enhancing drugs. Now, I do use creatine. At my age, I’m more concerned with my brain health than using creatine for muscle enhancement or performance. I brought creatine in more for preserving what’s left of my brain. And if I get that secondary performance thing, that’s fine.
What are some of your food vices?
I am a recovering sugar addict. And I still buckle every now and then. But the things that I’m aware of that I should be reducing, and actively trying to do so, are sugar and caffeine. I used to have a big problem with ice cream. Dairy just does not sit well—it just doesn’t feel the way it used to. But if there’s one thing I can mention, in Hawaii, we have taro chips. I don’t know why you can give me potato chips or any other kind of bagged munchy, crunchy thing, and I don’t really eat those. But taro chips—if there’s a bag in front of me, oh man, that’s the worst. I like to eat taro chips and dried apricots together. Yeah, it’s kind of weird, but you get this kind of sweetness, a little salty, and you get some crunch, but then you also get that chew. So weird, but it’s a good combination, and I end up eating way too much of that.
I’m not gonna yuck your yum, but that sounds … not great.
No, it’s a weird combination. But compared to what I used to do with ice cream and just snacking in general, I’m just not doing that as much now. I tried intermittent fasting for a while. About a year ago I stopped, because I found that whatever benefits I might have been getting by not eating the first six hours of my day, then on the back end, in the afternoon or evening, I was bringing in a lot more sweets. I think my blood sugar was getting so whacked, and I wasn’t doing it right. But now I find that if I just have eggs and some simple carbs with some butter [in the morning], that sets my blood sugar right for a long time.
Yeah, you don’t end up overcompensating at the end of the day.
Yeah, exactly. I end up making very reasonable choices at lunch and then at dinner, whereas before I’d be real proud of myself for making it to like 11 or 12 with no food. I toughed it out, I got all my autophagy, and then I’m blowing it the rest of the day. And I’m also hitting more caffeine because I was trying to get energy somewhere else. I’ve had people look at my blood work and tell me: “You shouldn’t be intermittent fasting.” I’m still trying to pull back on caffeine, which has been a lot easier now that I get more sleep, because another thing was I wasn’t getting enough sleep. So my dietary habits were being affected by just being chronically sleep-deprived. And if your body can’t get enough sleep, it does the next best thing to get energy somewhere else, and so it gets it calorically.
What does your recovery routine look like? And how often are you working out per week?
2020 was when I started posting all my workouts on Instagram and TikTok. And then by 2023, I was completely broken. During the pandemic, when everyone was locked up at home, I would just work out. I’d clip just a few seconds of what I did and then post it, and it would get lots of views and all these follows. And so that became a little compelling for me, and I started doing something every single day. I was going for it—I was going hard. I was only getting like four hours of sleep, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. So after three years, my joints, everything, were pretty thrashed, so I made an announcement and I said, “Hey, you guys, I’m gonna have to change what I’m doing. I’m not posting as much now, so I’m trying to get more sleep.” That’s been huge. I’m also not working out every day. I will work out two days a week, and then on a third day, it’s going to be mobility, something real light.