Caregiver to Midlife Crisis to Over 50 Fitness Athlete

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Oh my goodness. Okay, buckle your seatbelt. The doctor is in the house like no other house call you've had. She's an over 50 fitness athlete. She's juggled all the balls that you potentially have from caregiver and midlife crisis like me. But she's returned to her prior passion for fitness competition so. Or has she? I'll ask that question. Passion about the competition, about the training itself, or just about the way you look and feel while you're training? That comes close to the end, so stay tuned till the end in order to get that one. This over 50 fitness athlete of a doctor is prepping not just for a November competition, but serving patients and clients and hosting a summit also in November. How does she fit it all in? Well, you're going to want to tune in because I asked her about that. It's a perfect episode to share with you just before the holidays. We cover quite a bit of tips and tricks for dealing and getting fit and sticking to your own goals during the holiday while still enjoying them around people who may be pushing their favorite treat or cookie or meal. And you know what I mean. I'm Deborah Atkinson. You're listening to Lipping50, where I address your top struggles and concerns and I share what to eat and how to move and how to get the energy and the vitality that you want, need and deserve in a second and better half. My guest today is Dr. Venus, the fit foodie, MD. She's a board certified physical medicine and rehabilitation physician trained at Yale University of Miami and UC Irvine. Pretty astute list right there. Peeps with a thriving California medical practice. She's been a national level fitness athlete and respected trainer, serving clients from single moms to pro athletes and even an action film star. A repeat guest on the Doctors TV series, Dr. Venus has also appeared on NBC's Today and American Gladiators and contributed to outlets like iperb.com and Oxygen magazine. So just to say, just kind of a big deal. And Here she is. Dr. Venus, thank you so much for being here.

I am super thrilled to be here. Thank you.

Oh my gosh. And this is going to be such a great kind of over the fence, over the couch, you all lean in, you get to be here kind of a chat. And it's going to be ripped with some great things and strategies. But I think what most you might be able to take away is how do you cope when sometimes you're swimming upstream making positive changes, but all your besties or maybe people in your household are not? How do you handle that kind of pressure? We'll get to that too. But before we even go on, so they've just heard all kinds of wonderful things about you professionally and the bios that we all say, okay, this, that and the other thing. But there's so much more here. And you have an upcoming summit, so we're not going to take a lot of time. But I would I don't want to get deep into our juicy conversation and then forget to mention this for you. Talk a little bit about this because not every doctor hosts a summit like this. Yes.

I learned very early on that fitness is an important aspect of life. It's important to your health. And there's more to just physical fitness. There's more to fitness than just physical fitness. So I definitely wanted to really talk about this summit and it's called the Fitness Mastery Summit because I really think it's important for us to master what that means for us as individuals so that we can truly be masters of our health. So I got a bunch of friends and top experts in the health and fitness field to really dig into physical fitness, mental fitness, emotional fitness, and even spiritual fitness at times so that we can really have a very holistic view of what fitness is and really create that individual fitness plan for ourselves.

So good. I love, love, love this. This fits so well with what we do in all, all ways and all plays at flipping 50, your link to go there would be flipping 50 forward slash fitness Mastery. So it's going to be really easy to remember. You can do that later. Stay with us right now, but I do want you to register. We'll try and mention this at the end, but again it's going to be kind of juicy. But I will tell you this, we're recording. So everybody, I hope you know we're not. We never do these live. This is pre recorded. But even just this morning, it happens to be a Monday. You know, your call to action for attention to me just now was, you know, I went for a walk, you know, I did a little. We're calling these longevity workouts we're creating for our members. So a little bit of interval training. But the day otherwise mentally and emotionally was not very fit so far. So I'm kind of busted. And you just really called my attention to the fact that you can't just silo and say I'm going to be really great over here on this dimension and then just flush the other things down the toilet. So there's that.

It's very important because each of them affect the other one so impactfully. So it's certainly something to keep in mind so that you don't feel left unholy.

Love it. And I do believe we have something in common. So flipping 50 was born out of my midlife crisis. And I understand you've had a bit of a one yourself. Talk to me. First of all, how do you describe your own midlife crisis? What actually happened and, and how did you handle it?

Well, I felt like I was just moving along in my life and I hit 50 and I said actually nothing. I was like, okay, I'm just continuing to live. I'm good. That was one of the lucky ones where I wasn't feeling any of the whole perimenopausal things that happened leading up to it as far as mood changes and things of that sort. So I considered myself super lucky in that regard. But I did have a desire to kind of show that I was as young as I still felt and I felt like I had moved to a position in my life where I was not doing a lot of the things that I had been doing earlier on because I had just let work become more important and those other tasks that we think are more important, and I just kind of let them fall to the wayside. In actuality, what happened was I had turned all my attention to caring for my father after his stroke. And that was the reason, back in 2016, that I stopped competing. I was a fitness competitor, and I loved it. I had done it for 20 years, and I really felt like I just don't have time for it anymore. And that just led to a whole whirlwind of that's a story on its own in terms of how I fell into a caregiver syndrome type of mentality and only cared about what was going on with my father and then trying to get through work and fitness just to the back seat. But that was a whole, whole thing of its own. But after I worked myself out of that, after I realized I need to take better care of myself so that if I really want to take good care of others, I can have to take care of myself first. After I worked myself out of that, I never really got back to that thing that I had quit back in 2016, and other than the reason being, oh, I'm too busy, I didn't quit because I stopped loving it. And I had always said when I was doing it, having done it for 20 years, people would always ask me, when do you want to stop? You've been doing this for so long. I said, I'll stop when I stop having fun. And I realized that it wasn't because it wasn't fun anymore. It was because of family obligations or this feeling that I wanted to help take care of my father or dedicate more of my time there. So that was kind of my midlife crisis that I decided, hey, I need to go back to what truly was something I found joy in, something that was very fun for me and actually helped keep me fit. And that's something that I am rediscovering. So I don't like to think of it as a midlife crisis. I had a midlife evolution, so that is what it became for me. It became a midlife evolution of what more can I do and maybe what more can I return to.

Oh, I love that. I also love the word awakening. Like, you got a great reason to awaken. Maybe somebody out there can identify with. I want to ask you something, though. I. And it. I think it takes one to know one. But There is that probably every listener here can identify with this in some level. Like, you've been in that moment. And I think that a lot of my audience and our community at large can remember. Like, I remember when I felt really good, like, I just wanna. They often will say, I wanna get back to how it felt, then I want to get back to that. And, you know, the sad truth is we're not going backward because we don't have those hormones we had then. Like, there is a certain. When you're in it, you're doing it. Like you have this edge.

And.

And I think that when you're there, it also contributes to you, like, working at your optimal. You know, your physical fitness is there, and you're just. You're probably. If you're like me when you're working out, you're. You're really going at it. Sometime in the middle of that workout, just spontaneously, like, a really great idea

will come to you.

And it's like, that wouldn't happen otherwise if I wasn't doing that. And yet, if you've gotten away from it because of the caregiving or because of, oh, I was saturated myself in, like, building a business, and I was a little panicked about that. So I just, like, took all that workout time and I was putting it in here. And then it feels like it's hard to get back to that edge. It's like there's a threshold there and you have to go across this. Does this resonate at all or am I nuts? Am I the only one feeling that way?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It definitely resonates. I feel like when I competed, let's just say 10 years in, I knew what I was doing. I had a lot of experience and I was really in the thick of things. I had continuous questions and comments and all sorts of wondering, how are you doing this? Because you are. First it was medical school. Let knew it was residency. Then it was starting at a new practice and building a medical practice. How are you doing all of that and competing at a high level, going to the national competitions. I always found that competing and sticking to that regimen kept me very driven. I did have this edge of, I'm staying on top of this. Why? Because this is the schedule. I have to stay on top of this regimen because if I fall off the regimen, then I'm not going to succeed at this particular sport. This thing that I am dedicating myself to. But staying on that schedule kept me so driven to stay on top of my work commitments or my school commitments. When I first started and I really felt like it kept me very organized in how I did things. And I had this drive that I hadn't really felt until I got back to doing it again. I have this drive and I have new thoughts and ideas about more that I can do in my business and doing these fantastic international retreats and taking people on adventures so that they can have that feeling of adventure. And that drives me when I train for competition. So again, it all just kind of circles back to having a very holistic view on what fitness is.

I love it. And I, I recently was doing a presentation for a group of entrepreneurs, so very driven individuals and already have attained a certain level of success. But it was about, you know, your exercise and leaving a legacy, you know, so that you can enjoy it yourself, not just give it to people who surpass you and outlive you because your health is crap. But it was about the creativity and the productivity and the problem solving that occurs because you do take the time to exercise. You know, it is such a, you know, it's like you're over here, like I don't have time to exercise. But when you are like in your peak of fitness and you're doing it, I think you and I could both agree there actually feels like there is more time, not less, right?

I am surprised at how much more time I feel I have created for myself. And one of the smart things I'm doing now that I so wish I had done back then is I'm very focused on the self care aspect, the recovery aspect. After my training, I again, I'm not saying that everyone out there has to be at this level of fitness because I'm training for a very specific competition. But I have about an hour and a half of training between my strength training and my cardio training every day. But I spend about an hour and a half on recovery techniques. Whether I'm in doing some compression or doing red light therapy or infrared or even cryotherapy, I spend about an hour and a half doing that as well. So that's a lot of time that I'm spending on the self care and recovery. And I'm loving it. I sit there when I'm getting a compression therapy session in, I have my little headphones in, I'm listening to an audiobook. I never read or did audiobooks at all. And now I'm loving just listening and relaxing while getting compression and enjoying a great story with some audiobook recommendations. So I'm enjoying more of my life now. And it's Something that I wish others really took to heart more as far as what they can do when they feel. When they are getting more fit and taking care of themselves.

I love it. I love it. And I want to come back to recovery. But I have to ask you this question. This is so funny because even I'm 60 and I'm still thinking, what would my mother thought? But how old are you? I have to ask you because it's so relevant to our audience. So we talked midlife crisis. And I remember recently I was saying to somebody something about midlife, and some women said, that's actually at about 35. I said, only if you plan on dying at 70, babe.

And.

And I am not gonna get on that bus with you. So you're gonna sit alone. I'm like. I'm like, I'm still on the edge of midlife myself, you know, because we have that ability. But how old are you?

And Yeah, I am 52. So that's. I am sitting here right now.

Beautiful. Okay. I love it. And now come back to recovery for me. So all the techniques that you mentioned, it's interesting. Somebody just. My VA brought to my attention some research as we were looking for a specific piece. And she brought to my attention some of these forms of recovery. What's your favorite? I mean, is there one that above the rest, like this makes me feel amazing? I love it.

This is something that I'm only more recently decided to spend more time doing. And I so wish I had spent more time in recovery when I was younger. And then I probably wouldn't be having some of the issues right now. But I. I love. And the reason why I am almost ashamed to say that I have not been doing it is because it's something that I'm very, very familiar with as a rehab physician. And that's the power of red light therapy in helping to reduce inflammation. A lot of people are starting to see red light therapy being marketed more towards anti aging as far as reducing the appearance of wrinkles on the face, which of course is great. But I really love it because we've been using red light therapy and physical therapy, and I've been prescribing that type of physical therapy for my patients in terms of relieving pain and recovering from injuries just because of its effect on inflammation. So using basically a whole body red light therapy is something that I'm enjoying the most. I am a very typical case of physicians not making good patients, being a fitness competitor and doing routines where you were doing. I started learning gymnastics at the age of 33, actually 32. And because I felt like it would add to the fitness routine that we perform at these fitness competitions to add to the difficulty level. So learning gymnastics and learning to flip your body like that at age at Starting at age 32, your joints and ligaments and tendons aren't as stretchy and pliable as when you're younger and can get into those positions better. So I certainly had my share of injuries and developed a little bit of a chronic back strain condition because of that. And if I had spent more time in recovery, if I had spent more time in red light therapy, I probably wouldn't be having this chronic issue that comes up. But it's certainly been minimized as far as its effect, my back pain anyway, on my performance as I hit the gym daily.

Now that is amazing. That is amazing. I've just tried just like a small personal product somebody had sent to me and I ended up taking it over to my neighbor who's had recently had an ankle replacement. And it's not the ankle replaced that bothers him, it's the one that he had to use so much, you know, while he was first not putting weight on the other one that's bothering him now.

I said, yeah, right, the other side that started. Yeah.

So I was trying to figure out a way to put it up here on my upper back, you know, upper over firing upper traps constantly and lower back. And just the couple of times that I used it, I was like, yeah, this great. This actually feels really good. So I'm hoping that it helps him, but I think we're going to see so much more of that become more and more available. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Do you use cryotherapy a lot? Do you love it? Are you talking ice baths or are you actually talking the like chamber?

The cryotherapy chamber is what I have access to. There's actually also a cryo bed which alternates ice and heat. So I enjoy doing the alternating heat and cold. I think that's always a helpful intervention. So again, these things that I prescribe to my patients on a regular basis and now I've just decided to start doing it myself, which is why it's all added to be about an hour and a half. When I started calculating what I'm doing. I spend like 15 minutes on the alternating hot and cold bed. These are all the things that, that I do very regularly after my workouts. And I'm just finding it so completely relaxing and stimulating at the same time. For My mind and my brain. And I'm getting a lot of good audio. We say,

so good, so good. All right, so secret to staying young, because everybody's going to want to come over and look at show notes, because I'm going to put a couple. We don't always do this in podcasts, by the way. It's audio. And we sometimes release things on YouTube as well. But Dr. Venus really looks good, so you're going to want to see her picture. So I've got. We were just recently at an event together, and I said, oh, my gosh, look at us. And we were in, like, complimentary bright color. So I was like, we. This is meant to be. We have to take a picture. You'll see this. And everybody. I don't know that we want to be younger.

I.

It's funny that when I talk to people, it's like, would you be 25 again? And most women are like, no. You know, I kind of appreciate the wisdom and actually not know what. I want to be 25 in this day and age. I think it's really hard. But I think we all want to look and feel young, you know, and enjoy the way that we look. And so not necessarily see ourselves as aged, although we are, of course, aging. What's the secret to staying young? Have you done, like, a biological age test?

I have not done a biological age test. I've always felt like there's so much more for me to do. There's so much more in my future. So I think that mentality has certainly helped me. And I honestly believe, looking back now, when people do give me the wonderful compliment of that I look so young, I can't possibly be 50. Or patients come in to me and they make the comments that I couldn't possibly have the experience needed to be able to do this so well or do that. I said, in the 20 years that I've done this, I've never had an infection from this procedure that I'm about to do for them. And therapy, you can possibly be a practice for 20 years? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. So when I get these type of comments, and then of course, the question is, how do you do it? What's your secret? And I've always thought that certainly competing in fitness probably had a lot to do with it. I have a very clean diet, try to eat only whole foods. Processed things generally stay out of it. And I think that has a lot to do with what we tell ourselves in our society is aging. All of the fatigue and even wrinkles and things of that sort is just a result of just toxin is building up in our body over the years. So I don't think it's normal aging. It's just the effect of junk getting put in ourselves or on our skin or even in our, our minds as far as mental toxins as well. So I think all of that just trying to keep that as clean as possible has helped me as far as the foods I was eating, the exercise I was doing, just keeping inflammation in general down in my body over time. And one of the keys to that, because I did say mental toxins is managing stress and basically just trying to be happy. Put a lot of focus through most of my life on just trying to stay happy, not be in a place where I'm angry or frustrated or mad at the world or mad at other people. Even if frustrating things happen, I try to look at the more optimistic view of things and see how I can fix things to make things better rather than just focus on everything that's bad. And I know that's kind of very, I don't know, Mary Poppins, like, I don't know what you want to call it. I think having a very positive outlook on the world has actually helped me stay young, so to speak.

Yeah, I love that. What it gets hard. I mean, at some point it gets hard to stay happy. What do you do if you find you're just having a typical Monday and you're spiraling downward? What is it that that lifts you up? Is there are using music? Is there a picture? Is what snaps you out of it?

I, I love doing just things that I enjoy. One thing that has happened or actually one thing that I treasure, one thing that I would say is one of my passions. One thing I have discovered is a passion of mine is having a flexibility. To my day, having flexibility to do what I want has really led to me being able to enjoy things and stay happy or get to that happy place if I am confronted with a non happy situation. So being able to do that or at least in my mind have flexibility in my mind because not all of us are going to have jobs or careers or businesses that give us that flexibility. But you can have the flexibility in your mind that it's not a bad situation that you're in, that it's an opportunity to change things for the better. So it's oftentimes just kind of reframing things and having that flexibility to move in, in that more positive direction.

I love that. I think it's somewhere I've seen this. I've seen it in different quotes and memes and. And I think it is so very true. I think we think if I have a great house, I'll be happy. If I have a better car, I'll be happy. If I. Blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden, the reality is like, there's not too many things better than, like, a slow cup of coffee in the morning, right?

On your own time. What's that thing that. That does it for you? And that's basically it. It's really simple. If I can just sit in my own little corner, and that can be any corner that I desire. It could be a corner of my apartment, my home, my office, sitting in the park, if I can just be somewhere sitting in my own little corner. And again, it doesn't have to be alone in a room. I can actually be in a room with someone else, but I can just kind of dissociate myself with a hot beverage, just sipping on a hot beverage. This sense of luxury comes across me whenever I do that, where I just feel at peace and able to do whatever I want. It's just. That is my little happy spot. So if I can ever, in the middle of my frustrating day, just say, okay, this is my moment to be in a moment of calm and respite with a little hot beverage that I'm going to just luxuriating, then that's what I do.

I love that. Really, really love it. Okay, so I want to ask you this. So you've been a fitness competitor for a very long time, and now you're actually back to it is this time. I know you've talked about recovery and how that's such a bigger part of what you're doing now and. And applause. Right. Everybody listening knows. Yeah, it takes me a little longer to recover too, so I'm sure that's a good thing. But what is it like for you, like, just to be engaged in this world? We were talking in the green room a little bit before we turned on the record about, like, going out to. To dinner with people or socializing and how, you know, we're going to release this at about the time the holidays are hitting for any woman listening who's trying to pay more attention to her health, to do the right things, stay active, to eat right is going to be a world filled with temptation and some, what I call food pushers. Right.

How.

How do you deal with that? And I think it bears saying in a way that doesn't make those around you feel judged because they're not choosing

That I like to think of it as trying to be more inspirational and not feeling like you're having to be pushy about that message. I get that a lot. And of course everyone has their own situation, whether it be at work or with family and friends where they find themselves being offered food oftentimes as gifts. I have so many patients who have come being thankful during the holidays or just after they had a good result from, from some of the recommendations I had for them. They stopped by with the donuts and the cookies

and they don't see the irony in this really. Okay.

Oh my goodness. Information.

We're gonna need a new PDF for you. That is how to be a good patient, how to say thank you appropriately.

And some of them started to learn and they were like, oh, I could get you a gift card for a coffee. You enjoy your copies, right? I'm like, yeah, yeah, that would be great. Orangery. As long as it's a hot beverage, it's all good. They now have transitioned over to those, some of those who know me well. But of course there's always new patients coming in. But in any case. So you always get that. My office, being a rehabilitation physician office, they'll still do the birthday cake for whoever's birthday. It is that particular. So what, we have what, 15 cakes a year in, in the office. So I, it always happens. Except they do know, don't ask me what kind of cake I want because my birthday always is lands in the middle of the, the competition season. So no, don't ask me what kind of cake I want. Although they still get cake for themselves on my bristle,

bless their heart. Right.

I haven't been able to dissuade them from that. But on occasion they'll still, they still ask me, oh, I want to be more like you, I want to look more like you. What do you do? So you still, still get those questions. And it's just like living by example, showing what you do can start to filter in just a little bit. So I don't necessarily push my values on them in terms of what I do because I also know that I am competing and it's essentially training for a sport and you're not trying to make everybody else become athletes as well. So it's definitely goal directed. So what I found is that I just wanted to make sure that my friends and colleagues, they knew that I still wanted to be a part of the circle. I still wanted to socialize with them. They often had felt bad because they wouldn't invite me when they Said, oh, let's all get together for dessert.

We go to our.

They get together for their favorite dessert place after seeing a movie or whatever. They used to just lead me out. They said, oh, we didn't want to tempt you because we know you're training for your competition. And I said, no, I know I want to be a part of the circle. I am still your friend. I like listening and enjoying our conversations and just hanging that those are times that you want to remember stories you want to be able to share with others. So I just made it very clear that my idea of luxury is sitting with a cup of coffee and sipping it. So I'm happy to have a cup of coffee while you're having dessert. And we can all sit and chat and still enjoy times together. So that's something that I just had to let them know that I'm okay with this. And you're free to make whatever decision you want. But let's continue socializing together because that's what's important, not what's we've chosen to put in our mouths.

So. Good. Okay, what about the other side, where it's difficult. You seem to have maneuvered this really well, and you didn't even go here. But there, I think there might be people listening who they feel like they would be subject to temptation, and being in that position would be really challenging and hard for them. How did you get to. We've done it for so long. Is it just. You don't even have to think of it anymore, or is it still a no? I still have to exercise a little bit of restraint.

I think that where that falls is where I have. I. I do feel that when I talk about being in the thick of my contest training, it's because there, when I competed for those 20 years, I wasn't competing all. All the way around. The year we. I had contest seasons, and there were times when I was not contest dieting. So my friends knew that I love dessert. They knew that I am a foodie, because I do love food, all kinds of food. I try it all, and I enjoy most all of it. So knowing that I love dessert so much, that's why I had to make it clear to them that during my contest training, I'm okay going out, even though, you know, I love the dessert you're enjoying right now, because I want to be share that time with you. But there is a time when I am starting off a contest training season and I have my contest diet. I know what I'm supposed to be eating. The. The 3 ounces of sweet potato and the 4 ounces of chicken breast, and that timed at certain times of the day. So I know when that's supposed to start. But I actually also know that it takes at least two weeks for my brain to shift into that gear of, okay, you're not going to make that choice of having a dessert every once in a while because you have to clamp down now. And it takes me about two weeks of resisting temptation and failing. Resisting temptation, failing or resisting temptation and failing. So it really is just a matter of knowing what you want in the end and keeping focused on that end result. For me, it was the contest, training and wanting to achieve certain goals as far as competition goes. For others, it may be focusing on making sure that you have the energy to keep up with your kids later on, focusing on what's important to you and knowing what happens when you do things like indulge. I think there's like a very. It's a very. It gets very complicated because stress plays such a huge role in how your body responds to things. I also think it's important that you don't start to have guilt about cheating. So I think it's very important just to be very intentional about the choices that you make, that if you decide that you want to have dessert at this one time that you intentionally know. I'm choosing to eat this, I want to enjoy it. My other friends are having it, but I know that I'm only going to eat half of it because that's a better choice for me or I know that I'm going to have. I'm going to feel very bloated the next morning, and I don't want to have that bloat. So I'm only going to do it this once because I'm not going to want to do this every week because I don't like having that voted feeling every week. So I think if you're very intentional about the choice you're making what the result will be and then making sure in your head that's not something that you want to happen very often, but you're going to make that choice. Now. Don't feel guilty about it. Just enjoy the fact because you're obviously making that choice. Enjoy the emotion of the moment. That's why I think sometimes emotional eating gets a bad rap because a lot of our memories and emotions are involved. So I wouldn't feel guilty about that because that's just going to add an extra layer of stress which isn't good

for your Health you talked about, you're paying so much more attention to the recovery now, and you're actually leaning into it and enjoying it. What part does say your midlife hormones, you know, also, you know, they're different. So your body's perception physiologically of stress, including the training stress that you're putting on, how are you responding to that? How are you dealing with it? I mean, do you notice a difference? Are you feeling different than like you would have 20 years ago?

Yeah, definitely feeling the fact that the workouts are not leading to all of the muscle building, the easy muscle building that they used to. That's something I'm definitely noticing when I started training in medical school. So that's approximately age 25, 26. I was. I developed my lower body strength very easily. I sat on that leg press and I was so proud of just piling the plates on and throwing up so much weight. And I was like, that was one of the things that really motivated me. Knowing that I was leg pressing more than some of the guys in the gym, for whatever reason, that really motivated me.

Isn't that an awesome feeling? Like a guy gets up and he's like, you know, you want me to take this off? And I'm like, no, I want you to put another one on.

I loved it. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. So that was something that, that really pushed me. And as a result, I developed really large, muscular legs. So I was very. If you would, if you wanted to describe my physique, I guess you could say bottom heavy. But I was, I was fit, so I was perfectly content with it. But, you know, jeans were very hard to fit on me because you're supposed to have small waist but start muscular legs. So one of those things that was difficult, but now I just, for whatever reason, I said, oh, my body will do the same thing, even though scientifically I know it's not going to. So now I'm training and I'm training my legs hard, and I'm like, what's happening? This muscle that used to just easily plop onto my quads, it's just not happening anymore. So I'm having to work a little harder. I've been paying a lot of attention to the protein grams, although it's something that's calculated into my contest diet. I'm eating a bit more of the protein than I typically did prior. And then I'm focused on more on supplementation as well. Again, this is more for those who are trying to build a physique for these type of competitions. I'm doing. So I'm supplementing with BCAAs, making sure that I'm getting glutamine in for recovery. So a lot of, a lot of doing the right types of supplementation as far as for muscle building with amino acids and making sure that my diet has just a little bump up of the protein than compared to what I had earlier.

Great, great insight.

Okay.

Is there a question that I should have asked you knowing. So we're talking to a woman who's probably. And if you're an outlier from this number, we see you too, but probably between 45 and 70 and maybe was really fit once in her life and feels like that person is no longer in the building but would love to get back to it. Worried about injured. What would you say to her?

I would say have no fear, go for it. You can get back to that feeling you had when you were doing those things. I don't want to say that you can go back and do everything that you were doing back then because there's certainly changes that you, you may have to make. As I discovered there are changes that I had to make as compared to what I was doing prior and I've changed up my training to be just smarter about it. But I definitely now see that the results are happening. Some of the muscle building is starting to occur just like it it did prior. I'm focused less on throwing on huge amounts of weight with every exercise. I still want to really push the weight, but I'm, I'm seeing that I'm, I can get good results focusing on not necessarily using the heaviest weight I can possibly put on there, but also. But focused on the heavy weight that I can hold time over tension in that respect as far as holding the repetitions for a longer period of time, the eccentric contraction, making sure that I am coming out of a lift a little slower perhaps than I used to. That way I'm not having to push the super heavy weight. That way I'm not having to hurt my back trying to throw on a really, really heavy weight onto the bar. I can still get the same effect by changing the timing of how I'm doing that repetition and still getting huge fatigue.

Yes, I love that. So many tips and tricks. I love it. I want to ask you one more question because this really kind of popped into my mind while you were talking just a few minutes ago. And that is, what part of it do you love the most? And if you, I want you to get really like open and honest here. So do you love like the competition. Are you looking forward to that? And is it the training that you love, or is it, like, the overall results and the way that you feel while you're in the training routine and staying disciplined with the nutrition? What if I ask you to do that or volunteer? You get to pick D. If that was yours, you have to tell me what it is. What do you love most about it?

I am a. A competitor at heart. It's like, I love a good challenge. So I. That, of course, that's probably what drove me as far as wanting to excel in school. What I want to become a doctor, love trying new things. So that really helps me build my resume to get into med school and things of that sort. So all of those parts of my personality just kind of helps that. As far as loving a great challenge and being competitive about it and wanting to beat the guys, as far as how much I could put on the lake press, and it still drives me, and I will admit, just going to my gym that is here in my home doesn't drive me as much as when I go to the community gym or when I'm traveling and there's someone else in the gym, hotel, because I like to show how much I can lift and. And how strong I am. That still drives me. The competitive aspect goes, so I can't ignore that or deny. That's certainly part of what I love about it. So. And the actual process of training, I'm really enjoying. I love working towards a goal again, that's all part of loving a challenge and working towards that end result that I really love.

So love that. Okay, I said that was last question, but it's not now. I have one more. This is just for girls. Girls want to have fun, but we want to know this. So when you go to the gym, do you put on makeup, mascara? You got the whole thing on.

That would be an absolute. No, I didn't thought

that.

I. I rarely look like this. Definitely never in the office. I'm one who just dresses in scrubs, throws on my lab coat, puts my hair in a ponytail, and goes into work. So the whole makeup thing has never been something that I've loved, although I do love it when I look so great. And I have a hair and makeup artist who's able to do all of this type of thing and make me look great on a competition stage because that's. That's part of the judging. They want to know that you look put together when you're out there on stage. So I love hiring someone who's able to do that for me because I certainly don't get enough practice. Practice of it on my own. I love that girly stuff. I just don't like doing it myself. Well.

And I just wondered, I. There's probably women listening who would say, you know, for me, when I get made up or just even a little bit of showing some care to myself when I go to the gym, then I feel more confident. So maybe I, I lift more or I have more energy. And I know that Chalene Johnson, a lot of you probably know her follower. I mean, she is adamant about. She does. She gets made up before she goes to the gym, going to do whatever based on time of day. Like, if I were going to go to work tonight, I'm not going to

take my makeup off and go.

I'll just go. But if I were going in the morning, I'm not going to make up and then go. I'm just going looking like something the dog drug in from the outside.

Exactly.

And it's nobody bothers you. It's kind of nice.

I think that was the primary reason I developed that habit of no makeup, because then nobody bothered me. And I don't responding to the. I don't like responding to cat calls or having to ignore them or responding to strange advances by people that I don't know. So all good. It's all. It's just how I prefer to do things. Although I would say that right now, I do actually intend on going to the gym after I'm finished talking to you. And I am like you. I will not be undoing this whole book. Before I head out there. I will put my hair in a ponytail and do my thing.

And I usually say there's usually a sign on my forehead that is pretty clear to most people, so I don't get approached too much.

I. I won't say it.

It's a family show just in case. But I can do that. I can do a really good job of that. All right, everybody, I want you to know again, so Venus is hosting a summit. And this is the kind of a summit doctors don't normally host. So I want you to pay attention to how unique this is. So a medical doctor hosting a summit called Fitness Mastery. And she's diving into all the dimensions of where fitness shows up. Not that we can silo one versus another, especially as we age. It's going to become more important that you tap into all of them. But flipping50.com forward/FitnessMastery is where you can get in on that. If you want to come over to the Show Notes where you can get all of her socials or Facebook or Instagram, YouTube or LinkedIn so you can follow her? You're going to want to do that too. And that'll be at Fitness Marketing Mastery over 50 over 50 Fitness Athlete. 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 pretty 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 three ultra important topics we've identified as our communities and top five there's no more powerful health influencer in the world than you midlife woman. 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? 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 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.