SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome back to Empower Your Menipause. It's Coach James here, and together with Coach Julie, today we're tackling a topic that's crucial for every woman over 40. That's fitness. Specifically, why your body might not be responding to the same workouts that used to work wonders and how you can adjust your routine to get the results you're after. We're going to dive into things like why excessive cardio and hit sessions can actually work against you at this stage of life and explore what your body really needs to stay strong, healthy, and balanced. From building muscle to protecting your bones and managing stress, we've got practical tips that will help you create a fitness routine that works for your body and not against it. So, Julie, let's get started and let's dive in because we've got a lot to talk about on this episode here today. Everybody says to us, What's the problem with cardio, excessive cardio and hits um workouts? Why don't we start off there then? What is the challenge with these? Why do they work when people were younger? Why are they not working so well now?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Well, a lot of it has to do with the way our hormones are working now in this phase of life. When we're younger, we feel invincible, right? We can eat whatever we want, we can move a little bit more, and everything seems to compensate and balance itself out. But as we age and our hormones are fluctuating, we may have more stress in our lives, we may have different lifestyles, those things are going to change. And the issue with excessive cardio, and actually this is true even at some of the younger ages, but the issue with excessive cardio is that it actually creates a lot of stress on our body at a time when our body doesn't need more stress. We can actually lose muscle if we're overdoing the cardio. And women at this stage of life, I think, struggle a lot with how much to eat and having cravings and all that sort of thing. And cardio, while it burns calories, is going to create sometimes excessive appetite as well as that additional stress. So it's not, it's not contributing to the kind of health and the kind of body that we want. It's not supporting our hormones because that added stress. We've talked about stress in other episodes, of course, but just piling more stress on top of stress is pretty counterproductive. The other thing I see happen a lot at this stage of life is that we use that extra cardio as either a kind of get out of jail free card, if you will, for overindulging or as a punishment for the things that we've eaten, because oh I just ate that piece of cake, now I need to do another hour on the treadmill, right? So we don't look at it as a celebration of what our body can do. We look at it as something that we have to kind of trudge along in. I'm not saying people don't love cardio sometimes, but um, I think more often than not, it's the former rather than the latter.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Because one of the things that we talk about a lot is this need for women to everybody really, but particularly women past 40 when they've got busy lifestyles, etc., to take the time out for self-care. And part of that self-care journey is obviously going to the gym, working out, making sure that you're you're you're fit and healthy, you've got a strong cardiovascular system, you've got strong bones, you've got strong muscles. The challenge that I often find that comes at this time of life is talking to people about what de-stressing actually looks like because we quite often see that in our mindsets getting to the gym, doing something that's A, it's self-care, B, it's de-stressing. You know, I'm going and I'm sort of like hitting the uh the pads and punching out all the anger or energy that I've got from work or things annoying me. One of the things that that is actually doing is it's never achieving that balance that we also talk about achieving because your self-care time is as equally stress-inducing as your non-self-care time. And I think that one of our clients sent us a message about this the other day because I've been speaking to her and saying, All your inverted comments, de-stresses are actually stressful. There's a whole element of extreme cardio going on there, um, you know, hitting the gym for a couple of hit sessions, sessions a week. One of her downtime activities that she does is she goes to see soccer matches, which are incredibly charged because the team that she supports is right at the top end of um of their division, and so almost everything there was a was a stress. So if you're adding in stress at the gym, adding in stresses in our personal life, adding stresses into our downtime all the time that is one of the challenges, isn't it? Because it ends up creating too much cortisol, too much cortisol can lead to increased belly fat. We've talked about that before, and then of course, as a woman over 40, your body wants to hang on to belly fat anyway, and and and fat in general, because it becomes your new source of estrogen when your ovaries stop producing estrogen, and therefore you're fulfilling this prophecy of going to the gym, exercising really hard, smashing it, increasing your cortisol level, so that lays down belly fat, then your body wants to hang on to that belly fat because it uses that as a new source of estrogen, and so it ends up once again following one of these cycles that we find it really, really hard to get out of. So we're not saying, I think, and I'm sure you'll agree, Julie, don't do any cardio at all. It's still important for cardiovascular levels, um, but maybe not to the extremes that we might have done when we were younger. So, and I know there'll be CrossFitters out there, you know, all our lovely friends who do CrossFit, they lift weights and they smash it really hard and all that kind of stuff, who will be saying, Oh no, don't say that, you know, stress is good, and it is it is good, but it it can be a challenge as women get older. So if you're one of those people who's actually spending a lot of time in the gym, then maybe reducing the cardio and doing some other exercise activity might be a way forward. Um, so Julie, for you, what would what would you say is a really sort of like good base element of cardio to do in the gym? So you're not trying to smash it all the time but still getting those cardio protective effects, cardiovascular protective effects.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Sure. I I find that a couple of uh moderate intensity sessions a week, maybe 25 or 30 minutes, seem to seem to provide what what we need for that. And I I'd also like to just add in one of the things that I I see happening, and I've experienced myself, so I can relate to this, is that a lot of times we get to this age and we feel like going to the gym is another thing on our to-do list. So a lot of times we go to the gym and we go through the motions. We're not actually doing movements that we enjoy. We feel like, oh, I have to go do this. So it's easier to climb on a cardio machine like the treadmill or the elliptical trainer or go to a spin class because we don't have to think about it. We can read, we can watch a show, you know, or listen to podcasts or whatever. Maybe listen to our podcasts would be good. Um, but but we do these things without actually paying attention to how our bodies feel, what benefit we're getting out of the workouts. And um even when it comes to strength training, which I know we'll talk about in a moment, um, we just kind of use the same routine, we use the same weights, we do the same machines for the same amount of times, and we get into this cycle where we're not really gaining a lot of the benefit that we're hoping to get out of it. So if we're focused on quality rather than quantity, we can look at a couple of those cardio sessions during the week. We're getting the cardiovascular benefit, we can do a kind of movement that we enjoy, and and then we can move on, and we don't have to spend an hour or two hours of just kind of trudging along. We'll get a lot more bang for our buck out of that time we spend.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah. So one of the things that we do recommend a lot is strength training. So let's talk about that a little bit. One of the things that I tend to find is that it's one of the hardest things to get a woman over 40 to do go into the gym and lift some heavy weights. Um, and then once they start doing it and they start seeing the results of lifting some heavy weights, they say, Why didn't you get me onto lifting heavy weights earlier than this? Why did it take me so long? Right? So let's talk about strength training. And I think a good place to start here is to just reverse this and not just say, right, go into the gym and lift heavy weights. But let's talk about some of the benefits of strength training before talking about what it looks like. One of my all-time favorites and a stat that we've regurgitated many times across almost everything that we do is the need to strength train for bone mass, for what is called bone mineral density. Bone mineral density is just a scientific way of saying how strong your bones are. Estrogen has a protective effect over bones. Um, it helps uh with something called osteoblasts, which are the cells that actually build bone in your body, and once it's not there anymore, your body doesn't build bone as much. And then you've also got these other little cells called osteoclasts that are the clearing ones that clear bone away. So they start to almost nibble away at that old bone when your body um should be producing some new, and that makes your bones weaker as you get older. So 50% of women over 50, there or thereabouts, will have a fracture due to decreased bone mineral density. And strength training is absolutely the number number one way to make sure that your your bones stay healthy along with a couple of vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin K. Um, so it's really, really important. I think in general it's just worth highlighting that just one more time that you know the the focus on the menopause transition journey has now, over the last five, ten years or so, started with peri in early 40s and then tends to come to an end for most people in their minds around 55-60 when they've actually gone through the day of transition and and the symptoms have stopped. But what the challenge is is then is that that those reduced estrogen levels open you up to a whole world of increased risk to things like cardiovascular disease, to things like cancer, to things like reduced bone mineral density. And so paying attention and still following some of the lifestyle changes that we and other health coaches recommend is really really important, way beyond 50, 60, 70, 80, as long as you can keep going to keep going. And the lot the more you do, the irony is that the longer you'll be able to keep doing it. So it's really, really good. So bone mineral density is a is a key one. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about the actual strength benefits or the benefits of strength training when it comes to uh things like muscle mass, then Julie.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Sure. And just like we lose bone mineral density as we age, we lose muscle mass at we as we age, and that that starts to go at a kind of alarming rate if we don't do something to preserve it. And strength training, of course, is going to be the best way to build that muscle mass, along with getting adequate amounts of protein. Those two go hand in hand together. And one of the great things about strength training that I don't think is talked about enough is that we don't do strength training for the sake of strength training. We do strength training in order to remain strong, flexible, mobile, preserve our balance, maybe avoid the risk of falls that can become serious as we age, and to allow us to remain strong and independently functioning as we get older. We don't go and do all of these wraps. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about that the other day because I had some farmer carries in my workouts, which is holding heavy weights at your side, slightly away from you and walking. And I had to carry some heavy things. We had flooding in our basement, and I had to carry buckets of water from the bait from the garage into the into the basement to dump them. And because I had been doing those pharma carry workouts, I could do that without straining or hurting myself. We we do overhead presses so we can put heavy things away on the shelves or or put our suitcase in the overhead compartment. I mean, these are functional movements, so they're not we're not doing these just for the sake of, you know, we're not looking to, what I want to say, be a uh a heavy body competitor or look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or whoever the star of the day is. We're doing these things so that we can function. And I will say one other story that I didn't used to like strength training until I started doing it, like you said. But one of the things that really compelled me to start was I was working back in my corporate HR days, and these two women in an office where I had to go collect some books because I did new higher orientations, and we gave out books, and I had to get these two boxes of books. There were 10 books in each box. And I picked up the two boxes and I put them up on my shoulder, and the women looked at me and said, Oh, no, no, no, let's get our guy up here to help you with those. Those are far too heavy. I said, What? No, they're it's fine. And I walked up the stairs with them and they just shook their heads. And the one lady said, I can't even lift one of those boxes by myself. And I thought, that is never going to be me. Right?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

But I look at that part of it as much. We just think, okay, this is what I'm supposed to do, but we don't think about why.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah, I'd say two things there. Yeah, the functional thing is absolutely key. Uh, when I used to do more PT, I used to speak to my clients very much about you can encapsulate almost like every single there are seven core movements that we do in life that are replicated in the gym. The things like uh a hinge at the middle, which would be a deadlift in the gym, the things like squatting, which is a squat in the gym, the things like lunges, pushes, pulls, twists, they're the main ones, and then walking is the other one. You can see how all of those movements are used just by getting into your car in the morning. So, you know, you're going to work, you pick up your your bag off the shelf, that is a pull move. You're pulling something up towards you and you're carrying it with carrying it with you. So you're doing the walk. You go to your car, you have to open the car door. So you're now you're trying to balance your handbag on one shoulder as you open the car door with the other. That's a pull move. You need to do a lunge to step into the car, you need to do a squat to sit down into the car, and then you need to do a twist to take your handbag off your shoulder and put it onto the passenger seat next to you. So all of those moves that you can do in the gym are immediately replicated, just getting into your car in the morning to go to work. So obviously, the longer we can do it, the better it is. The other thing when it comes to muscles as well is another image that I like to use when I'm speaking to people is when you see an older person and they can't get out of their chair, so they're having to use their hands to push up out of the chair. One of the reasons for that is because four big muscles that run down the front of your legs called your quadriceps have started to go. They're the muscles that flex to help you stand up from a sitting, sitting position. When I first one of the first things I was told when I was trained to be a PT many years ago was your quadricepts are your independence muscles. And they call that because without them you will lose your independence, you will not be able to get up out of a chair. So, really, really key, you know, if you want to go on to be into your 80s, 90s, potentially hundreds hit a century, and still be healthily functioning, lifting some kind of weights or doing some kind of weight-bearing exercise is absolutely essential, whether you're man, woman, animal, mineral, whatever you need to be doing it in some way, shape, or form. So let's talk a little bit then about to try and give some indication because because so far we've talked a lot about strength training, but basically the recommendation so far has been going to the gym and lift some heavy weights. Let's talk a little bit then about what a routine would look like. What would you put suggest that a woman over 40 or into her 50s is doing when she goes into the gym for the first time or into a gym environment?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

I into a gym environment, my first recommendation would be most gyms will offer a free assessment of some kind. And if you have the ability to book a session with a personal trainer to assess your movement patterns and recommend some exercises that would benefit you, because people are going to start at a different place. If you've never exercised in your life, you're going to be starting in a much different place with different understanding and knowledge than someone who has exercised in the past or has been athletic in the past. But incorporating those seven primary movements, and and you know, you can start with machines if that feels easier because you may not have the coordination, or you can start with bands instead of dumbbells, that kind of thing, because you want some resistance. Even body weight can provide a lot of benefit doing bodyweight exercises. So again, squatting, um, lunging, hinging, pushing, pulling, those are all going to be important movements. And and rather than try to prescribe a specific workout for anybody, because again, it's going to look different. Um, I would recommend having a consultation to assess your your skill and your movement flexibility so that you can choose the right exercises. If you have physical limitations, you're going to need different modifications. A lot of times we go to YouTube videos, which is great. There are a lot of good workouts on YouTube, but if we're doing the wrong kind of movements for our body's needs, then that's not going to provide the benefit that we're after. So my best advice for someone is to book a consult or or get a session with a trainer so that you can get assessed and get some recommendations on where to start.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah. The alternative, of course, is to join Club Fabulous Beyond 40, our membership, where we have videos that show people through how to do all this kind of stuff and also offer a strength training session uh on a monthly basis to our to our members. One of the things that I'm often asked is what if I don't actually have any weights, or what if I don't have the appropriate weights? And I think a couple of things there. First of all, you know, if you look around your garage, you look around the loft, you look around the house somewhere, invariably all of us will have bought at some point a kettlebell or a couple of dumbbells or something. So most of us have got something around. You can also improvise. Something as simple as a backpack with two shoulder straps on can be used for almost any exercise that you might want to do. And all you need to do to vary the weights is put something either heavier or lighter in the backpack, depending on what you want what weight you you actually want to use. And so you don't have to have a whole array of weights. It's obviously better and more targeted if you are seeing a personal trainer one-to-one in a gym and they're giving you some some a session that's appropriate for yourself. But you can just stick some books into a backpack, do some squats, do some lunges, uh, you can turn it upside down, you can use it to do what are called bent over rows, which is where you're uh working your back. You can do overhead presses, which is what you were talking about before, putting something up into the locker on an aeroplane. So there's plenty of different ways that you can use stuff that you've just got laying around the house. I remember back in COVID times, I used to do a free seniors session on Facebook Live, and I would get them just to bring a couple of tin cans that they had in the cupboard. You know, as long as they were of equal weights and it was like two cans of beans or two cans of tomatoes or something, they could use those as lightweights to get something at least going that was beyond just doing the body weight moves that they would be doing without that.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah, anything you can grip, even water jugs with handles, make good weights. Um, you know, um the other the other thing is you don't have to have a gym membership. Um, I and you don't have to work with a personal trainer to get a lot of benefit. I just like to suggest that as a first stop because that initial assessment is so important. But starting with um You know, starting with something simple, and and you can buy us a full set of resistance bands for about 25 bucks. And that usually includes something that attaches to the door so you can anchor them. Um, and they've got handles. Um, I often um in the past I've often gifted those to to clients who didn't have any kind of resources because it's it's just they're handy to have and they're compact, you can travel with them. But but yeah, it doesn't have to be fancy. The idea is to get started somewhere.

unknown 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

So why don't we talk then? So we've talked about cardio, the need for it, the need for it not to be as intense as maybe when we're younger, and how the really high uh intensity stuff like HIIT training and things like that can potentially be counterproductive in some women as as they age. We've talked about strength and the importance of that. What about other types of movement? What else is it that we can do from our exercise routines that can that can help out?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

My best guidance for anyone who wants to get started is find movement that you enjoy. Our bodies were designed to move. We have created a society that makes it easier and easier to stay sedentary, and that's probably one of the biggest factors in our deteriorating health these days. So if you're working at a desk, set an alarm to get up every hour. If that doesn't feel doable, at least twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon is a good place to start. You don't have to do much. Maybe just stand up and stretch a little bit, do a couple of squats, walk around for a couple of minutes, go up and down some stairs, anything that gets your body moving. And that shift in energy can really help, especially if you're feeling stuck or lethargic or having difficulty focusing, just moving your body will shift your energy and help a lot with that. Um, I like to, when I'm sweeping the floor, I like to engage my core and switch sides with the broom. So I'm making sure I'm using losing those uh abdominal muscles or dancing around folding laundry, um, doing some squats in between, you know, unloading the dishwasher. You we can do all kinds of different movements during the day that bring us some kind of benefit without having to worry about everything being a structured workout. The key is just to move and move often.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah, I suppose that's the danger, isn't it? That quite often we've talked about this before as well, that when you're doing, even if you're going to the gym one hour a day, seven days a week, you're only exercising for something like five percent of your actual actual week. So, what are you doing in the other 95%? So obviously there'll be 50% of it hopefully where you're sleeping, or maybe not 50%, but maybe about 33% where you're sleeping. Uh, but that that leaves a huge chunk of time when you're awake and you might not potentially be doing something. So you can actually be going to the gym on a daily basis, but actually be sedentary. And so you're absolutely right. I think they're suggesting some ways on how women 14 above can increase movement in in other ways. What about other types of movement that are again more structured? I'm thinking towards stuff like you know, Pilates, yoga, those kind of like slow uh tai chi, those sort of like slower, more specific mind, body, and soul um exercise kind of workouts, if if if you like.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Sure. As a matter of fact, I think yoga and Pilates are some of the best ways that we can develop long lean muscles and not overstress our bodies. It all the two of them also help a lot with flexibility and balance. And one of the things I love about yoga in particular, and of course I'm a bit biased here, I love both of them. First of all, the right instructor makes all the difference. Um, but there are tons and tons of free videos on YouTube, so you don't have to buy into a class unless that's the kind of thing that motivates you to go and do it regularly. But the great thing about yoga is that you do need to learn how to focus your mind, and that helps a lot with mindfulness and relaxation. And the other thing I love about it is that you need both strength and flexibility in order to do it. It's a progressive thing, so we're not all going to, I don't know if we had Gumby in the in the UK, but we had this really bendable character called Gumby in the States as green guy. And it we say we you don't have to be bendable like Gumby on your first day out. And and it's a it's a kind of thing that is enjoyable because every day your practice is different. And some days your balance is great and some days it's not. Some days you realize, oh, I can do this move now and I couldn't do that before, or I can get further down or further into it and then I couldn't than I could last time. So it's a really nice way to relax, strengthen, lengthen, become mindful. Um, but either yoga or Pilates are are good ways to do that. And Tai Chi is another one, qigang. Um there are a lot of different Eastern practices that that uh fulfill that that kind of need. Again, the key is to is to find something you enjoy, try it a few times, see how it resonates with you, and if it's something that you can continue doing, because the overarching theme in all of this is consistency.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Absolutely. And people always say to me, What's the number one exercise I should be doing? My answer is the one that you enjoy the most. Yeah, because it's the one that you're gonna keep up, keep up doing. But we've taught in general terms here. Obviously, everybody will be will be slightly different, everybody will have different needs, maybe different physical capabilities. But if we're just saying for an average population, we're trying to boil it down, we feel as though we're looking at maybe a couple of cardio sessions, 20 minutes to half an hour a week. If you want to do hate, maybe limit that to one. Um two, two or three weight sessions, and maybe one or two active, more relaxing, relaxing, more stretching sessions, like a yogurt-y type exercise or tai chi. Would that sound about right to you, but Julie?

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Yeah, I I think that's that's a great schedule and a great a great thing to aim for. And again, the key is consistency. So start with, if you're not doing anything right now, start with one of those things and build up to that as as your goal. And my other my other opinion is that you cannot walk enough. Any chance you get to walk more, it's free, it's available all the time, and uh you can do it pretty much anywhere if you have the right gear. Um, so so being able to do that and it will get you more movement and and help your body feel more energized. But yeah, I think working up to a schedule, like you mentioned, it would be ideal. Um, but again, it's it's the consistency that matters. So start somewhere. Use what you have, do what you can. And of course, we're always here to help guide you. We've got a free call available if you're interested in a 45-minute call. We can we can give you some guidance there and help you get started. Our membership is a great place to get those workouts so you don't have to because the other thing I think people, one of the mistakes people make is they'll get into a strength routine and they'll continue to do the same one with the same weights over and over and over. And our bodies are really smart, they like to adapt. So once our body adjusts and gets used to something, we need to we need to mix it up again, we need to challenge it a little bit to continue to build that strength and resilience.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Adaptation's a really important point, I think. You know, one of the overlooked things about exercising in general, and particularly when it comes to weight training, I always find, is the need for some kind of rest day where you're not doing that same routine back to back to back to back. Because all you're gonna do is end up getting cumulative fatigue in those muscles, and they will never get the chance to recover. And when recovery happens, that's when adaptation happens, that's when our body builds and gets better and stronger. It doesn't happen by continually fatiguing it all the time. So building inappropriate rest days or doing some kind of cycling of your exercise routine. I don't mean bicycle bicycling, I mean sort of like doing cardio one day weights the next, cardio one day weights the next is a really good way of making sure that you're not burning yourself out. I think it's worth saying just before we go that we've got a couple of things to tell you about. First of all, we've started doing a monthly uh workshop which is called How to Man Master Your Menopause Weight Loss and Strength Training in More Depth is one of the things that we talk about on that. The next one is taking place on Friday, the October Friday, October the 4th at 6pm UK, 1 pm Eastern, 10am Pacific. If you'd like to jump on that, it's weightloss.fabulousbeyond40.com. If you're listening to this way into the future, then please still visit that website, weightloss.fiblessbeyond40.com, because it's likely that we'll have another one planned in as well. On that, you'll learn three different things. You're gonna uncover the real reasons behind menopause weight gain so you can break free from those frustrating diets and start seeing some progress. We'll talk about all the different strategies we've talked about here, but in more depth, how to boost your metabolism, how to boost your energy so you can shed pounds without feeling exhausted. And you're gonna go away with a personalised weight loss plan that will include an element of nutrition, an element of sleep, an element of relaxation, and an element of exercise. So do look up look that up, weightloss.fabulousbeyond40.com. I think it's worth saying as well that if you like the cut of our jib and you want to hear more about how to stay fabulous beyond forty, then obviously it would be great if you could like, follow, share the love of the podcast, and then uh hopefully we can continue to grow and continue to serve you. But in the meantime, it's been Julie Medacy and James Elliott from Fabulous Beyond Forty, and we'll see you soon. Stay fabulous and take care.