Building Muscle and Losing Fat in Menopause and Beyond

What if it's not the diet or the workout routine? What if it's something else entirely? Look, spoiler alert, I am an exercise and sports psychology guru. And that, between the ears, has been so much more important to me ever since the late '80s when I realized I was gonna have no hope of helping people with things below the shoulders if we don't get between the ears. So I'm hosting a masterclass this month called What If It's Not the Diet and the Exercise? The Missing Link to All Fitness Programs That You've Ever Done. If you are listening to this and you've tried it all, you're doing it all, this may be the missing link for you. And in this, I will give you the spoiler alert. Yeah, the diet matters. What your dietary habits are matter.

And?

Your exercise matters, and both most often need a change when you hit menopause. Midlife and beyond, the gut changes and the metabolism does change, but they are generally the easy part. We can learn. You're intelligent. But what's harder is mindset. I'm going to tap into that in this masterclass. You can go to flipping50.com/missinglink, no spaces. between Missing Link and watch for free. And hopefully, you'll have some sort of a breakthrough while you're on. Just how much protein do you need? How much will it help you build muscle? Or how much will it help you lose fat? Which of those questions are you asking? Which of those should you ask? That and more coming up in this episode with one of our returning favorites, Dr. Bill Campbell, PhD. You're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause, and you're not slowing down. You're just getting started. But the old rules don't apply anymore. The workouts that worked before, they're working against you now. The advice you've been given, incomplete at best. I'm Debra Atkinson, and I'm the founder of Flipping 50, the I'm a pioneer in fitness for women in midlife. For more than 40 years, I've been in the trenches with women just like you, and for the last 12, right here on this podcast, and, and the founder of Flipping 50: The Stronger Way app and membership. Welcome to Flipping 50: The Stronger Way, where science meets strength, where you'll find the tools, research, and real talk to build the body and the life you want in your second half. Each week, you'll get evidence-based exercise and nutrition strategies, conversations with leading experts, and honest answers to the Questions your doctor didn't get answers to in medical school and doesn't have time to answer in an appointment. This is your show. Let's get stronger. They call it recomposition, and we just want to call it in. If you still want to target both building muscle and losing fat in menopause, stay with me. In this episode, I bring back Dr. Bill Campbell, a PhD and director of the Performance and Physique Enhancement Lab at the University of Doesn't that title sound yummy? Anyway, his research focuses on improving exercise performance and physique enhancement while maintaining a lifestyle, right? His pioneering research includes dietary protein intakes to optimize body composition, rapid fat loss strategies— true— and weight loss resistance in women going through the menopause transition. His research lab recently completed the largest menopause fitness survey ever conducted. For those of you who are already subscribers in the inside community at Flipping 50, you know we've reviewed that very recently. And if you're not there, what are you waiting for? Some opportunities in our show notes so that you can get yourself there and stay tuned on all the upcoming and news-breaking research as it comes out. More to come from Dr. Phillips, and we are going to dive right into all of it in this episode. Bill Campbell, thank you so much for coming back.

Yeah, thanks for inviting me again. It's been a while.

It's been a while. Always a favorite. And it doesn't feel like it's been so long for me because I stalk you, I suppose I would say. So I listened very recently to some other colleagues and esteemed people who are hosting research or hosting researchers like yourself on their podcast hopefully will share those too so that we don't necessarily need to repeat it because they are great. And we can ask a few different things. So number one, let's really, in your words— I've done a bio, everybody's heard it— but I'd love in your words for you to say right now, what's the most important thing For you in terms of research, what you're doing and how you're contributing for everybody listening to their knowledge about what should I be doing when I go to work out or when I open the refrigerator and I'm thinking about what's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? How are you contributing?

Okay. That's a— I never heard the question phrased like that.

I like that.

So my entire career has been based on exercise and nutrition. And the population that I've mostly focused on throughout my career is younger, metabolically healthy women, sometimes men, but usually women. And I continue to study what's the best exercise programs, what's the optimal nutrient intakes for improving performance and body composition. What has been new for me over the last few years is Shifting, not what I do, but the population that I serve and the population that I'm just infatuated with right now are women who are middle-aged, particularly those who are about to or are currently or who have more recently gone through menopause. And I could say, oh, I've been interested in that. And here's the reasons why. Then the number, the reason is my wife went through this and didn't have a good experience. So. That was kind of like on my doorstep, so to speak. And I felt like, hey, I have these skills in this area. I, I just, I want to, and I have, we also have 2 daughters and my, uh, my wife and I were very ignorant of the process, which reminds me, I want to thank you very much for whom you serve and what you do. I think you've been doing this for a long time. Um, maybe if I would have heard of you 10 years ago, my wife and I wouldn't have been as reactive. So that's the, that was the reason for the change in population. And just one other thing that I would say I'm adding to my repertoire is the hormone piece. And I have so much to learn. Um, but I just, I love it. It's very complicated. Like it's for men, they're going to go on a hormone. It's usually, oh, testosterone. Yes or no? Okay, good. Done.

Mm-hmm.

For women, there's just, there's multiple hormones, different forms of how you get it into the body. So. I'm very much excited about doing future research in that area. And, I would say I'm just learning about that aspect of what women have to decide and think about in terms of hormones in addition to fitness lifestyles and eating optimal nutrient intakes.

Well, and, if I can summarize what I think I've heard on other podcasts that I've heard you most recently say, And then correct me or reroute. But I think a couple of things. You've kind of named and coined and said the word again, the weight-loss resistance, you know, defining, you know, we would be trying to, like, consciously making an effort to lose weight, potentially doing things that used to work for us to get that job done, and failing at it. You know, and you're kind of taking a good look at that. And you're also looking at where are there gaps. And I think most interestingly, it's looking at active women as they go through and finding that, whoa, you know, we all thought we would be immune to these changes. And it's a little bit insulting that we are not. But I think it can also sneak up on us. You know, I, I know I thought, I've skated through this, this is awesome. And then at 56, it's like, oh no, the universe is like, we think you need this lesson too. And it's like, are you kidding? Okay, but so talk to me about, are you looking at that gap? Have I picked this up erroneously? Where are you with all that?

Yes. No, you're, you're exactly right on. So I've done a lot of weight loss research throughout my career. In fact, I don't think there's anybody who's done more weight loss research in fit people than I have. Now, again, historically, this is always in younger, younger, younger women, sometimes men. But what I've learned over the last few years and what, what my wife experienced— oh, and I want to say this just as an introduction, what I'm about to say Does not mean that every woman is doomed, that they're going to gain all this weight because some women do go through menopause and they don't have—they just don't struggle. They're like, "I don't know what everybody's complaining about." So this is not everyone, and conversely, not everyone has a hor—you know—a horrible experience, and some just kind of in the middle of the road, like things are harder, more difficult, and so. What, what I've learned from the research and what I've clearly been communicated to by, by many women. I spend a lot of time on social media communicating with women in this phase of life because I just, I learn so much like that. It is the best. It makes me a better researcher. It makes me a better husband. All of those things. And one thing I've learned is many women and the research is very much validates this will gain weight. In a relatively short period of time as they're getting close to menopause, so perimenopause through early early postmenopause. And then what I was learning was okay, so that happens. That's that's just part of the menopause transition apparently. Again, not everyone, but many women will experience this. And then in the space I was in, which is you know you know the fitness realm, yeah, women were saying. I'm not— I'm having a hard time losing this. Like, I know I gained it and I don't think I changed anything. My workouts have been the same.

Yeah.

And for a long time before I even studied this, like, I kind of ignored that. I'm like, well, the research says if you just reduce your calories, you'll lose weight. And then again, over and over, I kept hearing this and kind of ignoring it. And then again, when I really started focusing on this, It intrigued me enough to say, "Hey, let me study this." And and one point here that I want to make is I think a lot of humans, women and men, will think that they have difficulty losing weight. And I want to challenge that thinking because if you're not tracking how many calories you're eating, or you know if you're drinking a lot of wine, like just just lifestyle things that aren't what I would say buttoned up. I don't know if I don't know if you would actually have weight loss resistance, meaning that you're not consistent enough in the fundamentals. But some women claim that they are very consistent in tracking their food, adherent to their workouts, and it's that population which I don't think is a large group of people. But it's the people who say I'm doing everything right. I and and many of these people are people like you, like they're fitness professionals or they're registered. Dietitians or their they they've helped other people, so that they're not ignorant about the process. So I'm not saying weight loss resistance exists. I'm studying it to to help verify if it exists. And and also let me clarify what it means because this is important. Weight loss resistance doesn't mean that you can't lose body fat when you reduce your calories. I think a better definition is you're not getting the same outcomes from reducing your calories that you used to get when you were premenopausal or younger. So maybe a 20% calorie deficit used to work while you were doing your workouts. And now you don't even start to see any progress until you, you know, do a 30% calorie deficit. So Weight loss resistance is not a brick wall. It's just a lot more effort to get the same or even a lesser body fat reduction response.

Based on the work that you've done and on this maybe tip of the iceberg that we're at now, looking at this population of women who are, you know, massive hormone changes, we can't really see under that iceberg. Could a woman be weight-loss resistant, if we were going to pretend it does exist, and be there because she's in too great of a deficit and she's been there for too long?

Yeah. So, it's interesting. So, a lot of my history is in the bodybuilding community. And I have a pretty big network of bodybuilding coaches. Again, that's, that's, that's the population I served for many years. Yeah. And what I hear a lot from some of the best coaches in the world are women in their 30s, nowhere near menopause, but they have, they have the same symptoms in terms of their dieting and not responding well. And what, what these coaches tell me is they have repeated cycles of mostly competitive bodybuilding shows. So they're losing weight, dieting for months and months and months, and then maybe recovering for a few months and then doing it again and then again and then again. So that's an interesting observation that I get from people like in the trenches. Yeah. And another, another thought that I've had, and again, I have a lot of thoughts about this and this is just one thought, doesn't make it true. But if you have these women who embrace a fitness lifestyle and have done so for many years, decades. It's probably the case that they've had a lower body fat than what they would otherwise have had, had they not embraced fitness or maybe, maybe tracked their calories very closely. And is it possible? Again, this is just a question. Is it possible that when the body finally decides, hey, it's time to go through menopause, you've been suppressing natural levels of body fat and have lived a leaner lived in a leaner body than what was more naturally designed, that now the body just says, hey, I'm catching up. And again, I know that's not a science. I don't have a scientific phrase for that, but it's one of the things that I think about.

So the body's coming with receipts. Yeah. Yes.

Potentially, yes. And it just goes back to this perpetual dieting mindset. If you've been perpetually restricting yourself, we see it in bodybuilders.

Yeah.

Is it possible that we see the same thing in women embracing a fitness lifestyle who've just spent a lot of time dieting and suppressing their calorie intakes?

And, I don't know where this goes, but I think there's another side of it where maybe it's not calories, but it's malnourishment. So, we're not necessarily choosing the highest quality of calories. When when we're there, what part does that play? I mean, you know, when you're working with fitness competitors, I mean, they get pretty granular and they're they're really going for micronutrient dense foods. But you know, the rest of us can get a little bit lazy and taste and flavor and pleasure all weigh in there. Where does nourishment and micronutrient density? Come in.

Yeah, I would. The first thought that comes to my mind is that is at play, probably a little more on the fringes, but it's not a—I wouldn't call it a huge lever that that can be pulled. But another thought that I have again, a lot of thoughts. When you're younger, you can get away with a suboptimal diet, a lack of a nutrient-dense diet, and maybe. As we get to midlife, the body just doesn't respond as well. So, uh, one study that I'm literally was reading this morning, um, that goes directly to this, a, a healthier fat is a, a, a, a monounsaturated fat compared to saturated fat. So like olive oil, avocados, nuts versus let's say like butter and cream and fatty meats would be the saturated side of this. In a fairly well-controlled study, they went— and this was in males, but I don't expect— I wouldn't anticipate any differences in females. When they gave them the same calories, the only difference was changing the amount of mono versus saturated fats. Protein was the same, carbs were the same. They were able to lose fat From the mono, when the when the when the fats were primarily from monounsaturated fats, and they were not able to lose fat when they were saturated fats. So that is that that would contradict calories in and calories out, and goes to what you just said: how much of this could be attributed to nutrient quality? Well, that study randomized controlled crossover study speaks directly to that. Where the types of foods and nutrients matter a lot for body composition.

Okay, to that point, I've heard you talk a little bit about this, but for anybody who doesn't stalk you, maybe we should go here. Talk about the— and we'll have to get into this because the how much protein do we really need conversation is going to be there for a long time, I think. So we'll touch on that, but in terms of low-fat, versus high fat if you want the body to burn fat? Is there a difference? I live in an older home, moved in a little less than a year ago, and immediately put in an Air Doctor, an air purifier, and the only one I'll let into my home because I was a little worried about the HVAC system. And the air we breathe is so extremely critical to Improving our VO2. I mean, imagine deeper breathing with air that's low quality, toxic, holding dust, mold spores. Not something I'm interested in. But recently I got my answer about the quality of my in-home air from my air doctor. It was running more consistently than ever for no reason. Not cooking bacon, no perfume, no dog toots. And yes, it will help me with that too. But because of it, I called my HVAC guys and they came in and confirmed we were getting dusty, toxic air blown into the house. Got it fixed, nipped it. And look, don't just take my word for it. 98% of Air Doctor customers say their home's air feels cleaner, safer, and healthier. 97% say they feel more confident knowing Air Doctor is science-backed and third-party tested and certified. Try it for yourself. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code FLIPPING50 and get up to $300 off any of their select Air Doctor models. Plus, you'll get a 3-year warranty absolutely free. All Air Doctor air purifiers come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get this exclusive podcast-only offer now at airdoctorpro.com, A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R-O.com, using promo code FLIPPING50.

My impression of the research or my analysis of the research is Your diet should be focused around protein. So a protein-anchored diet.

Mm-hmm.

And then my, my opinion is eat the carbs and fats that you prefer. Some people like to eat more fatty foods. Some people like to eat more carbohydrate-heavy foods. It doesn't matter the carbs and fats unless you go to the extremes. And what I mean by the extremes is if you were to follow an extremely low carbohydrate diet, Which I think is fine for some people, but that is not the best diet for optimizing muscle mass if you happen to be lifting weights. So there's a trade-off there. Pretty good for fat loss, but a very low— and again, I call that an extreme— a very low carbohydrate diet does not optimize your anabolic environment. Same thing if you get extreme with fat. If you try to go really, really low Dietary fat, again, not the best in terms of outcomes. We know that there's performance decrements from that suppression of testosterone in males. So as long as you are in somewhere in the moderate ranges, my reading of the research says go, go, go for your preferences, which is an awesome approach to have.

Yeah.

And think about avoiding the extremes.

I think that's a great point. And I want to say to a listener out there, check in with yourself right now because I think it's interesting that I will have some women who, they don't like latitude. They're like, no, no, no, tell me exactly what to do. I'm like, I can't. You know, I mean, you're going to have to test yourself. You know, I can give you and we can have an outcome and we can measure body composition and measure what happens at your energy level. And then we have to really look at, you know, what are you doing? And then we could tweak from there. But I can't, I don't have the power to do that. But I find it really interesting, some prefer, no, no, no, give me exactly what to do and I will follow that. Talk a little more about carbohydrate when, in terms of optimizing muscle and— is it muscle mass? Is it muscle strength? Is it both? And I think there are a lot of women who need to hear that because I do think they go for, I want to lose fat, because that really is the most bothersome thing. It's like, why can't I control this? Like, I have lived a good life, I'm doing everything right, and this is just coming in, it's residing, I can't get rid of it. And so they will, you know, really reduce carbs to go for that, I want the weight loss. And ideally, they're thinking fat loss instead of just weight explicitly, but I do think then that they also turn around and say, and I can't gain muscle, what am I doing wrong? So talk into that a little bit.

Yeah, so if, if the goal is fat loss, I, I'm, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but the focus should really be on protein. Now, if your protein is already optimal, and we can talk about what optimal means, but Nobody looks at protein as a fat loss nutrient, but you should. And it also happens to be the only muscle building nutrient. I mean, protein's made of amino acids, or muscle was made of amino acids. Protein's the only nutrient that provides amino acids. So it's, it's earned its reputation as a muscle builder, but it's also a fat loss nutrient. I'll give one example. So one study They recruited 30 to 60-year-old women. The only thing that they had them change was increase their protein. So half of them, they said, we're going to increase your protein. And they actually reduced their carbs by the same amount, but it was by no means a low-carb diet. It was, we're going to increase your protein. The other group, they just said, hey, just continue eating your, your protein. And they were both groups at baseline were eating pretty low protein. Um, at, at just their normal diets. And I think this was an 8-week study. At the end of the 8 weeks, the group that increased their protein, they gained a significant amount of, of lean mass. Not surprising. Oh, actually it is a little surprising because there was no exercise in this study.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Yep. Yep. I can, I'm happy to send you the study, my summary of it, or just the link, whatever you want. If you're, if your readers are interested. Yeah, but the other surprising thing was they lost a significant amount of body fat compared to the other group, compared to baseline. I'm sorry, and that's something that a lot of people just don't appreciate. That if when you, especially if you're not eating an optimal amount of protein, and then you elevate it to an optimal range, there is oft. I can give you multiple. Randomized controlled studies. In that study, I can show you one in women 50 to 80 years old. I can show you one that we did in my lab in younger women who were resistance training. Study after study actually shows a significant loss of body fat from prioritizing protein. So nobody, nobody appreciates it. Everybody ignores it, but I talk about it a lot.

Protein just got sexier. Okay. So, so talk about, is there a ceiling to that? And we can counter that maybe with what recently has been stated about there seems to be a ceiling on the amount of protein that you eat and how much it's going to help you gain more strength or muscle mass. And, and I know that that's been out there. Dr. Stuart Phillips has stated that. And, and I always want to say, and wait though, there's other things that are valuable. I have to go talk to Bill. Right. So here you are, but is there a ceiling where it's no longer going to help if you eat more protein? It's not necessarily going to contribute more to fat loss.

Yeah, I think there's some nuance to that. And I have a lot of respect for Dr. Phillips. He's like the— he's my idol in terms of the, the protein expert. Yeah. So it does seem like there's a ceiling at 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Now let's talk to Americans. That's 0.75 grams times your current body weight. Yeah. And some people, if you're currently overweight, you can just think, what would my ideal body weight be? So you can just multiply your ideal body weight by 0.75, and that would give you that protein amount. So I'll talk about this from both sides. You won't find a study that has given subjects More than that amount of protein, 0.75 grams per pound, where they gain significantly more muscle than a higher amount of that. Like that study doesn't exist. However, you will find a lot of studies and virtually every single cellular study where they give higher amounts of proteins in a per meal basis. The more protein you give, the greater the rate of muscle protein synthesis. And again, that's a per meal basis. Once you go above 1.6 grams per kg, even when you just look at muscle mass changes over time, there, there's a pretty consistent finding where you do gain more lean mass. It just doesn't reach the level of statistical significance. So it's— is it a threshold? Is— yes. And as you eat more and more, the additional Anabolic benefit becomes less and less.

Got it.

So, do you need more? Now, the other huge part of this, and this is what Dr. Phillips and everybody else speaks to, they're only focused on, guess what? Muscle. Have you ever heard anybody ask, well, what happens to body fat? No, because nobody listens to me.

Yet.

Yet.

Right, right.

So, Again, if you keep going, I'll phrase it like this. There's this popular concept called body recomposition, right? So body recomposition is kind of this, like this heaven, heavenly place where people gain muscle and lose body fat at the same time. And when you look at the studies that have reported, and I'm just going to use the word meaningful body recomposition, and I'm going to define that as you're gaining At least a kilogram, 2.2 pounds of muscle fat-free mass, and you're losing at least a kilogram of body fat at the same time. When you when you find those studies, and these are in males and females, okay? Every single one of those studies is always 1.6 grams of protein, 1.6 or 0.75 grams of protein or higher. But 75% of them or more, I'm still I just found another one the other day. And actually, it's funny. The one I found was from Dr. Phillips' lab. He did a four-week study in males, but they're over a gram per pound. So is that is that just by chance? I don't I don't think so. So again, the higher amount of protein, in my my impression is there is going to be improved body composition outcomes, meaning. Maybe tangibly more lean mass gain and likely a loss of body— a loss of body fat, which is odd because you're adding calories. I get it, that's not how things are supposed to work, but yet it happens.

And do you think that is the mechanism of the protein itself, or is that because there's less overall energy taken in? Because if you're eating fat, you've got far more calories potentially, or the way carbs are digested and stored is different.

Well, part of it is protein burns more calories than carbs or fats, but that doesn't explain— that explains some of, some of the, the fat loss aspect, but it doesn't explain The majority of it, so I will have to plead ignorance. Okay. The other thing too is it also improves fat balance, so it does burn more fats. Protein has like a nutrient partitioning effect as well that does cause the burning of more, which that makes sense, right? If you're losing fat when you're increasing protein. Yeah. Now real quick, if somebody's eating, if they're already eating 0.75 grams per pound or a gram per pound, if you're going to go above that. I don't think you're gonna, I don't think that you're gonna, you shouldn't expect massive changes, but if you're currently eating less than that and you increase your protein, I think you should, I wouldn't be surprised if you, if you, if you experience noticeable changes in your body composition in a few weeks.

I was just going to ask you because I was, timing is everything and everybody wants it yesterday's yesterday. So I think to say what is reasonable for someone in terms of expectation. So you were saying if you're more of a new person to this whole concept of eating more protein and you've been underdoing it, 2 to 3 weeks, you may notice some changes already. Okay. Yep. Okay. I had another question there I was going to ask you. What was it? Because it was called—

Let me back up. Let me say a month. Give it a month before you say, hey, this isn't working.

Okay.

Or it is.

Okay. And do you notice this? I know in the population you worked with directly and testing, they're already active and they're already doing it. So you may not have, but I notice when, when we take a group of women who they're getting protein at meals, but they're not really like, they weren't really tracking it. They had no idea what a target at a meal would have been. They go away and then come back a week later, just increasing, maybe not even hitting the target, but they've increased from where they were. The first thing they report is how much more energy they have.

Wow.

So they kind of are— they're on board because I've got some immediate gratification from this. And it's, I never expected that, you know, and like the beginning of a 6 or 8 week program, I thought we were going long-term. For better muscle, you know, and results at the end. But no, it was, I've just got so much more energy. And again, maybe, it's hard to tell, is that because they changed the macronutrient percentages? And so, with more protein, they had a few less carbohydrates. And so, the ratio was better.

Yeah, I've not come across that in the research. And that's not to say that research doesn't exist. I just, my research is very focused on body composition. I just, I also wonder though, maybe they're increasing their protein and not reducing anything else. So they're actually just for once not, not dieting or eating an appropriate amount of calories for their lifestyle.

Great point. Great point. Talk a little bit about, I know what I wanted you to do is come back to, we kind of skimmed over this nonchalantly, but for a listener, Who was like, wait a minute, what did you say about protein takes more energy to digest and break down? Can you talk about the thermogenesis and the effect on protein compared to carbs or fat?

Yeah, so let's say you, you have 100 calories of pure fat. So 100 calories of butter is a good example. Your, your body will expend some energy to digest, absorb, transport the fat, any nutrient, but in this case, fat. If you have 100 calories of fat, your body will burn about 3 calories to digest, absorb, transport, assimilate that fat throughout the body. So you're really only getting 97 of those calories. Carbs, you, you, you burn about 7% of the calories that you ingest. So if you have 100 calories of pure sugar that you're eating, Your body is going to have to burn 7 of its existing calories to handle the carbs. This is where protein's kind of fascinating. Protein is around 25 or 30%. Let's just say 25%. So if you have 100 calories of chicken breast, your body's really only going to have a net of 75 of those calories because of all of the work that it takes to digest, absorb, and transport the protein. And the reason there's a difference Protein has amino acids, which have nitrogen bonds or peptide bonds, and it's very takes a lot of work to break those bonds that carbs and fats don't have. So that's that's part of the reason why protein has takes so much more energy from the body to digest and absorb. So I've I've taken this, and I always tell people, hey, if you're gonna overeat. And I'm, I'm, I overeat a lot. Like I'm, I'm one of those people who just loves food. I have a hard time saying no to food. But one of the lessons that I, that I try to remind myself and others, if that's you, if you're going to overeat, try to overeat on protein because you do less body composition damage. Now, sadly, people don't really crave high protein foods generally. I know myself, I like, like kettle potato, kettle cooked potato chips. I'm not running to get a chicken breast from one of When I want a snack, but I know what I should do.

Key point, and they don't make those kettle chips with protein yet.

No, and if they did, that'd probably be disgusting. I'm just gonna eat the kettle cooked.

Exactly right, exactly right. Okay, so talk a little bit about what you see in terms of the gaps. You know, between now that you've like, you know, stuck your foot into this whole bucket, we're not ever letting you out because we need all this research. But where do you see the gaps in what it is we don't know enough about in regard to women in this menopause transition when every woman's journey is slightly different? I you alluded in a very complimentary way. If you'd found me, you might not have had the journey you did, but. Seriously, you might have, right? Because every woman just has such a unique journey that you can know what's ahead kind of in a framework, and then you still are pivoting left and right as it happens to you, which is, you know, such a challenge. But where do you see the biggest gaps right now that you wish you could answer?

So I'm going to answer this from a communication gap rather than a research gap. And I'm happy to go back to the, to a research gap, but this is something that, that doesn't get said enough. And I'm particularly sensitive to this because I've, I've, I've been a fat loss researcher for over 20 years. I've, I've literally have done like as a grad student right now, we're doing a weight loss resistance study in menopausal aged women. So I, I am. My whole career has been on reduced calorie diets or optimizing protein and exercise programs to to lose excess body fat. So again, that's that's been my professional focus. But the communication gap is that we don't want a perpetual dieting mindset to manifest as a dieting lifestyle. And I think a lot of people struggle with this. I struggle with this. My family's obese. I came from, you know, just a family with obesity. So it's present in my personal life, which is probably maybe why I love studying fat loss.

Exactly. Yeah.

So this— I'm going to contrast this with what I call the utopia. The utopia is living a life where you're not restricting your calories. But what you're doing is you're eating enough food, not even, you don't even, I mean, again, utopia, you don't even have to think about tracking your food. You, but you're living, you're matching that with a, what, what, what scientists call a high energy flux lifestyle. And what that is, that's a lot of activity. So you're living a very active lifestyle and that's matched with An abundance of healthy food intake. And, that's a completely different way to think for a lot of people. And, I need to throw in some, I think, important caveats here. I'm not talking about exercise addiction where you're exercising 3 hours a day and that's all you think about. No.

Mm-hmm.

I'm coming at this from a typical, mostly professional workforce where most of us are sitting most of the time. Our entertainment is pretty static. So again, that's most people. So, and from that perspective, let's move more. Maybe that's an hour or 2 a day. We're lifting weights, we're doing some conditioning or agility, we're walking, and we're matching that with an abundance of calories, optimal protein, dare I say high carbs. And I would love for this, this high-energy flux lifestyle to eliminate the perpetual dieting. I have to reduce calories. And again, when I, when I talk about this, I'm talking to myself. This year, I'm actively trying to do more with my exercise. So I used to just lift weights. And because I didn't really like cardio or conditioning, and then I'm just no. If I'm going to talk about this, let me do more. So I've actually scaled back the amount of lifting that I do, and I do more conditioning. I need to do more walking. Now I also want to say, if you have excess body fat to lose, that can only be lost with a caloric deficit. So this is more once you reach your goal. That's the time when I would say now let's flip this and let's slowly start increasing calories. Let's slowly start make. Let's start making your active lifestyle optimal. Again, not just a 30-minute workout that's high intensity. And again, nothing wrong with high intensity, but if our lifestyles are pretty sedentary, let's try to add more activity and calories.

Love it. Yeah. Awesome. What, in your mind, if you could look and say, in the next 3 years, I'd like to be conducting this research, what would that be?

I would like to be conducting hormone therapy, particularly estradiol, testosterone, progesterone, although progesterone probably doesn't have much of a role in this, but optimizing hormone therapy. For muscle and body fat outcomes. So body composition matched with a physically active lifestyle, lifting weights as the foundation, and hormone therapy.

So I want to come back to that because I was going to ask you this, and then I was thinking as we went along, no, I'm not. Now I'm going to ask again because you said you, you kind of left my girlfriend progesterone out of that equation right there. But what I find, and tell me if I'm wrong, but the research that I've consulted for inclusion in presentations has basically said resistance training outcomes don't discriminate if you're on HRT. If you're not on HRT, you can still gain strength and muscle and insignificant difference. But where I would say and. Is that a lot of women need that HRT or the HT or the MT, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, right. Alphabet soup. But they need it to comply because they can't sleep. So if they get the therapy, now they can sleep. Progesterone comes in there, or they've got aches, pains, musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause coined by Dr. Vonda Wright, and You know, they can't figure out why, but those things kind of start to dissipate when they get the hormone therapy. So speak to that a little bit. How does sleep— or do you find it, have you yet in any of your research or the digging into the science found sleep to disrupt the ability to gain muscle or to lose body fat, either one?

Yes, yes, I have. Not my own research. And, and let me just say, you make a good point. Progesterone, on my firmer previous statement, doesn't seem to have a direct application to building muscle or losing body fat.

Yeah.

But in terms of quality of life, that can allow you or give you a desire to actually work out or get a night's sleep. That would— that is maybe the most basic hormone therapy that sets the stage for everything else. So I didn't mean to demean progesterone. In fact, I might have a shirt one day that— with the shirt that says progesterone, because that, that, that one hormone— not to get into my, my, my wife's person, but that, that immediately changed the trajectory of her quality of life as soon as she started taking progesterone.

Yeah.

Incredible energy levels, sleep, Eliminating night sweats, etc., making her feel normal again. All right, so sleep. We have a documented randomized controlled inpatient study where subjects lived in a metabolic ward where they were sleep deprived, and when they were sleep deprived, they we have that that study reported documented weight loss resistance. So weight loss resistance. I've heard some scientists that criti criticize me for even daring suggest that your body doesn't respond to caloric deficits. Well, if you're not sleeping, they were put on the same diet under a sleep deprived and a normal sleep for several weeks at a time in the lab. They didn't— every calorie was counted, watched, every minute of sleep was documented because they lived in the research facility. They lost a significant— they lost significantly less body fat When dieting, compared when they were sleep deprived compared to when they were not, and that's not a far. It's not a far stretch to ask. Well, who struggles the most from sleep depression of all humans? Is it not middle-aged women going through menopause?

Absolutely. So in that study, was it specifically women in menopause or was it not just? No.

Okay. Okay. It was males and females, and they were young. So it was not. So there is the stretch, right, if we're going to extrapolate, which— and believe me, I have no problem extrapolating that. But if I'm going to be true to scientific rigor, that was not in that population of middle-aged women.

Yeah, okay. Well, and I want to say, there was a— this is back in 2013, and to the people who've been here for a long time, you've heard me quote this one over and over again, but There was a study with postmenopausal women in a weight loss study, and they had a control group. They had long sleepers and short sleepers, and they, I think, restricted the short sleepers to 6.5 hours and the others were 9.5, at least lights out, closed door. They— that's all they got. And everybody lost weight. It was effective, but the long sleepers lost more, and more of it was fat weight. And that was the only difference. That they were controlling for. So, you know, it's pretty, pretty good evidence. One of the first things I'll say to anybody who's, you know, giving me, I want to work out, I'll do this, I'll do that, whatever you tell me I'll do, I'm like, how are you sleeping? Because if you're not doing that, I'm not gonna help you. You know, we're gonna potentially make things worse. So I want to ask you something that there doesn't seem to be Any research on. There are a lot of people who the hair on the back of their neck will raise when I say this, but the HPA axis dysfunction, the adrenal fatigue, the you know whether you bring in the word cortisol or not, there are a lot of women who make it to our community who are already tired and over-fatigued, but they are gaining weight and they want to get that off. But they're making themselves worse, like more stressed, you know, can't sleep. They're exhausted when they wake up in the morning. Do you see this? Are you seeing this? Has this come up maybe at home? Or, you know, where do we go with this? What's out there in regard to— we know they need exercise, but is there a, they need to do these things first? And is there any hope that we will get some actual research?

on that? So this isn't something that I've come across in my own research, nor is it anything I've ever investigated. But I have heard of this again through coaches that I communicate with because I, again, the more people that I can communicate with that are helping people with their fitness or weight loss journeys, the better off I am. One of the One of the things, and we're actually incorporating a version of this in our weight loss resistance study in the post-diet phase. So the situation you just described, it's, it's, um, I think a more appropriate term, adrenal insufficiency. I've heard that term or adrenal fatigue. And again, I know that that's, that gets rage-baity to a lot of people and I just— a little. Yeah. Um, and, and I'm not an expert in that, so I can't speak to that. But for women who are feeling those effects, and this comes from Vince Pitstick, he has something that he calls the flush diet. I just— what we've done is taken what he does and we call it a modified Mediterranean-style diet. So one of the things that I think is worthwhile trying if you're in that state is to just say, hey, I need to take a few weeks off from my fitness routine. I would still walk outdoors preferably, but if you're doing if you're getting up at six a.m. to go do you know high intensity workouts or you're just you're lifting heavy weights. I my some because I'm you're not ha if you're in that position you're not happy. So let's stop doing what you're doing and what what what Vince has done which anecdotally has been helpful for women and men but women in this case. Is step back from all this activity for 2 weeks and eat a very— let's just call it a Mediterranean, a strict Mediterranean-style diet. So a lot of fruits, a lot of vegetables. You can even reduce your protein. I'll give people permission to reduce your protein if you're— when you're getting all these fruits. And that has seemed to help. Again, anecdotally, no research on this. Yeah, that's the one thing that came to my mind when you, when you described that scenario.

Yeah, and that is really the approach we take too. We, we just call it a reset. You know, you can always go back to what's not working, but if that's not, you know it, let's try something different. Agree. I'm gonna ask you one more question and honor your time here. I could probably go on for much, much longer, but let's Make it personal without bringing your wife into the conversation. And we won't talk about her because she's not here. But if your wife said to you, I'm overwhelmed by all the advice, what 3 things would you tell her based on your experience are key to focus on?

Yeah, well, and to that point, my wife has given me permission to, to just to— because for a while, you know, that was not— she was not Didn't want me to talk about it, and then at some point she's like, "Hey, I think you should talk about this." So everything I say is with with with her blessing. Great. The one you say three things. So one, I would say don't abandon your fitness lifestyle. Women, and I get this a lot, like I'm doing all the things. I'm I'm tracking my protein. I'm lifting weights. I'm getting my steps in, and I'm still gaining weight. And I can't lose it. And why do I even do it? And that hurts. That hurts me because it's like, I am empathetic to gaining excess body fat. And that does have some health issues associated with it. But there are so many more things that are happening to your body that you can't see that your fitness lifestyle is helping. So, I always call these like beyond the mirror.

Mm-hmm.

So, um, exercise is just as effective as antidepressants for treating depression. That has been documented. Um, that doesn't mean people should stop taking their medication and start exercising. It just means if you stopped exercising, maybe you develop higher anxiety, more depression. We know what it does for metabolic health, glucose disposal, um, cardiovascular disease. I mean, Just name your cancer. Name it. If you can name it, exercise reduces risk for it. Every single cancer. So that would be the one. Yes, you're not liking the body composition results, but there's more to your— there's more to your humanness than just the amount of muscle and body fat that you carry. I think the second one would be specifically for women in midlife. And I know this can get— this gets a little touchy as well, kind of like the adrenal sufficiency, but at least consider a conversation about hormone therapy, menopause therapy, again, whatever you want to call it. I'm not saying you should go on it, but if I have come across People who are just, nope, that's not an option. And when I ask why, there's oftentimes not a good answer. Sometimes there is. But if it can help, then at least know, or at least be able to articulate why you wouldn't consider it. And again, I'm very biased because I saw how it changed my wife's quality of life. So take that for what it's worth. I am biased from a lived experience on that. And again, if your hormones are addressed, there's a chance that it makes you feel like embracing a fitness lifestyle or not having as much anxiety or being able to sleep without nights of hot flashes and sweats throughout the night. So that would be a second one, just being educated on this because me and my wife were not. So embrace your fitness. Don't give up on your fitness. Educate yourself about hormone therapy. What would be the third one? I guess I'll just go back to optimize protein. I don't know. That's an easy one for me. Yeah. Optimizing protein rewards your efforts from your fitness lifestyle. So it helps build muscle.

Yeah.

Helps you recover. Uh, helps you not— you're not going to be as sore. So yeah, I'm— I threw it out there, but that's probably what I actually— that probably would be in my top 3.

Yeah, definitely. And back to our earlier conversation, potentially helping body composition changes. So it targets everything a woman wants. Thank you so much for your time, Bill. Where's the best place for everybody to follow you, get more information from you, and stay in tune with What it is you're working on for them?

Yeah, best place is Instagram. My handle is Bill Campbell PhD.

Got it. All right, and we have that in the show notes, everybody. So we will be sure to share it with you, Bill. Thank you again. Thanks for your time and everything you're doing for all of those women in in beyond or before menopause.

Yes, thank you very much for, for having me.

Great chat. The information shared on Flipping 50: The Stronger Way is for educational and informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider before beginning any exercise program, making changes to your diet, or adjusting any medications or supplements. Individual results may vary. Debra Atkinson and Flipping 50 are not responsible for any or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast.