SPEAKER_00 0:18

So, James, how often do we hear women say things like, I know I should eat more protein, but I don't know how? Or I'm so bored with chicken, or I don't want to live on protein shakes. I start the day pretty well, but by 4 p.m. I am raiding the cupboards and grabbing anything I can find.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah, pretty much all the time, right, Julie. Every single person that we talk to says something along the lines of the advice to eat more protein is just about everywhere. And that's obviously not bad advice. We know that protein matters massively, massively, massively after 40. But the advice only helps if you can actually apply it in some kind of way. And that is what we tend to find is the biggest challenge with people that we speak to. But they know that protein matters, but they don't know how to make it work really when it comes to real life stuff. So how do they do that is the question, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, exactly. So we'll say, welcome back to Empower Your Menopause, the podcast all about health, happiness, and hormones for women over 40. Today we're gonna talk about that what we call the protein gap. That's the gap between knowing the protein matters and then actually being able to consistently eat enough of it. So hopefully by the end of today's episode, you'll be able to understand a little bit more about why protein matters so much after 40, why so many women are unintentionally under-eating it, how it connects to muscle and metabolism, energy, appetite, and even aging, and how to start making it a bit more practical without having to track every single crumb, every single thing you eat, and digging into protein grams like you're a forensic accountant. So, James, you're our nutrition therapist. Can you explain a bit more about why protein matters so much after 40?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah, well, I mean, let's you know be straight about this. Protein matters at all stages of life, but there is particular challenges that happen after 40 and that happen to women after 40 as well. The first thing to start off by saying is that you know protein has been misrepresented somewhat over the years as being just a gym thing, and that's not really true at all. You know, it supports muscle repair and maintenance, immune function, how your enzymes work, signaling in the body, how your hormones are produced, your recovery, whether you feel fully or not, whether your blood sugar is balanced or not, whether you're gonna age healthily or not. So it plays an incredible, incredible huge amount of different roles across the body. What happens after 40 then? Well, generally, and nobody's quite sure why this might happen, but generally, people over 40, and particularly as we get older, eat less and less and less protein, and then the challenge that is thrown on top of that is that we actually don't process protein as well the older we get. So if you're having less, and then you're not processing as well as what you could do when you were younger, then that is going to be a challenge for you. So you need to layer in as well for women 14 above the fact that those hormonal changes that we talk about all the time make it even more important. Now, whether you want to start talking about the you know the menopause word or not, the truth is that estrogen declines, right? First of all, it goes up and down in perimenopause, and then it goes down during the menopause transition and starts to tank totally post-menopause, and that's something that happens for the rest of your life. So, what changes when estrogen starts to drop? Well, fat's distributed in different ways around the body. Your ability to regulate your blood sugar balance and manage your insulin is affected as well. Muscle maintenance becomes harder, right? The harder you get, it's naturally harder to maintain muscle. That concept of sarcopenia, your body eating its own muscle, happens naturally as we get older. So the truth is within all that we need to try and both actively protect the muscle but also actively protect our protein intake and to make sure that we are having as much good protein as we can on a consistent basis. So, you know, all those things that we talked about, whether it be the healthy aging, whether it be your blood sugar balance or whatever, you know, there's a thing there within it all about building and maintaining muscle, which is really, really important at this time of life. You need to have strong muscles, you want to be strong into the second part of your life. Um, this is not about booking up or toning up massively or you know, turning it into some kind of valente project, it's the equivalent, I suppose, of pension planning for your body. So, you know, it's not just about looking toned and looking fab when you're in a short-sleeved shirt in summer, although that's really nice and important and great for boosting confidence as well. But it's about walking upstairs, it's about lifting your suitcases when you're going to the airport on holiday, it's about being able to do the gardening, it's about maintaining your independence and not making that noise every time we get up from the sofa. I think I mentioned this before in past podcasts. In sort of like personal training world, the quadriceps, four big muscles at the big at the front of your thighs, are referred to as your independence muscles. Once they go, you lose your independence, you can't actually get up off the couch. How many of us have seen a you know elderly relative actively struggling, pushing down with their arms on the um arms of a chair or a settee or whatever, trying to get up because they can't actually manage that with their legs anymore? So it's really important to say that protein and muscle really really important, but what is more important is staying strong and having your body function in a way that is gonna let you live a life you actually want to live as we move into the second phase of our life rather than one that is gonna be a struggle. So I think hopefully that's kind of explained the importance of it both for from a muscle point of view, from a longevity point of view, and all the other things that protein is really responsible for. So, Julie, let's talk a little bit about why women over 40 don't get enough protein. So, on that one, Julie, then over to you.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah, and the thing, the key point here is most women aren't deliberately undereating protein, um, but it does end up being a little bit more of an afterthought when it comes to our meals because you know we want to grab coffee and a piece of toast for breakfast, or maybe a bowl of oatmeal or porridge with some fruit, and we're flying out the door. Uh, we want to have a light lunch so we don't feel sleepy in the afternoon, and maybe we'll have a salad, but it doesn't contain very much protein, or maybe we'll grab a quick sandwich, or maybe we'll just skip lunch altogether. And then most of the women we've talked to get their protein at dinner, but by that time, you know, while you think you're eating healthy throughout the day, by that time you haven't provided the nutrients and the protein and the nourishment that your body needs. So it's going to start driving those behaviors that make you want to eat more and more. And um, you know, when we look back at this diet culture that we've lived in for most of our lives, we were taught we had to focus on things like calories. You know, we became very fat phobic in in the 80s, and we had to, then it was cutting carbs, right? We had to cut out all of our carbs. We had to worry about portion control and counting points, and it's all about restriction. And we still hear women talking about I was really good today, I say in air quotes, right? I ate really well today, so I therefore I can um splurge onto it. And you know, a lot of times if we're not used to eating protein, it can feel a little bit heavy and complicated, you know, maybe for some women they're worried it's too expensive, or it's too much, as James was saying, is too much of a gym thing. It feels like I'm trying to be some kind of bodybuilder or fitness expert. And it is a little bit more challenging to plan because it's one of those things that requires planning and cooking most of the time. So this is one of the biggest mindset shifts that women need to have after spending these decades of dieting. I know we've quoted it before in our podcast that the average woman does 126 diets in her lifetime. So it's no wonder that we think this way. And for many women, we still think that lighter when it comes to our eating automatically means better, or lighter is better when it comes to our body weight, which isn't necessarily the case because we have to look at lean tissue and muscle mass and bone density and other things that actually might create heavier weight on the scale, even though it doesn't reflect that in the shape of your body. So things like salads, yes, a salad can be a healthy meal option, but if you don't add enough protein to that, it simply doesn't give your body enough fuel to function fully and properly. And I think really when it comes to our mindset, we've got to stop confusing low calorie and low fat and low everything with supportive or healthy, because that isn't, it just isn't the case. So when we talk about protein, the biggest problem most women run into is that there's all this great advice, right? Eat more protein. And then suddenly there's radio silence, figuring out how to actually do that. Now, information is available everywhere all the time. So information is there, but it doesn't actually change things. It's taking action that changes things. That's the main reason we created our high protein playbook, which we'll talk about a little bit later. So let's look at some of the things that are attached to protein. Uh, James, do you want to talk about some of that?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, let's start off with appetite and cravings. Then one of the things that we get asked about all the time, you know, why do I get cravings at certain times of the day? Well, protein helps with you feeling fuller, right? Fuller and more satisfied. And this matters obviously because of those afternoon cravings. You know, most of those cravings come because you're you're actually wanting something to eat. You don't feel as though you're full, you don't feel as though you're satisfied. Energy dips, you know, people talk to us quite often about that energy dip around 11, around 3 in the afternoon. Okay, at the root of all this, there's blood sugar balance, which helps contribute to this and maintain a regularly a relatively steady blood sugar balance, and then of course, you know, for some people, the evening snacking is the challenge. So, a really common thing that we see loads of for women in midlife is you know, they get hooked on this concept of I'll have one proper meal a day and then then get through things. That proper meal that they want to have in the day usually comes as at the evening. So they start the day thinking they're gonna be good, and again, doing this in air quotes for anybody who's not watching the YouTube video and who's actually just listening. So that means small breakfast or no breakfast at all, then sort of like hang on by their fingernails until they have a really light lunch, you know, a salad with hardly any protein in it. Gets to the afternoon, afternoon energy crashes coming, so coffee helps them push through. Maybe the uh cravings start to hit hard then. If you're working in an office, we all know what office environments are like. There's a snack drawer somewhere, or is there a snack ball somewhere that's got a load of chocolates and biscuits and cookies and all those kind of things in? And so, what me does that thing that my hated, most hated phrase in in the world, or one of my most hated phrases, particularly when it comes to fitness, is yeah, they fall off the wagon in the middle of the afternoon, yeah? So they grab a bit of chocolate or a bit of some cookies or some crisps, some potato chips or something, and then they blame their willpower. And because we've all got that little chimp on our shoulder who's nagging it away at us, that tells us that we've been bad, that we've done wrong, that we've fallen off that wagon, and that makes us feel bad about ourselves, and that just enhances the continuous negative uh thoughts that we have about ourselves, when quite often it's got nothing to do with willpower or motivation, it's got more to do with being underfueled by that time, and when you're underfuelled, then of course your cravings are gonna come in. So at times, more discipline or more willpower is absolutely not what your body's looking for. Sometimes it's just asking for some actual food. So, some things to remember then you're like cravings are not always emotional, although we tend to think they are, they're mainly biological. When we're underfueled, we look for quick energy. So, at any time when you're feeling hungry, what's the easiest thing to grab? It's something that is convenient in a packet that you can't unwrap, right? And if you're living in an environment or you're working in an environment where that is full of tasty quick energy treats that we might want to fill that gap, plug that gap, then that makes it even harder. The truth is that having some protein, having some fibre together in a meal helps your feelings of hunger last longer. That is just scientifically proven, that is the way it works. And yet, despite the fact that we know that's the science, so many of us actually don't do it. So, protein plus fibre absolutely reduces the snacky panic that you might feel later in the day. So this is you if you recognise yourself negotiating with a biscuit or the cookie tin at around 4 pm. So just remember if cravings keep shouting at you every single afternoon, your body might not need more discipline. It might just need a better, more balanced breakfast and a better, more balanced lunch, and that might sort out all your problems. Or many of the problems anyway, when it comes to snacking, particularly. We talked about protein and muscle earlier in the podcast. I think it's important to remember that we talked about it's not just a gym bro thing, but strength training still really matters. So, Julie, do you want to pick that apart? Why strength training is important, what role protein actually does play in it then, if we're not trying to turn people into gym bros.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Yeah, sure. And I think it's important to remember that protein doesn't work alone. I mean, we need a our body needs a wide variety of different nutrients. It's just that protein is kind of the superstar, especially for women after 40. So strength training is also important. We talked about preserving muscle mass, which helps with your metabolism. And we need, you know, the protein that provides the building blocks for muscle, and then the resistance training creates the demand, and they both matter. So you know, Jameson and I are each respectively going through our own renovation projects. So I think a fun analogy that I most people can relate to is thinking about this as a you know house renovation or or building a house. So protein is going to be those building blocks, those building materials. And when we look at strength training and mobility, that's the renovation work. So when you put them together, they help renovate and protect the actual structure that you're living in, aka your body, for the rest of your life. And it isn't just the amino acids and such, but protein also helps your body repair and maintain your muscle tissue, connective tissue, your immune function, enzymes, hormones, and a lot of other things. But when we're talking specifically about muscle and strength training, protein isn't the whole story, right? We have to strength train because we want to preserve that muscle mass, we want to protect our bone mineral density. And when we give our body the building blocks through protein, and then we do strength training, it gives your body the reason to use that material or the protein to improve and maintain your structure, right? Because as James said, building muscle isn't just because we want to look toned, although that's a really, really nice side effect, but it supports your joints, it helps with your balance, it helps reduce your risk of falls later in life, it helps you recover better if you do become injured. And it really does help protect your independence as you age. And I think it's important that women over 40 need to stop thinking of strength training as optional, something they don't need, or something they'll do someday when they have more time, because it isn't about fitness alone, it's about maintaining our independence into our future, you know, being able to carry your own groceries, walking up and down stairs confidently, um, hiking, cycling, travel, paddleboarding, gardening, dancing, whatever you want to do to fully live your life well into your golden years. And it's true that it's never too late to start. There's lots of research that shows you can start this even into your 80s and 90s and see a lot of benefit. But the earlier you start, the more you put in the bank, let's say, and the more you give your body to work with as you age. Because if you don't start sooner, it means you can potentially face consequences sooner, losing strength, losing muscle mass, losing uh a lot of some of your balance, losing bone mineral density, which is really, really important, especially when we look at the rate of fractures in in women over 40. Um, and and just having fear about moving and trying new things or injuries and illnesses that might be a little bit hard to bounce back on. So, protein gives your body the materials. Strength training is going to help shape and maintain the structure. So the life you want to keep living is the reason that matters. So we have different kinds of exercise, and a lot of women are really into cardio, which is good. We need cardio as well, but it's not the same as resistance training. It doesn't do the same things as resistant training. So we need both, and we need a good mix of both, right? Your longevity insurance is going to come from actively protecting your muscles. And if you're trying to maintain your weight, muscle tissue burns more calories at rest naturally. So it's going to keep your metabolism revving a lot better, so it becomes easier to maintain your weight as you age. Now, having said that, how much protein do we need? James.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah, the age-old conundrum, right? Um, yeah. Let's start off by saying that you know tracking every gram is not the answer. I mean, if you want to do the maths, you know, it's somewhere between 1.2 grams to two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Okay, great. You've just turned eating three meals a day into a huge math problem for you. Okay, so we know that tracking can be useful for some people, feels neutral, um, can feel helpful, but we also know that women have spent decades and decades counting, weighing, measuring, logging, restarting, restricting. So if you're in that position, then tracking can familial familiar and provides a sense of control, but you don't really need to necessarily track every gram to improve your protein intake. And the one thing I'd say is that you know, with all these calorie counting apps and things like that out there, the tolerances that they allow, the tolerance that's allowed in the food manufacturing guidelines that they print, mean that the calorie counters can be almost redundant, anyway. So it's real simple, practical alternatives. We like to use hand portions as a guide instead of weighing and measuring. It's really, really simple. You know, your palm size, you we use your your hand because your hand goes everywhere with you, it's in proportion to the rest of your body. Um, this is a method uh devised by an organization called precision nutrition that both Julie and I are certified with, and they've tested this with hundreds of thousands of clients around the world and found that using your hand as a guide for measuring out food is as accurate, if nor not more accurate than. Almost every calorie counter that's out there. So when it comes to protein, we talk about a palm of protein. When we talk about carbohydrates, starchy carbohydrates, we talk about a cup hand. When we talk about vegetables, we talk about fists. And when we talk about fats that we want in each meal, we talk about thumbs. They're the portions of each one of those macronutrients. So using hand portions of a guide as a guide is a really, really good way of starting off. Palm of protein with every meal if you can. If you think to yourself, you know, I can't get a palm of protein in every meal, let's start with breakfast. Upgrade breakfast first and foremost. It's the first meal of the day and it's the one that's going to set you up for the rest of the day as well. And if you have a really good breakfast that's got protein in it, the chances of you having a mid-morning crash around 11, 11:30 where you grab coffee and a biscuit are going to be reduced massively. So once you've upgraded breakfast, maybe then think about working on something like some high protein lunches. Meal planning, some people think it's a bit of a pain. I actually think it's a godsend. I spend every Saturday for about an hour planning out our meals for the week as a family and putting together my shopping list before I go to the supermarket. First of all, it helps massively at a time where people are really stretched financially to keep costs down because I'm not buying food that is not being eaten. Then, secondly, when we know as a family what we're eating each day, it makes it much less uh problematic when it comes to things like snacking because we know what we're having and it also reduces that idea where you're up in the fridge and you think, gosh, I really don't know what I'm gonna cook today because you've got it all planned out. Don't be afraid to repeat meals that work. You know, if you have the same meals, you know, three times, four times a month, or even twice, three times a week, and you enjoy them, that's absolutely fine. Have some easy protein options available, whether that be you know, eggs, hard cheese, Greek yogurt, uh precooked chicken, packs of beef jerky, um nuts, seeds, all those kind of things are really, really important. And then, you know, consistency is always gonna win over being perfect. So just trying to be as consistent as you can. So if you prefer to track your food, that's absolutely fine. But it's much easier, I feel, to make it doable without obsessing over every detail. Like I said, you don't want to be turning your meals into a math problem every single time. Trying to achieve perfection is where well-intentioned and good habits head off to slowly fade and die. Believe me, I've been there, I've seen it, I've done it, seen it and done it with a ton of our clients over the years. So small steps consistently are always gonna get better results than trying to get everything perfect. A key phrase that I've thought about over the last few days is this concept of progress doesn't come from making things harder, it comes from making things as simple as possible for you. So you don't have to track every gram to make progress. You just need a way to make protein easier to choose, easy to cook, and easier to repeat. So we've talked a lot about what protein's for, we've talked about uh cravings, we've talked about how it works in conjunction with strength training. Let's talk about this concept of the protein gap then and bring it back to how do we now we we've convinced ourselves once again that we know that protein is absolutely imperative, let's talk about how we close that gap to putting it into practice. And for this one, Julie, I'm gonna hand right back to you.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Yeah, absolutely. And I I think the important thing to also remember is that eating is a or should be a pleasure, a pleasure and a pleasant experience. So when we can plan ahead a little bit, it helps that not feel so stressful. So that there are a few things to think about. Because of course, we're not saying everything is just completely awful and you have to start from scratch. Think about where does protein already show up in your day? Where is it easy to get? And then where is it missing? And once you understand where those gaps are, that gives you something to focus on. So you're not having to overhaul everything all at once. Which meals feel the hardest to prepare or plan for? Which meals are already working, right? What could you upgrade just a little bit without overhauling everything? For example, that salad at lunch, add an extra serving of protein to it. Job done, right? So let's look at uh some of our meals. Breakfast, as James said, is often the biggest gap. We're in a rush to get out the door. Um, so some ideas you might think about. Greek yogurt is really great. Um, I like to mix mine with a good clean protein powder to give it an extra boost. Um, eggs if you like them, cottage cheese, making a protein smoothie, tofu scramble if you're vegetarian, um, leftovers. You know, think about the fact that breakfast food really is anything that you're happy to eat in the morning. And in many cultures, that can be what we would consider lunch or dinner food. So don't rule out eating even leftovers from last night's dinner at breakfast if that appeals to you. Um, going to lunch, oftentimes lunch is a bit too light. We grab a little quick tiny half a sandwich or um, you know, bag of crisps or whatever just to get us through. So things like a salad, again, with chicken, tuna, eggs, tofu, beans, turkey, prawns, uh, you know, maybe some lentil soup, uh leftovers that you've planned intentionally, lunch bowls. I I love planning ahead on the weekend. I'll make four or five lunch bowls with uh chicken breast or a piece of beef, and then some cooked vegetables, and then maybe a small portion of rice or potatoes just to give me some carbohydrate and and some fiber. Dinner's usually easier for more for most people, but it usually it often doesn't have enough protein because we don't want to eat too heavy at night, right? So focusing on portion size, because again, we're not talking about one of these Fred Flintstone brontosaurus steaks that's hanging off the edge of the plate. The size, that palm size portion of protein is is plenty. We want to think about balance and planning ahead and making it family friendly, because obviously you don't want to have to cook two or three different meals if you've got picky eaters. So um the other thing we'll talk about is snacks. Now, snacks can be really useful. There's a time and place when snacks are appropriate, but they shouldn't replace proper meals all day long. If you're getting enough to eat at your meals and you have that good balance of different macronutrients, you've got enough protein, you've got enough vegetables and all of that, fiber, snacks are only going to be an occasional thing because you won't actually feel hungry until it's time for your next meal. And I will just also say here that hunger isn't an emergency, right? Just because we feel hungry doesn't mean we have to, oh my gosh, I have to eat or I'm gonna die. We can go a long time without food. So it's okay to feel hungry now and again. Um, allow yourself to experience what that feels like so that you can more easily gauge your portions when you do actually eat your meal. And and as James said, we want to take this one step at a time. This isn't about trying to be perfect anywhere. Start with one meal instead of the whole week. Don't try to plan everything, right? We're not completely overhauling our life in one go. Just start with one simple meal and see how that works for you. So it it's it's how it begins, right? That first step, the journey of a thousand miles, right? Uh, with the first step. So, one of the things we're really excited about is um having created some tools for for finding easier ways to make this happen for yourself. I'm going to hand it back to you, James, to talk about the high protein playbook.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah, so one of the things that we've been asked lots about, or some of the things that we've asked about lots, is things like what do I actually eat? How do I get more protein at breakfast? What can I prep quickly? What can I make for lunch? What if I'm cooking for the whole family? What if I need dairy-free? What if I'm bored of the same meals? What if I want food that feels normal and enjoyable rather than feeling as I've restricting myself? There's just some of the questions that come in from clients. And they tend to focus on this idea of not of protein being at the heart of it, you know. I know that I want more protein, but how do I do it? So we've created something called the high protein playbook. Now, the high protein playbook, on the face of it, is an old-fashioned PDF recipe book. It includes 52 high protein recipes. And we've added in, for those of you who like to work old school, two weeks of done-for-you meal plans and shopping lists. All practical meals designed for women in midlife. But we've added something to it to elevate it far beyond your classic meal plan and recipes. We've added something called a digital protein gap coach. And this actually helps you use the playbook. When you get the playbook, you download it and you also get a link that will send you to chat GTP. And we've created an AI chat assistant in there, which is your protein gap coach. And you can ask the protein gap coach anything you want, and it will draw primarily from those 52 recipes and the knowledge and guidance that we've put in that we know works for women 40 and above. So you could say something like, What can I make for quick lunches this week? or give me three lunch suggestions, or you know, I'm in the office two days this week. What can I make for lunch in the office and at home? You might like a recipe and want to ask your protein gap assistant how to make it dairy-free. You might want to say, say, what can I cook for the family, or what can I cook for me, and then cook for the family that reduces the effort as much as possible. What ingredient should I buy for three high protein dinners? How can I get more protein at breakfast? You can even plug in something like you know, I tried it the other day. I've got eggs, feta cheese, and lettuce. What can you what can you give me? And the the protein gap coach pulled out a couple of recipes from the playbook and adapted them to those three ingredients. So it's absolutely super smart. Like I said, it draws on all our knowledge without us having to be there, and because it's backed by the algorithm, the AI, and our input, it is actually really, really super quick. So high protein playbook is not just another recipe collection. You've already got, I'm willing to guess, dozens and dozens of books on your on your shelves. It's a resource that bridges that gap between knowing and actually being able to do it and implementing it. So it's really not about making protein complicated, it's about making it as doable as possible. So if everything that you've heard today made you realize that protein probably needs more attention, but you need help making it practical, that's why the High Protein Playbook is there. You get your recipes, you get your meal plans, you get shopping lists, and that digital protein gap coach. It emphasizes actual food, actual breakfast, lunches, dinners, meals you can cook, adapt, repeat, and enjoy. There's no macro maths, no boiled chicken sadness, no pretending to have four hours every Sunday to meal prep. And more than anything else, we're offering this at a really ridiculous launch price of just £11.99, which I think is about $15 if you're really listening in America. That's until Sunday, June the 21st. After that, it's going to go up to £19.99. There's a link in the show notes or show notes, or you can go to playbook.fibrusbeyond40.com. And one thing to add to that is that as we add more recipes to it, the recipe collection will grow and you'll get even more choices. So there are 52 recipes right now. You know, in a couple of months we'll be upgrading and adding some more to that from our recipe collections to make it even bigger and even better. So once you've got bought it once, you'll get all the upgrades moving forward as well. Okay, so I think we've hammered that one home enough. Julie, take us home.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Yes, I'll take us home. So hopefully you realize by now that you know protein isn't about becoming this perfect shining example of uh fitness guru. Um, it's about giving your body the support it actually needs right now so you can feel stronger, steadier, more energized, and really just more like yourself. I mean, we hear that a lot from our clients. I just want to feel more like myself. The protein um high protein playbook will help you with that, and just getting more protein generally is definitely gonna help you feel more like yourself. So, right, that's what we've got for you this week. Uh, thank you for being here. We've been coaches James and Julie from Fabulous Beyond 40, reminding you to stay strong and stay fabulous. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Okay.