8 Ways to Make Walking in Menopause MORE Beneficial

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function.

And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine.

And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites.

What are you waiting for? Good night. If you are walking now and you are loving the fact that you cannot blink, you cannot sneeze, you cannot scroll anywhere on social media without seeing some positive reinforcing benefit of walking, then this is for you. But it's not just that. I'm going to help you with 8 ways for you to boost the benefits that you may already be getting from walking.

I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal? To help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman, and it's not just about you, but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause-and-beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

So excited to dive into this. And actually, this is so very meta because I am sitting here waiting to— this is my last thing that I'm doing before going for a walk today. So I will tell you that my sweet spot for going for a single walk, whether it's by myself or it's with Moses, is somewhere about 8,000 to 9,000 steps. I get closer to 10,000 when I'm going by myself for the same timeframe. You know how it is with a dog. You must stop and you must smell the everything but the roses, and no amount of pulling will change that. And I know it's good for them to do this. However, some of us don't have the patience for that, but I'm going to share with you what's been my sweet spot. It's been about that, but then there are these anomalies where when I can get a bigger day by maybe not actually going for one lump sum walk, but actually breaking it up in order that I can go for several different 30-minute walks, even, even less than that if I don't have the whole 30 minutes, but getting out, move moving for 20 minutes can be so very beneficial. And by the end of that kind of a day, you know, a little Moses walk in the morning, maybe a break for myself at noon, but I'm also listening to voice messages and/or leaving them for somebody else. And then at the end of the day, sometimes same, but there it's like a friend call and I will walk and talk with a friend, say from the Midwest or anywhere else. Those days actually add up. I'm going to jump right into 8 ways that you can boost your benefits and get more from the walking you are doing. So number 1, ways that you can do this— spread it out, change what you're doing. Walking 40 minutes— 40 minutes seems to be a tipping point— 3 times a week increases your hippocampus. Now back in 2004 2013, I was still living in the middle of the Midwest in Ames, Iowa. I was presenting at a retirement community, and the biggest aha moment from people asked about what's your biggest takeaway, it's like, this is doable. Like, it's 40 minutes. But the big takeaway there, this study was done in 2011 on older adults at the University of Colorado, published in the Journal of Neural Image, proved that this hidden gem was your self-selected pace. Like, there is no, oh, you have to be going at this pace, you have to go a certain distance, nothing. So you choose it. You go for a walk for 40 minutes. So even my Moses walks are helping me remember. So hippocampus, for those of you that need a reminder, is memory central. There's that. So again, no minimum exertion level. Just make sure you get that. So occasionally, even if you are breaking up, going for smaller walks, And you'll hear why that might be important in a minute. You may wanna try and hit those 40-minute walks just on occasion. Two is walk short versus long, just the opposite of what I've said, but there is some value in doing that. There's so much research that I've shared previously showing that intermittent breaks of walking actually matter more If your goal, your target, is to reduce visceral belly fat, and we're doing that by reducing our insulin resistance— so many of us experience more insulin resistance. We knew that was equated with estrogen drops, and now all of a sudden we're depositing belly fat. We don't have the waistline, the hourglass we used to have. Part of that is also Not just estrogen left the building, but it's because estrogen left the building, cortisol went up in this corresponding inverse relationship. And when cortisol teams up with insulin, those two relocate fat cells to the belly, create new fat cells, expand baby fat cells into big cells— all the things that nobody wants or recalls asking for. But after more and more studies are sharing that when you break up your sedentary time with even 2 to 5, 2 to 5 minutes movement breaks, reduce post-meal blood sugar spikes by 17%, right? And that's pretty good return for really what's the equivalent of getting up taking your empty water bottle, refilling it, walking to the bathroom, taking care of that, come back to your desk. You've spent 2 to 5 minutes. It doesn't take very much. So realize that you're still getting a great win in doing that. And remember, what is your priority? What is it that you're wanting from your walking? And you want to think about that because there's always the exercisematch.com that we need to think. We've got to match the perfect marriage of the exercise mode and type and timing to the goals and the priorities that we have. Number 3 is walk after meals. So another more recent study showed that if blood sugar, belly fat, and insulin resistance— all very integrally woven— are your most important priorities, 10-minute walks after meals had a more positive impact than a single long walk. On blood sugar. So yes, after the meal is better than before the meal, you know. And I lingeringly remember this— I can't tell you or point to a scientific study— that there was probably back in about 2013, I remember coming across a study that said if you do a burst of about 6 minutes of fairly significant intensity before you eat, it actually blunts your desire for food. So you are maybe mentally making those choices at a meal or buffet or ordering off the menu instead of letting your emotion, you know, and over— and an overactive hunger telling you, no, no, no, this sounds good because there's lots going on. However, The benefit to the blood sugar level is best when you move after a meal, because when you eat, blood sugar normally will go up. Your blood sugar comes down after a meal significantly. Some of us actually feel that more than others detrimentally. And when we eat, it's gonna come back up. Now, the hope is it comes back up to a more stable, balanced level, but for some of us, we really can spike. Now, obviously, your choices— if you choose chocolate cake, it's going to have a different approach. If you choose a sub sandwich with a big hunk of bread on the top and on the bottom, a little less turkey in the middle, you may find your blood sugar also spikes more than if you sat down to a piece of salmon on greens or with veggies. And you have to test you in order to know. And I'll link to the blood glucose monitor that I love to use personally and with clients. But it's important that you look at what is it that you want. Walking after meals will have a more positive effect on your blood sugar levels. So if you're debating between before or not at all, yes, of course, go before. If you can't fit it in, you can't do it after. You will make walking in menopause more beneficial this way by directly supporting blood sugar balance and combating insulin resistance. If you can get it in after. Next is go a different route or go the same route. If you're limited on your choices out your front door or the office, if that's where you're walking from, go a different route or walk it backwards. If you always go out the door and to the right, go out the door and go to the left. Dr. Ellen Langer, somebody might remember who've listened to the podcast before, she has been a guest and she's also been a guest on the What, When, and to Exercise for Women Over 40 Summit. And she is, she's absolutely one of my favorites. She is the mother of mindfulness. She was the first female professor at Harvard, and she's done some notable research on aging, on mindset, on placebo effect. And she corrected me once on the idea of creating habits. Habits, she said, have us all operating on automatic. On autopilot. Instead, she said, the secret is noticing, is being aware, truly being mindful. So when you go the same route, you've done this, I've done this. You get in your car, you're driving a route you always drive, you know it. In a moment, you end up at home or at the destination. And you don't remember anything about having gotten there because you were potentially so distracted. And I don't mean by your phone, let's all not do that, okay? But by the thoughts going through your head, the conversation you were going to have, or the one that you did have that you were continued to go through in your head. So creating an awareness by not driving the same route, by going backwards, by changing something about it will actually make you more conscious and more present in your day-to-day life, which actually may end up benefiting you far more in every aspect of your life. So next, we're looking at walking and talking. So speaking of Dr. Langer, this one is about, you know, therapists now walk, and this has probably been out there for at least 20 years. You know, if you need a little therapy, it doesn't even have to be with an actual therapist, but with a friend. There is science to show the combination of walking outdoors, if possible, possibly even on a track or on your treadmill if it must be. Walking and talking is beneficial. If we can get the outdoors, what we have is the perfect trilogy. So for females, walking, getting sunlight, and talking with a friend actually are the trilogy that are almost the equal to serotonin. And an antidepressant is typically serotonin and SSRI. But what it is, is doesn't matter if you're gossiping, doesn't matter if you're talking through problems, doesn't matter if you're talking about every little bit you ate today, but whatever it is, it's out there. And producing serotonin is a feel-good hormone. Here's the advantage of that. Your stressors probably are not going away. However, the coping skills you have— you can't be both high in cortisol and in serotonin. So if we can manufacture, we can produce more serotonin by the activities that we choose, who we choose to do with, the environment we choose to do them, we can help ourselves offset effects of cortisol in our life. So I've been known to take my phone with me. I've been known then to put it on speaker so I'm not holding it next to my ear or with earbuds, and I'm just having a conversation with a friend for 45 minutes or an hour as I walk my walk. And I know it's a lot of fun actually to do that and to be sure that you're catching up with something and the walk goes like that, you know, which otherwise may or may not have felt like a chore. But depending on if it's hard for you to get out there, walk with your sister who might be doing the same thing but across the country. Next step is amplify the learning opportunity that is right there. Now, we all are learners generally of 3 different types. So we are auditory learners, we're visual learners, and we are kinesthetic learners. Most of us can do well in some component in all of them. Some of us are much more strong in terms of visual. I'm a visual learner. Like, if I can't see it, if you only talk it to me, it's not going to do me any good. This is why teachers create PowerPoint slides, presenters and speakers do. It's why In a classroom, a teacher will write it on the board, so they're not just talking to us, but they're also collectively talking to the whole class at one time. It's why in books there are images and pictures or graphs that will help us absorb the information. So it really caters to that visual learner in us. The verbal learners, of course, love podcasts. Podcasts, right? And you prefer to listen potentially while you're moving as opposed to going to YouTube. So in some cases, we will drop a YouTube video for a podcast. And especially if we have podcasts that lend themselves to, listen, you're gonna need to see a demonstration of this in order for this to really be helpful, we'll do that. But there are some podcasts that we feel are— they're more educational, and I'm not in the same room as a guest, so we may or may not actually put that on YouTube. But some of you, even if it were talking heads as we say, would go and prefer to watch it and watch just connecting with the eyes and the facial expressions of the speakers would actually help you retain the information better. Others of you who are like, not so much, I just soon listen, maybe more auditory learners. We sometimes can also feel this or sense this by how you speak. So what's more common for you? Would you say, I see what you mean? Or would you say, I hear what you're saying? I hear what you mean. You know, and so one or the other is an indicator. If you say, I see what you mean, you may be more of a visual learner. If you are someone who would say, I hear what you're saying, you might be a more auditory learner. Now, that's not a fault-proof method, but it often will open up, hmm, I wonder, or if that's the kind of learning that is going on right now, that could be the case too. But all of us to some degree have kinesthetic learning in us. And when we're children, when we're smaller, this may be even more true. And intuitively, you may have done this and not even realized it. So let me ask you this. Have you ever listened to a podcast while you are just sitting on the couch or you're sitting, say, at the pool? I've done that before. I listened to a podcast with earbuds in while I'm at the pool drying off after a swim, not really doing anything at all but lying, versus when you go for a walk. I mean, can you say, you know, I have a much better memory of the content from a certain podcast if I was moving or walking? For me personally, it's definitely true. If I'm hiking, going for a walk, and I'm either often doing one or the other. I will on a long hike sometimes binge, you know, 3 or 4 podcasts in a row, but I remember distinctly what was being said, but I also remember the point of where I was walking on the beach or walking at the mountains. So think about that. So your learning opportunity, if there is something you are trying to absorb, if for instance you've been trying to suffer through a masterclass staring at the screen, download it to get reception so that you could just simply listen to it while you walk. Is there enough content there that isn't reliant on the visual screen so that you could benefit from it? And try and walk and listen to see if you absorb more. You might give yourself a little bit of a test and try doing some podcast episode, whether it's this podcast or another one, that is both on a YouTube video and simply downloadable on Spotify or Apple, your favorite platform. Compare and contrast which one, when you listen or when you listen and watch, do you feel like helps you retain the content better? And you will have your answer as to whether you are a visual or an auditory learner but I also want you to try walking and listening to it, or weight training and listening. And when you're doing that, if you're trying to get something or grasp something, you might find that it sticks with you more if you're moving. I discovered this totally accidentally. So when I was a student, an undergrad student, I would often go and work out at the gym at the rec center. And I would take my book and I would put it, put it on the StairMaster because that was the bomb at the time, right? And I would read a chapter or I would review my notes for studying a test. You know, if I were trying to recite, actually terrible, I'm sure it was a class I didn't like very much if that was the case. But amplifying this. So walking makes it easy to listen to a podcast for sure that's educating you. But whether it's that or something else, the benefits of walking, you get that true. And isn't this really meta? If you are listening to this and you're walking right now, learning, okay, so you're learning how to organize your closet. You could be listening to something about why essential amino acids are so important. It doesn't have to be about walking like this podcast is. Students who move, the statistics are so high, students who move retain up to 76% of the content that they learned compared to 30% retention rate while sitting and learning. And I don't know that there are any statistics available for adults, so you be the judge of you.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there one thing you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extra that you don't want, that I don't want hiding in most protein powders. That's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree, real food first, but it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich sandwich. Sometimes the protein— and don't forget the fiber— they kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've got to make it easy to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at flipping50.com today.

2 more to go. This one is wearing a weighted vest. It's become the sexy thing. Often it's called rucking. Using a weighted vest can definitely increase metabolic costs, meaning how many calories the energy expenditure— relative exercise intensity is likely to go up, and the load on skeletal system during walking is going to go up. And for some of you, that may sound like a negative, but for a woman working on her bone density, it's actually a positive. A study on trail runners concluded that between 5 to 10% of the physiological and mechanical changes were significant, meaning that 10% additional load beyond your own body weight— so you take your body weight times 10%, adding that— there could be considerable amount of stress on your system and your mechanics may be altered. Now, that should sound to you like, oh, red flag. And truly it would be. We don't want to alter your body mechanics. We want you to be able to walk with the same body mechanics that ideally we've got you in good alignment. You're walking in a good balance. So if you start changing something because it's not feeling comfortable, it's probably been too much. So starting small and kind of splitting the difference somewhere between 5 and 10% of your body weight. And if you can choose a weight or a vest that allows you to take off or put in additional weights as you need to. So you've been away from it for a while, you don't want to jump right back in with the weight you used to do. You want to start and build yourself back up again, but you do potentially wanna be able to progressively increase that load. Not necessarily are you gonna go more than 10 or 15%. Now, if you're not a trail runner, you're a walker, the biomechanics may not change as much. However, I think it's very important that we realize, first of all, are you walking at all and are you walking regularly? Then and only then when we're certain that you're benefiting from it, there's no biomechanical things that we need to realign or fix, only then are you ready for additional weight. If you're a woman who has osteoporosis, if you have a previous fracture in your upper body, particularly cervical or your thoracic spine, I would suggest a weighted vest is probably not for you unless you are in a clinical setting, you're being supervised, and you've been told, okay, let's introduce this gradually, and you have a really lightweight. But otherwise, you are more prone to additional fractures. Basically, if you've already got one, you're at higher risk. So I would be cautious. For the rest of us with osteopenia or osteoporosis, not at risk, not at high risk, because there is no existing fracture and you're in good condition. I would say there's no contraindication for a weighted vest, but you start small, you start light. So let's say you weigh 140 pounds, you're using a weighted vest, you might be best starting for short periods of time with between 7 and 14 pounds, being careful not to do too much and much time with 14 pounds until you are well adapted. So inside of our membership, for those of you who are listening who are already Flipping 50 members, there is a specific challenge on how you adopt the use of a weighted vest for benefit without injury and reducing risk of additional tension that often can be overfiring of those upper trapezius muscles and tension in the neck that many women deal with the weight of the world up there too. Last but not least is adding intervals. So do this one last when with conscious planning. And the reason is it's not always a more is better, meaning either more duration more weight is in that last example, but also more intensity is not always good. So if you're walking and your walk today should be about recovery— this is a recovery day for me— then you really do not want to, and it would be counterproductive for you to add intervals. Now I know some of you might be thinking, but wouldn't it be good just to do more? I'm just gonna I'm gonna get breathless and try to do this. No, it really wouldn't. So if you really need recovery day, then you a recovery day. Everything you do ideally has purpose and you're looking at your week as a collective. So on a recovery day, take a recovery walk. On a day that this is a moderate day and or you want to make it interval training, you can add intervals easily to a walk. It doesn't have to ever be a high impact movement that gets you breathless. So it's, it's some days are supposed to be recovery days that include movement and not going hard and go home mentality. And many midlife and older women, we were born into this whole harder is better thinking. And it can be hard to lose that. But if you never go easy, you're fooling yourself to think that your hard effort actually is putting you at your capacity. So if today is supposed to have intervals, the walk itself should be shorter than most days. So this is not a day you'd go for 40 minutes. This is a day you might plan your walk is going to be 20 minutes. Now for me, I'm in a situation where I can walk up the street and about 7 minutes away someone has painted an agility ladder on the ground. I don't know if they knew I was moving here or what,. But I have the perfect walk out my door warmup. It's actually uphill, so I'm really warming up walking uphill. Now I'm getting to that interval or that ladder where I can easily do intervals. So I can do ladder drills up those intervals. If you instead are close to— you're 5 to 10 minutes from a nice hill. So you know what I mean by nice hill? I don't mean rolling gentle hills. I mean a hill that you can feel it's up, it's going up, where you have at least 30 to 45, if not a minute, where you can walk charging up that hill, getting potentially getting breathless if you walk really hard. And that can be a bit of an interval. Now, if you really get out of breath, it's truly high-intensity interval training. If you don't get out of breath, it still may have benefit because you're working your legs in a different way. You're really pushing the earth behind you, push off with your big toe, you're engaging your hamstrings and your glutes some more than you normally would be. So if you go 4 to 6 bursts of fast walking or hill climbing, so you're really charging up that hill 4 to 6 times, you turn and recover carefully back down because that deceleration is eccentric contracting. It does put a little bit more stress on knees, so you've got to be careful about that, especially depending on who you are and who your knees are. So you've turned a slow recovery day into an intense day. So you need to realize that it's no longer quote unquote just a walk, right? To make walking more beneficial in menopause, you want it all. You want short and moderate and longer walks. You want brisk and you want leisurely paced walks. But at the core of the majority of benefits from walking is Just do it for a cumulative effect of movement that occurs several times a day. That's the biggest benefit from walking. I worked out in the morning today with weights, so my first walk was after lunch, and next I will take a brief walk right after dinner. As long as we can get it in before dark, intermittent exercise is excellent for women over 40. So getting in those steps really does count. So check in with that. Don't get in more and more and more steps at the expense, however, of your strength training. The more you move and walk with steps that you've developed a greater lean muscle mass for to do, you're moving more muscle mass, you are expending more energy. And all of that works positively together. It's a collective. In fact, when you work extremely hard during the short intervals that are high-intensity interval training or sprint training or in resistance training sessions, finishing feeling good is almost guaranteed. And the same should be true for your walking. So if you come back in the door after walking and you feel like, oh, that was hard, or I'm tired, it was probably bordering on the endurance level beyond your scope of practice, if I can say that. So beyond the point where you're actually benefiting and potentially it's making you a little bit more tired. And watch for the things that are signs telling you you've got more cravings, you're more tired instead of more energized because of that walk. So those are things to keep an eye on. So less walking each time, but more frequent walking often is the best thing, especially for those of you listening who might have a little adrenal fatigue. Those exercise snacks, which might be 5 to 10 minutes of walking throughout the day, can be extremely beneficial. So I'd love to hear from you. Are you walking? Have you picked it up? Since the last or latest trend seems to be a back to basics, like walking and weights? And are you interested in a virtual training that cumulates in a virtual event? So we're thinking about doing that this summer as most of us, northern and southern climates, all have some decent weather to get outdoors and walking in and doing a collective Flipping 50 walk. On a specific day. So where, what time it is would be dependent on where you are in the world, but we're looking at pulling us all together, giving us something to quote unquote train for together. And we may bring that together in a cumulative effect during the Flipping 50 retreat when many of us will be together physically, but we can be virtually walking with you as well. In the show notes for today will be a list of other podcasts podcasts that you might like, all of which are about walking. We have talked with this subject, and I, I include two that are with guests that made walking and/or hiking and trekking with their spouse or alone really an art and a science. So if you enjoy walking and you're interested in learning more with tips, with Q&As where I've answered many of your questions answering so many questions and hosting guests talking about their really juicy experiences. You'll find all of those in the show notes, as well as some of the links to the research that I addressed today in this episode. Next up on the Flipping 50 podcast, I will be bringing you mistakes that may be hijacking your fitness. And ironically, the way this is going is we're really going to deep dive into carbohydrates. How many you're getting on average, how many you actually need, and the eye-opening benefit of making sure that you're getting the right kind of carbohydrates and at the right time positioned for your workout. So tune into that one next, and thank you so much for joining me. If this has been beneficial, thank you so much for sharing it with a friend.

Thank you for listening. To listen to a decade of episodes and to get the show notes, visit Flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all the previous episodes. And I made it super easy to make the most of your listening time and get exactly what you want to listen to as top priority by getting the top 10 episodes in the areas you most care about, like how much protein do you need, weight loss, and other 3 ultra important topics we've identified as our community's top 5. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife women. So go and listen right now. Do you have a question for a podcast? A question you'd love to ask, or maybe a story you want to tell? Did you know we have a special group just for podcast question roundups and the answers? My community coaches and I provide answers daily inside of this group, but it's also where I go when I occasionally say, okay, open call for podcast questions or tell your story. Would you like to be a guest. So if you're looking for a community of women who are also interested in optimizing their health, strengthening their mindset, and looking forward to every new year, join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50 Insiders on Facebook.