6 Menopause Fitness Questions From the Community

Okay, if you have menopause fitness questions, meaning you are a woman in pre but probably peri middle transition or post-menopause, and what you're doing isn't working anymore and you don't know the answer to that, or you wonder, are you working too much, too little? Why aren't you getting results? This is for you. This is a roundup of— I'm looking at my list here. This is a roundup of 6 questions from our community We pull them from our Facebook groups and from our membership group right now, the Flipping 50. The Stronger Way app is up and running. We pull from all different areas and we're answering here collectively just for you. So consider this your maybe mini coaching session and/or a way to say, yes, I knew that one. Perfect. Okay, welcome to this episode. We are diving in. I'm doing rapid-fire Q&A here, and I am taking a collection of questions that have come from our community. So often my team members will kind of pull, hey, this is a great question, somebody asked this for a podcast, and put it on a spreadsheet. And occasionally I'll find a question from either coming into our ticket support system or posing on a Facebook group, maybe from within our app community, the Flipping 50: The Stronger Way app is in both app stores. So there, there you have it. But this first question is the question as it was asked. I have to do a little bit of interpreting because this is a one-way street, not a two-way conversation. So you'll know what I mean in just a moment. Question number 1, how can I gain muscle during menopause if everything feels slower? My interpretation of this question is that getting results feels slower and they're not happening at the speed that you want them at. First of all, realize they never were. Like, I don't care how old you were, we never get results as quickly as we want to. So I do empathize with you, but this is a truth of life, probably. And here's what I would say if this is happening to somebody, and I hear this very frequently, like, I'm doing all the things, but I am not getting results. I want to convey to all of you the fact that gaining muscle— we have been telling you for the last 2 years, you've been hearing it loud and proud from many more people. We've been talking about this for 42 years, right? And it's now, it's mainstream. And I've been working with women in menopause for 15 years exclusively. And now we're getting it collectively, at least. And we may not all be trying it yet, but we're getting it, we're speaking it. So I love that about us. But if you're doing what you think you need to and you're not getting results, here are the first places I would go to ask questions. When you're doing those strength training sessions, when you're doing them 2 or 3 times a week— we'll dig into that— but when you're doing them, in each and every set, are you reaching muscle fatigue? Meaning you get to just, I've got 1 or 2 repetitions in the tank. That's all I could do. And if I do more, I'm going to get shaky. I'm going to cheat. And I don't know that I could really do them well. So you need to reach muscle fatigue. So that's number 1. Number 2, this is almost the opposite of that, is are you recovering enough between the exercise? So if you're doing really a high frequency of strength training, you might back off because recovery is the nemesis of women who are in menopause. If you don't recover, you will get no results and you may get more tired, more broken down, the muscles not building up. So both those things have to be true. You know I'm going to ask next, are you eating enough? So most women are undereating, not overeating, and I know they're I know that there are some professionals who would disagree with me. Sorry about that. A wild turkey outside. I cannot stop a dog from barking at a wild turkey. But here's what I know. Very few women are overeating. I find women are eating as low as 800, 1,200 calories. And if you're an active woman with any significant energy expenditure or who wants to gain muscle and you're working hard enough to do that, That's not enough. And you are creating a caloric deficit, but it is so huge, it's placing your body under greater stress. And under greater stress, your body changes the rules and it will store fat, not burn it. So you get the opposite of desired effect. So you've got to make a reasonable caloric deficit. That's okay. But reasonable is 400 to 500 calories. If you go beyond that, you're going to ask for problems. And if you're a small, petite woman, the number you're dealing with are probably smaller, it would be a lower deficit than that. But if you do that, I would also encourage you to go up and down in your calories so you stay metabolically flexible. If you diet for too long, the message you send to your body when you eat less is, "Burn less. Don't spend so much energy because I'm not giving you any." So every once in a while you have to go back up, eat a little more, eat a little less. The best times to eat a little bit more is when you're moving a little bit more. So both bookend your workouts. Get a good meal or pre-something and then a good meal afterward. Eat consistently throughout the day. Keep your blood sugar levels high and your body happy, and it will be more likely to gain muscle. But the other question that I would ask you here is this: are you breaking down that food and digesting and absorbing it? So the thing about protein is not just a grams, how many grams per meal, right? We pounded this into you, I know. But you want to— don't get too caught up in just, okay, I want 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, which is about where I would suggest that most postmenopausal women should be. But, um, you have to think, am I breaking down that food so that I can actually absorb the essential amino acids? A lot of women need a little help with protein digestion, and that's digestive enzymes, specifically protease, to help break down. And some do better. I found something that I love— we'll put it in the show notes— from Bioptimizers. That is, the digestive enzymes in it help break down protein but also fat and carbs. And the numbers of them, the concentration, are higher than most— 4 times the digestive enzymes for protein breakdown. That is really helpful if you're a woman in menopause. The gut microbiome changes. So you may be consuming it or struggling to help yourself through supplementation if that's true, but get the majority of it from whole food. And then look at, are you really breaking it down, digesting? So sometimes your digestive system will hint if you're constipated, have diarrhea, you're bloated, or you have gas. That's a big sign. One of them is a sign that you're not necessarily breaking down or digesting well. I gave you a lot to think about. And now, last two things you do have to look at: am I sleeping well and enough? And am I dealing with my stress level okay? So you— your body has to feel pretty safe. Plenty of recovery time between exercise that's hard, plenty of nutrition, good sleep, not stressed, and then you're going to get better results. Okay, question 2: what's the best way to lose belly fat in midlife without tanking my energy? Yes, exactly. Okay, so without tanking your energy is really important because if you are tanking your energy, you won't lose belly fat. When you have that adrenal insufficiency, your body will begin to store fat because most likely we've had a problem with cortisol and you're going to be in storage fat. So getting you to get exhausted is not the way to get to belly fat. So somewhere there's a limiting belief behind this question that says, "I have to be miserable and get exhausted in order to burn belly fat." It's not going to happen. So in a bit, go back and listen again to the answers from question 1. But what I would suggest to you is the most common things, again, make sure you're restored and rested. So adequate food. I know it sounds like the opposite. We've always thought, "I want to lose something, I will lose weight." fat or belly fat specifically, I should probably do less eating. And that's not necessarily true. So often if you are eating too little, your body will shut down everything that you do put in. It will store because it's like, I don't know when she's going to give me anything again. She keeps doing these long stretches of no food. It doesn't know that you're doing intermittent fasting. And while intermittent fasting can be a tool that works for some, There are times when if you're finding it's not working, that you need to just abandon it and consider, how do I eat more? And I love 3 meals, no snacks, unless you really have some adrenal issues where you're just tired all the time, can barely get out of bed. And you will find you tend to eat more and better at each of those meals. And then you're eating more protein, more fiber, keeping yourself sated, and your body begins to burn fat in between those meal times. So other ways that you can assist yourself in losing belly fat: blood sugar stabilization— those 3 meals, no snacks will be very helpful. Getting good night's sleep will be very helpful. And then moving throughout the day. So if you are exercising and all you're doing is like a big workout, a longer workout once a day, and sitting the rest of the day, there's a problem. So instead, make it easier to get the workout in, break it up into 10 minutes after each meal. That'll support blood sugar stabilization. And if we have a spike in blood sugar, we'll have an elevation of insulin. The two of them together store belly fat, right? Not a good picture. So try to eat well, not too many carbohydrates, but not too little. Good high-protein, high-quality sources, lots of vegetables and some fiber added to that. And then go for a walk after each meal. Your digestion will actually improve, and so will your blood sugar, because instead of elevating too high after a meal, which sometimes it can depending on who you are, your muscles will use that food in fuel, and your muscles act like a bank, so your storage won't go high. As a woman in midlife menopause, we become more insulin resistant. So we need this little bit of movement after meals to help ourselves. Muscle and moving muscle increases insulin sensitivity, so we help ourselves very easily. You don't have to sweat. You can go at your self-selected pace and it will work wonderfully. So I hope that was helpful. To go a step further with belly fat, we know that lifting weights regularly helps visceral belly fat end of story, period. Meaning chest press, the rows, the squats, the lunges, the bicep curls, the triceps extensions— you're working those major muscle groups. That helps reduce visceral belly fat really well. If you were only to change resistance training, add it versus not, 13% decrease in your— or increase in your longevity rate. But you also improve your visceral belly fat pretty significantly if you add also So walking to that for blood sugar control, and if you tolerate high-intensity exercise, getting in high-intensity interval training or sprint interval training is also directly correlated with visceral belly fat support, meaning better losing the what you have when you're postmenopausal. So there you have that. Question number 3. This episode is sponsored by the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. It is the framework work that we designed our entire membership and program based on. Since 2013, I've been developing that after 30 years of working with women in midlife. That was born, and in 2018, we rolled out the Menopause Fitness Specialist to train other fitness and health pros on how to actually prescribe exercise. Here's where we're going next, in case you want to get started now, that we're actually training physicians on exercise prescription, knowing they get very little of it in medical school, and hoping that it also bridges the gap for you who may be a fitness or health professional or want to be, who works with women in menopause, because there is so much demand and so much room for you right now. If you are working with women in menopause but not getting all the results, don't have a reliable, predictable framework work that gets you results over and over that people know, like, and trust, come and talk to us. We'll put the link in the show notes for today. That's the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. And if you want to head on over to fitnessmarketingacademy.com, it's where we have all of the content dedicated to you, health and fitness pros. Are short, intense workouts actually better for my metabolism now? Yes. So both things are— it depends, because I don't know better than what, really. But if you were to say, as opposed to long intense workouts, absolutely. And that would be true if I was talking to a 25 or 30-year-old woman as well. Just for all of us, shorter intense— think of the inverse relationship, teeter-totter. So if it's a shorter workout, then it's high intensity. Or if it's a high intensity workout, it's shorter. If it's longer or low intensity, it can be that it works out fine. Like, your body's not going to be stressed if you go for a longer walk, might love it and decrease cortisol levels. But yes, it is better for metabolism and it's better for your muscle, your muscle quality. Your risk of injury goes down because it's really intense but for a short amount of time. So we call that high-intensity interval training or sprint interval training, 2 to 3 times a week. Just this last month, in the month we're in right now, we released a heart health myths that women over 40 believe. And it's not just heart health. So when we get your heart in shape, we also improve your mitochondria. Your energy level is going to be better, and we're helping your fat your metabolism. So if you're trying to burn fat by doing a ton of cardio, you might also be spending time and energy where it's not helping your heart and your longevity, but it may backfire on your fat. So yes, it is better than long ones, and doing long slow is also wonderful for decreasing cortisol levels. That decreases insulin and blood sugar elevation. Everybody's happier. So the highs and the lows really win. The middle range, unfortunately, that quote-unquote moderate exercise really is the least beneficial of all. If you love it— and I know you because I do, I love my endurance exercise— but if you love it, treat it as I can do this sometimes and see how well you do doing it. But don't overdo it, don't default to it. Go for a walk every day, make that like brushing your teeth, and do high-intensity interval training. Introduce it one time a week. A total session is warm-up to cool-down, 20 to 25 minutes. That's it. The high-intensity part is only about 2.5 minutes, 30 seconds or less, 5 different times, total recovery in between. I can do that. How about you? I did that today. I had a meeting this morning and I was like, "Oh, if I don't exercise before, my day is going to run away with me like a train." So I had 15 minutes after a dog walk, meaning I was warm when I jumped on it. I did 4, I think I got 4 short 30-second intervals of high intensity, and then I started my call and I paced around a little bit while I was doing it. Shh, don't tell anybody. All right, question number 3. Oh, I'm sorry, I hit that one. Number 4. All righty, here we go. How can I boost bone density without wrecking my joints? Great question. So, um, what I don't know here from this is if someone has a joint issue, um, this would be different. But there are 4 pillars for bone density that you would want to do. Lifting weights, period. Now, I do think that lifting as heavy as you safely can— so you start light, we go through moderate The research, the literature says, and I've included this in courses, I've included this in books, I've included this so many places, and I have quoted the literature specifically. I can't rattle that off after 42 years. I can't store the library up here. So just talking to you off the cuff, I can't grab that for you and tell you what study, but I can tell you that we know that up to about 48 weeks doing what is moderate level of intensity, which the researchers deemed 10 to 15 repetitions, will improve bone density. After about 48 weeks, they suggested their conclusion was you may plateau. Not everybody is going to continue to gain if you've done that stimulus for 48 weeks. We may need to find something else. Now, some of you will find I can't go heavy heavier than that, or my joints hurt, or my injury from way back when starts to bubble up. And that may be your playground, but there are other ways that you can reach or achieve some stimulus, and you don't want to stop lifting. Still beneficial. The second thing is jumping. So if you already have joints or degeneration, you have low cartilage in joints, and you know, I don't tolerate that, or maybe for you you have incontinence or prolapse and you can't jump because it would make it worse. Throw that off the table. But there are ways on the continuum of jumping and impact training, heel drops or stomping, like literally stomp your feet and or stomp your feet going upstairs. So step aerobics up and down, sideways, up and down. That's also on the continuum. And so that's very little impact the way you thought about it potentially. So yes, if you can do jump training, so literally we're not jumping and trying to land lightly anymore. We want to jump hard and we want to do squat jumps and do explosive things if you can. But if you can't and/or you feel like you pay for it for the next 2 days, we have to weigh the risk-reward ratio. And it's potentially not worth it because you're kind of causing damage and making things worse. And then eventually you would be limiting yourself from doing the other things. So always it's this with me when I'm working one-on-one with somebody: risk-reward, risk-reward, and one-to-many teaching you to do that for yourself. So resistance training, jump training if you can, but up to some level you probably can do heel drop. You probably can stomp. Okay, then the other two pillars are we know that 300 or more minutes a day of activity, like being on your feet, walking around, um, moving. If you're in retail, the more movement you get, the more active you are playing pickleball, playing golf, gardening, walking the dog. All of those things count, even if you're inserting your resistance training into those. People who are more active have less issue with low bone density. So everything you do is activating muscle. The muscle inserts— it originates actually here, it inserts on, on the other bone. And as the ends of the muscle pull on the bone, that actually creates stimulus. So that's another way that any movement will be helpful. So think of that. And Don't just sit there. Okay. And then the fourth one is yoga. And I throw that pillar in because for a lot of people, I can't lift heavier. I'm here at my place and I need to be maintenance now. That's an option. You can't maybe jump. What else can we do? And Dr. Loren Fishman— and I'm about to throw a video up to our YouTube channel right now that is an interview I did with him, and he is a primary researcher in 12 yoga poses, 12 daily yoga poses for bone density. And I got him on and I said, okay, I'm a 200-hour certified yoga instructor, but I gotta play devil's advocate. I'm also a strength and conditioning coach, taught at a university. Tell me exactly how yoga helps bone density, because there's no impact, it's weight-bearing, but again, there's no ground force. So he talked me through it. I'm a believer, and the study is really are very convincing. So 12 yoga poses, you don't have to step in and do flowing yoga where some of us, that's, that rules you out right away. These are like poses you step into each one, you hold it if it's right and left side, 30 seconds on each side. And probably 6 or 7 of those poses are far more valuable than anything else. And he said the same. He's like, we only threw corpse pose in there as a like a reward for getting all the way to the end. He said, we don't think corpse pose really does it. If you don't know, corpse pose is lying on your back with your arms like this. It's like, if corpse pose increases bone density, everybody would have good bone density, right? So, um, we know that's true, but those are 4 pillars. And then I'll throw in another one, and that is, um, whole body vibration. I personally like a Power Plate. It's a brand that I use. It's called the Move. And I stick it in my house. I'm no longer— I'm 61 and I'm like, why, why did we ever do this? Why did we put our exercise equipment in the basement for the time when people come over? Because that happens 3 times a year. And otherwise, you want and need to see that thing every single day. I'm at the point where people can come over and I'll tell them what that is. I'll show them. I'll tell them they should get one. And yet I'm not going to say that's an eyesore and shouldn't be there. I'll tell you what's an eyesore. You know, an 85-year-old who can't get out of her chair, who is now dependent on somebody else to help her to the bathroom and in and out of her car. I think that's, that's a, you know, an eyesore. And I don't want to be that. So I'm going to do everything I can not to. So whole body vibration, I share that because you may not need one or want one. Have room for one in your home. But look around at gyms and Ys and nutrition stores sometimes have them as well. Um, but the studies are pretty compelling. There are a lot of things I won't go into. We could link to whole body vibration episodes that I've done before. But bone density is derived within 6 months in people who are using it with specific protocols. They're not hard, by the way, in 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week, or 15 minutes, 3 days a week, and you're not sweating. But there is something about the vibration and frequency that you're feeling while you're on it. So you literally do feel the vibration. Sometimes my nose gets itchy, like the cartilage on my nose just gets itchy, like funny, not, not painful. It's just a different sensation, but it's not strenuous. And so for people who cannot move, they're limited by joints, they already have some limited mobility issues, can't lift heavy, can't jump, but do absolutely wanna do everything else, these are great tools. Personally, I can lift heavy. I was doing jump training. I'm very active and I still found I had, um, lower bone density. We call it osteopenia in 3 places. So the key places you look, I was at offended and insulted because, as you would be if you're a fitness instructor. But there are so many other things that we could go into. You're asking about exercise, so I won't. This is all inside of a very comprehensive course inside of the app. But your diet, your nutrition, not just today, but we're getting a cumulative effect of how well did you eat in your 20s and your 30s and, and your 40s. And if you had multiple children, you breastfed them all in rapid succession, potentially your bone density after pregnancy and breastfeeding didn't have a chance to bounce back. That could be a strike against you. And good go you that you did that, by the way. I am watching my daughter-in-law breastfeed and pump like a champ, and I'm thinking, cool, I wish I had been you. At 5 months, I was like, I'm done. You're not sleeping at all. You won't take a bottle. It's constantly me. You're grazing. Goodbye. And so we stopped cold turkey one day. That I don't recommend either, but I digress. So we've got 4 pillars. We have then whole body vibration, maybe another good tool. And I say that because I wanted you to know I was doing all the things and still your, your past, your— maybe, maybe it was my consumption of Diet Coke in grad school. And, and my undergrad years. Maybe it was eating too little and dieting too much in those same years. But there may be that maybe you weren't breaking down and digesting and absorbing all the calcium because you didn't have enough vitamin D or magnesium. Any of those things could be there. So it's not an insult, but we also don't have to bubble wrap you. Please don't panic about that. You, you probably were osteopenic or had osteoporosis before you knew about it. And so don't stop everything you're doing that is really good for your bones because you know that you are. Do it safely. Get in with a program designed by a medical exercise specialist such as myself, or get eyes on you if you're really worried about your form and you have other conditions going on. And let's go to the next question. This episode is sponsored by the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. It is the framework that we designed our entire membership and program based on. Since 2013, I've been developing that after 30 years of working with women in midlife. That was born, and in 2018, we rolled out the Menopause Fitness Specialist to train other fitness and health health pros on how to actually prescribe exercise. Here's where we're going next, in case you want to get started now, that we're actually training physicians on exercise prescription, knowing they get very little of it in medical school, and hoping that it also bridges the gap for you who may be a fitness or health professional, or want to be, who works with women in menopause, because there is so much demand and so much room for you right now. If you are working with women in menopause but not getting all the results, don't have a reliable, predictable framework that gets you results over and over that people know, like, and trust, come and talk to us. We'll put the link in the show notes for today. That's the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. And if you want to head on over to fitnessmarketingacademy.com, it's where we have all of the content dedicated to you, health and fitness pros. Number 5, what's the ideal balance between cardio and strength in menopause? Oof, that's a great question. And I will tell you right now that this one is, it's a wide continuum. So I have a method, we call it the HALO method. It stands for 4 components that we need to assess. And one of those, the H stands for what hormone phase are you in? Because premenopause, perimenopause, menopause transition, and postmenopause, There are different priorities that I would give to any woman based on the other questions of your exercise age, your limitations, and your— what are your highest priorities or outcomes right now? We fully pull all that in, and in the middle of that, all of those answers, is a sweet spot. So some of the answers from this one here may cancel this. That would be the ideal. We can't do it because your joints have, you know, no cartilage, you can't jump, or you have prolapse. We've got to throw some things out. So for me to give you the ideal balance, what I would say to you is prioritize strength training. Muscle is a girl's best friend. Pre-menopause, in menopause, and post-menopause, till death do you part. It will decrease your risk of disease. It will decrease your risk of falling. It will decrease your risk of fracture because you will also be strengthening the bone at the same time. We need it for helping support blood sugar control, to decrease insulin resistance, which leads to prediabetes, which leads to diabetes and risk of cancer, risk of heart disease and Alzheimer's. And so right there is just a handful of why are you not strength training. If it's free, basically free, right? You can pick up heavy things in your house, put books into carry-on bags and backpacks. If you don't have weights, you can find weights and make them. That works. And I don't recommend this, but you could go find random videos on YouTube and strength train. You've got something at your fingertips if you won't invest in yourself or can't. There is a way to do it. So the ideal balance is generally 2 to 3 times a week of resistance training. Always start with 2. I always start with 2 because you need the stimulus, but you need even more rest and recovery in between. So it's no longer that Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I've got to do 3 days a week. And if you're thinking still boot camps from the '90s, like 4 times, 6 times a week, if you're not getting results, if you don't have a 10 out of 10 on energy level, you're not sleeping great, your libido isn't great, your focus and energy aren't great, Stop doing that, right? Because that probably is sabotage for you. The energy that should have is being just zipped up, right? And you probably have sugar cravings and you're leaning on caffeine too much, and you may be accelerating aging as opposed to supporting your aging and optimal body composition with ease. So So focus on prioritizing strength, but that doesn't mean it takes more time per day. It just means put those strength trainings there. You know that you're going to work intensely during those and you're going to reach muscle fatigue with adequate volume. And so that may take 45 minutes to an hour for a good workout. Yet there are times you might go a little beyond it, a little less. But that's about a generalization. 90 minutes a week is a good strength training session, doing other things on other days. Cardio, here's what I would say. So cardio is a big umbrella. It's February as we do this live. I just did a whole session on walking, zone 2, high-intensity interval training, sprint interval training. Intermittent exercise throughout the day, vigorous bursts, and the impact or effect on our heart as well as our fat-burning visceral belly fat. And it's, it's eye-opening. The two biggest gains for your cardiovascular system, your decrease of disease and heart disease specifically for ladies, walking every day, do it like you brush your teeth, and High-intensity interval training, really sprint. So 30 seconds or less to breathlessness. You have to stop. Total recovery in between, and between 4 and 6 times is really a sweet spot. You're going to have days you're too busy and maybe you only get 2 times. Okay, good. Maintenance, right? You might have a day you do 6 and you think, "I could do another one." I wouldn't. It's okay to be done, but make sure you are really reaching breathlessness. Fitness and then walk away. So that's a good workout week. Every day you're going to walk, right? Maybe longer on the days you don't have something else and shorter on the days you do. Strength training twice a week in addition to the walking on that day, right? High-intensity interval training, start with 1, bump it up after a couple of weeks, try 2, hold it there for a couple of weeks. How do you do? No injuries, you're recovered, you're feeling good, not sore. You could try 3. If you're postmenopausal, you'll get away with more and you may need it to maintain your muscle and visceral belly fat adequately or, or in control. Okay, that gives you an idea. If you want one-on-one, I'll put a link down below, so ways that you can get some one-on-one and we can talk through that with you. 6th and the final question: How do I know if my fatigue is normal or if I'm overtraining? I think the easiest and fastest way to know this is, first of all, I don't Fatigue is not normal. We've settled for it being normal. I hate the end of the beginning of that question, so I almost didn't catch that. Fatigue is not normal. We have settled for it as our normal. So let's just decide we should feel great energy. And there are supplements you can look for, but here's the easiest way to know, are you overtraining? So I would look at how's your body composition, your percent body fat, how's your skeletal muscle mass? Is your Is your strength improving if you're strength training to gain strength? It should be, right? Or you should be at, "I love where I'm at and I'm in maintenance zone." But if you want to find out, add another day of recovery between your workouts and then see how you feel. And you're going to have to do that for more than one time because that one time, it may be your brain that says, "Oh, I should work out." Shouldn't I be working out? Right? And sometimes your brain and the things that it thinks are just wrong. Can we agree that sometimes you, you're thinking things but they're not right? And I think we've all got to agree that we know that this happens. Did you catch that light? This was rude. I'm so sorry. I am trying to put on the light because the sun Okay, I think I'll stop. I'm sorry if you're here, there's a little like Flashdance, you know that song where she's dancing on stage? Okay, sorry, it's a little bright, but the sun is going down. So first of all, yes, just add another day of a rest between and see how you do. And if you want to see if you're totally recovered, what you might want to do is hold that experiment true for 4 weeks at least, check in your energy. And I think— and you're not going to see the objective response or change as quickly. Your body composition, your muscle strength, your muscle mass, your skeletal muscle mass, it's not going to change in a week or in 2 weeks. But what will potentially is your sleep quality might increase your lack of soreness might improve your recovery and the freshness that you feel, like readiness for a session, you know, and the energy you feel throughout the session and afterward might feel good. So mentally you really have to assess these. I like a 0 to 4 scale. 0 is nothing, nothing good happening. 4 is is this is amazing, couldn't be better. It's a short scale, so it's very obvious where you are. You want 3s and 4s. It's, I feel great, I'm sleeping great, I've got more energy. And you want to ask yourself at the beginning of, here's where I'm feeling, I'm going to start this experiment of putting another day between my workouts. But a lot of times, here's what I've heard from women. I tried that and I was a whole lot less sore when I went to start that next workout. And/or I actually felt stronger throughout the workout. My weights changed a little bit, not a ton, but I just felt stronger. And then afterward, I was not depleted. Like, I was really energetic, much more so between those sessions. And here's the irony: it's like a sense of relief when you realize, I can maintain this fitness and I thought it took working out like so much, and it doesn't. It just takes consistency, but it takes fewer workouts, and I feel better between. So I think the answer to that is put more rest days in it and then test it. And I would start with just one more rest day. If that doesn't do it, you might look at another, but don't change the workout But do change the recovery, and that's how you'll know. So you're just gonna change one variable. So I hope that was helpful. If this was helpful, this Q&A, know that we will do that again, and this would be a great opportunity for you. I'm putting out the feeler. I am still in my DMs in Instagram, so if you want to direct message me and say, I have a question for an upcoming podcast, if you're gonna do a roundup, here it is. I'd love you to answer this, and I will. So we, we don't do these often, but we will do these more frequently, about every quarter. And I love coming back and answering those. We sometimes do a roundup of a topical, but this was just an ask me anything. I'm here for it. We're down for it. We'll link to resources that I pointed out. We talked whole body vibration. We talked about some other previous episodes that I can link to about answers that were tucked into the answers. So we'll link to those in the show notes, so you can always find those at flipping50.com. Thank you so much for being here. If this was helpful— we work really hard at these podcasts, so not only myself, my team, my time, but we're all here, and it takes a village. So thank you so much for sharing with a friend if it's been helpful for you, and I'd love to hear from you that you are listening. So what are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 the stronger way.