Extended Cardio and Low Protein Equal Short Term Weight Loss

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The goal: to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause-and-beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve. Okay, let me dive in here to this episode. And by the way, it may have been just a bit of bait and switch because you may be thinking, oh, this is short-term weight loss, I want this. And yes and no. This has actually come up very recently with clients and community. But extended cardio plus— so it's an and— low protein. Not necessarily all extended cardio will result in this problem. Not necessarily low protein for a period of time will equal this. But you combine those and you're a woman over 50, probably even for those over 40, it could result in short-term weight loss. But it is not necessarily a good sign. I would suggest, as I do so very often— track your data. Get a smart scale. If you don't have one at home, my hope is that it's because you have access to one at your gym and you can get on it weekly, and at the very least monthly. So the short-term weight loss that you might experience by doing something like this— and I'll explain a couple scenarios that are true for members of our Community right now. In the summertime, it's more common than ever, but short-term weight loss like that from these habits is going to have a higher percent of your weight loss coming from muscle. And at any point, it's, you know, anything from 15% to 50% is actually quote unquote normal. Obviously, we don't want to lose half muscle and half fat. We want all fat, and/or we want to be losing fat, very small amount of muscle due to our weight loss, maybe through food and nutrition. And we want to be doing resistance training to increase or enhance preserving our current muscle mass so we're not losing that. We're holding our own. That is, quote unquote, called recomposition these days. But short term, it is all too easy to celebrate our clothes fitting more loosely and people commenting on how you look. But this, what I call false positive, is like a honeymoon period because it will come back, girlfriend, to bite you. Let's talk about why and how this is true. So number 1, do I have you at hello? I'm hoping so. You realize that through weight loss, we always scientifically are losing a portion of fat and a portion of muscle if we do it right. We do it slowly, we're exercising. Namely, within that exercise we're doing, you may be walking and doing cardio. And by the way, those those engaged muscles, they do help your overall muscle strength. And it's shown that in older adults who participated regularly in cardiovascular exercise, they have more muscle than those who don't, right? But if we were to throw resistance training into the game, resistance training is going to matter more. So if you've consistently done that, you're going to have more muscle mass than somebody who's only done cardiovascular exercise. If you're somebody who does strength and cardiovascular exercise, you're probably going to live really well much longer. That is ultimately the goal, right? But the key is, what about certain activities that you love or that come up during the summer and they're like, oh, I really want to do that, like, I love that, I'm really called to do that? One of those for me for years was Ironman distance triathlons. I really loved the longer distance. I loved the ability to go and get on a bike for hours and listen music, not be in an office or tied to a keyboard. And, you know, I thought through things and actually got great ideas, wrote books, was probably better at my job because of it. But I also realized the value of resistance training concurrently, not on the same day. That's not what that means. It means just within the week you have a good structure of here's when I do this, here's when I recover, here's when I'm strength training, and Yet for a lot of people, when they join a temporary new challenge or you're going on an extended period of time when you have multi-day events, I think about the Susan B. Komen events that take place over 3 days, right? That would be an example. However, it's short-term, it's short-lived, and it's okay as long as you prepare for it and you recover from it right away. Another instance is, I'm an Iowa girl. So if you're familiar at all with Iowa, and shout out, I'd love to hear from you if you are. So send me a DM and say, yes, Iowa girl, or I've done this race, because people all over the world have. And I say race, it's not really a race, although some people race it. They're the dangerous ones. We have an event in Iowa called RAGBRAI, and it stands for the Register's Annual— and that is the Des Moines Register newspaper— the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. And I think I've probably missed or slaughtered a letter here or there, but essentially it is from dipping your tire in the river on the west side of the state and riding a designated path across the state with different stays in small little towns. And it's like all the junk food and the bands that you could ever want. And if you love camping, you would love this. I have participated, but I don't camp, so I've participated for just a couple of days at a time sleeping in a bed, planning very carefully who and how would pick me up. So I enjoyed a shower and air conditioning in the evening after getting off that 2x4 of a bike seat. But then you go all the way in 7 days and dip your tire in the river on the other side of the state. And it's a very cool event. I think 2 years ago they celebrated the 50th anniversary and largest bike ride, organized bike trip in the world for a long time. I'm not sure that's still true, but that is a multi-day event. So let me come back to the reason I'm telling you this now that I've whet your appetite for wanting to do it. So in 7 days, you're, you're riding between generally about 50 and up to 100 miles a day. You're not gonna go weightlifting that day, right? And let me tell you, you're eating a lot of SOS, and pardon my French right now, but that's called shit on a stick. So probably a lot of corn dogs, a lot of popsicles, a lot of fudgesicles, you know, maybe barbecue chicken, and lots of good food, but lots of less than idyllic good food. And if you were having less protein, as you might, because by the way, this occurs in July, in last week or so almost of July, and that tends to be one of the hottest and most humid days, um, or, or weeks in summer that Iowa will experience. And typically that's what happens. It's extremely hot, it's extremely humid. You're not probably want to going to want to stop and have a chicken wing at lunchtime. You'd rather have a popsicle or ice cream or something cold. Piece of cherry pie is probably going to taste really good. And by the way, you need those extra carbohydrates and there are probably better choices that you could make, but you are burning a lot of calories repeatedly day after day. For women, we need those recovery calories. But how would you prevent yourself from losing muscle mass and or make sure that you regain it? Now, the same could happen if you go on a backpacking trip. And, you know, well worth it, you know, the outside time, the decrease of cortisol. You may love all of it, but you've got to plan ahead. And I think this is much more crucial. And I'll throw in a story about me, and that is that I am recording this and during the week when I will hit— it's been 4 weeks since I did stem cell therapy. For those of you that are not familiar with stem cell therapy or the recovery process, I'll talk about that. I did do a video on YouTube about stem cell therapy, why I did it, what it was like. But what I want to share here is the recovery. It's a planned time off. I knew this was going to happen, but my goal is let's regenerate this joint right now where there's not much damage so that at the end of my life, I've got another decade of use. Because I kind of patched things up now before it got bad. If you get worse and you wait, you hold off maybe on that joint replacement or, or on fixing something, chances are you're going to improve, but you may not improve as much. So I'm probably not going to go back to factory settings when I was 20, but I'm hoping I'm not bothered at all by this feeling of fullness or swelling. You know, when I just do things that I love, like hiking. And I have experienced that in the last year or so. So plan time off for me means I got on the scale the day— the smart scale, by the way— the day I went in and measured my skeletal muscle mass. And of course, yes, I mean, the fat and the body composition are relative, but I did it knowing that I'm going to do everything I can, eating high protein, taking time off, not trashing that knee, because I could ruin the results I just paid to get if I start back too much too soon. It's not like it's just a coach and it's just a, you know, will I or won't I. No, no. I mean, it's thousands of dollars that I've paid to get results. It would be absolutely ridiculous of me and absurd not to pay attention to the recommendation to do too little as opposed to too much. And that's a really smart thing to remember. There is an appropriate time for that. But at 4 weeks, I can begin doing a little bit more. So I still don't want mechanical load. So, you know, my bone density is still potentially suffering a little bit, but in the end, I think it will be better. I'm not going to do jump. I have to keep the mechanical load lighter. So I'm going to use my Power Plate. Stimulating the muscle a little bit more than I have been. Haven't even been doing that. And I will do— begin to do bodyweight squats, holding on to maybe a weighted vest, wearing a weighted vest, holding on to, um, a kettlebell, doing a little bit of leg press but not too much, doing leg exercises like hip thrusts. Not a lot of pressure or mechanical stress on knee, but definitely using the glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps. A little bit more so I can incorporate that. Stem cell is like it sounds, systemic, right? The whole body really needs to decrease inflammation during that healing process. So, and then now the biggest piece is keep the mechanical load, the torque, the rotation off that knee for as long as I can. There's still healing and support coming in between 3 and 6 months. So just, I wanted to lay that out. There are times when it may be you're doing less because of an event, or you're doing less because of an imposition like this you've chose or that chose you. You may have had an accident, you may have fallen, had a fracture, and you're— you've got an injury that's taking you out. But we can still, you know, optimize what it is we're doing. In this case, it's for those of you that are cardio junkies, like you want to be doing stuff. I get you. I really promise I get you. So what I want to do here is go through the reasoning so you understand that this isn't just at face value. Oh, I'm thinner, my clothes are fitting better. So that is a great gauge. 15 years ago, I would have said that's actually really great. That's a great way to tell, you know, that's an example of how you measure progress. For women who are in peri and post-menopause, that's gone. That's not a good judge. Because again, I was at a conference with friends last weekend, people who don't see me very often. They hadn't seen me since January, 5 months ago. And they were like, you, you look really good. Like, what are you doing? And you always look good. They know I'm in fitness. And you know, I'm like, Not much, you know, and the conversation never kept on me or stayed on me. So I never actually answered that, but I'm telling you, hardly anything, right, was the answer to that, like holding myself back, you know, and going for a walk, you know, was 15 minutes at first, then it was 30, it's about 45 now. Actually, I went for an hour yesterday and, you know, probably won't do that consistently. It's just, you hit an hour, now you have to do that every time. I know that game, don't play that with yourself. So it's a little more, a little less, a little more, a little less, and you're letting your body adapt to the stress in a much smarter way. So thinking about what you've done, you know, people are complimenting me, but they probably are seeing some muscle loss. Weight loss just shows up at weight loss externally until you reach a tipping point. Then we all know what skinny fat looks like. Sometimes we ignore it, don't we? We just think, "Thin, she's a size 4, she's a size 2. Oh my goodness, she must be better." And, you know, we have to be careful. It's a slippery slope. And yet, you know, if you've been thinking that since 1970 or 1980, it's going to take a long time. Don't fault yourself if that's what you think. Just realize there's a reason why you can't shake that. But let's talk about the facts that may help you realize this. Don't let that happen. Go invest in that smart scale right now, or the gym that has a smart scale that you can get on whenever you want to. Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there's one thing that you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself to not only get the protein but the fiber, fruits and veggies that I want daily, I I started drinking a smoothie a day over 30 years ago when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want hiding in most protein powders or pre-made shakes. I finally caved in after years of saying I'd never ever ever sell supplements. Look, stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning and after workouts by always being prepared Protein plus fiber kill cravings and boost satiety and build muscles and a strong future. Use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at flipping50.com today. Muscle mass loss means we're closer to sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is not yet the household word that osteoporosis is. However, it will be. And unfortunately, you want to make sure which side of the conversation are you on. You want to be on the side that, no, I don't have that. No, I won't ever have that because I resistance train and I get adequate protein, you know, and sleep is also a factor. But protein deficiency can ex— can contribute to sarcopenia. That's both a loss of strength and a loss of muscle mass. So it's kind of gradual, it sneaks up on you, it's happening over time. And you may say, oh, I'm fine, I'm strong enough, I, I can see definition. But you really need to get on that smart scale to measure it, because if week after week you're seeing a trend and it's going down, you can do something about it right now. Now, if this week to next week there was a little loss of muscle, get back on it next week. I don't come over here shouting, oh my gosh, what do I do? It's got to really be a trend over time, over 12 weeks, over then 24 and 36 and 48. Are you really seeing that? And then we look at what's the box you need to check off. Are you really reaching muscular fatigue in each set? Are you doing enough volume? That's enough sets of exercise for a specific muscle group. And are you recovering in between? Are you just doing more exercise? No recovery means no muscle, by the way. It's not the workout, it's the time between when you fuel, when you rest, and you recover that you get the muscle mass build-up. Important distinction, we almost always forget it. There are people so concerned about, "Should I do 3 instead of 2? Is 2 enough?" I'm like, "Are you working hard enough in the first 2 before you even talk to me about 3?" Because if you just do muddy mess kind of workouts for 3 workouts, that's not going to help your muscle mass. Do 2 high-quality workouts and then talk to me after you tell me I've also eaten my protein. Okay, so super important— protein is essential building blocks of your muscle, the essential amino acids that have to go in there. So if you're weaker, you are probably exacerbating your muscle atrophy, meaning losing it quicker. Even every day activities get more challenging. You don't have the energy, you feel tired all the time. That's a sign your protein is too low. You're not gaining any lean muscle. You don't see tone, you don't see it, and you're not getting stronger. However, you could get stronger, so it can be deceptive. You may be getting stronger, picking up a heavier weight, but still not gaining any lean muscle mass. So you've got to be careful with that. If your goal is to gain lean muscle mass, you want to measure. Excessive cardio can also contribute, but it's primarily when that excessive cardio is combined with zero resistance training. And that's a little confusing if you think too deeply about it. If you're doing excessive cardio and defining that for each of us individually is unique. My cardio level may be excessive cardio for you, and vice versa. It could be the opposite. But it's what are we experienced at doing, what are we conditioned— we've been training to do that. That all will depend, and your hormonal status will also determine it. You know, you could be doing just fine coasting right along doing high levels of cardiovascular activity. This occurred to me when I was in my mid-50s. At 50 6, I was training for my 8th Ironman, and the other 7 had gone fabulously. This one didn't. I was right then in the peak of menopause transition, and it just proved too much. It's like my estrogen had reached a tipping point, meaning fell off the edge, and that didn't help recovery. I was going through a lot of other major life stressors, dealing with mold in the home I was in, having to move quickly, realizing that I had to move. It just— all of it hit at a point that, you know, depleted my immune system, depleted my energy, my power, muscle. You know, whether I lost any muscle or not, I could say I probably did not. However, I lost a lot of other things. So it may show up differently for you, but the excess cardio plus resistance training— and I was doing that. I always have maintained when I increase my cardio, I have to strength train, especially triathlon. A lot of time in the pool, a lot of time on a bike. Those are unloaded activity. My bone isn't getting any benefit benefit. I needed to make sure my bone gut benefit, and I needed to make sure my muscle loss wasn't occurring, because muscle loss will be directly related to my risk of osteoporosis, right? So you've got to think heavily about that. Somebody recently asked me, how could it happen to you? How could you have osteopenia? I mean, given all that you do and have done for years. I said, well, you have to think about, you know, I had a 15-year period of time when I was spending a lot of time on a bike, a lot of time in a swimming pool as part of my exercise time, you know. And that is, again, unloaded exercise. Could also have been gut health, you know. And if you're not constipated, diarrhea, constantly bothered by gas or bloating You know, you may not think about this, but if you're not absorbing all the nutrients that you are eating, that is kind of a conflict. It's like a gate or a barrier between you and your bone getting what they need. That could have been happening for me. So realize that any of those could contribute. So muscle mass loss is a big one. And yes, I think I have done a previous episode about cortisol, and I'd love for you to listen to that. Chronically cortisol, if you're doing chronic cardio extended days, like that 7-day ride on RAGBRAI, you know, it's probably increasing your cortisol chronically, and it's probably going to be over afterward. You will bounce back if you started apparently healthy. If you started already depleted, you may not bounce back quickly. You may be tired for quite a long time. But if there's a big joy factor, like this is something you love it may not have quite as a negative effect, and I want you to know that. But you can't ignore physiology. You still have to have amino acids for the muscle. So you do not want to risk this, especially if you're spending time only on a bike, an entire week of unloaded activity. And if you're doing it for a longer period of time, also important for you to consider, the risk goes up, or if you do this multiple times a year. Important. So let's talk bone health, right? Protein deficiency also impacts your bone. Bones are 70% protein. Yeah, right? We didn't think about that before. But if you're— number one, twofold, right? So if you're not getting enough protein, your bone is— your muscle is not strong enough to pull on the bone because that is a factor of bone density. But the bone itself is not getting the protein it needs., then osteoporosis risk goes up if you're under high levels of chronic cortisol. Stress is very directly related to low bone density. So we could be talking stress because of emotional, financial kinds of stressors, yes, but we also are talking about the imposed, self-imposed stress from Exercise, those things we have to also take responsibility for. Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle, and osteoporosis, there's a link between them. So for those who have sarcopenia, there is a high correlation with also low bone density. The stronger you are, the more muscle mass you have, the less likely you are to get osteoporosis in the first place. And many of the activities you're doing to prevent loss of muscle are preventing loss of bone. So recommendations for women specifically: prioritize your protein, definitely. And when you're doing that, that is round the clock, every day, regularly, evenly distributed meals. However, when you're doing your endurance activity, endurance athlete athletes— this is across the board— all endurance athletes, all ages, need increased amounts of protein. We often think automatically this is strength-trained athletes, not endurance, but it's not true. Actually, there is slightly greater need for higher protein intake in endurance-trained athletes. So you cannot skimp on that, but you also can't live your same habits, you've got to be much more conscious about what you put in your mouth. Here's notoriously where we go wrong. We think, I'm so active, I can eat anything I want. But the truth is, everything you put in your mouth matters more. If you're an athlete and you're training, you actually want to be more diligent and not deprivation, not cutting back, but making sure the quality of that food that you put in is hitting its mark. It's got a purpose and there is room for a piece of cherry pie on a bike ride. But what you wanna think about is, is this really helping me? Is it going to help my recovery? So going into an extended endurance event or multi-day event, you wanna be all ready be in really good shape. Use too high protein, you've built up your immune system. The immune system is directly related to your protein intake and helps with healing. So if you do get injured, you pull a muscle, you need to be able to heal right away. Protein is a big part of that. So thinking very consciously. And again, if you're, say, on a bike all day, or when I did, say, the Grand Canyon, that's You know, that's a long day. That's about 17, 18 miles. You're out there for 9, 10 hours depending on your pace, of course. But it's hot, it's, you know, repetitive, repeated. You're gonna get tired, you're gonna get hot. And let me just tell you, you're not gonna pull a turkey sandwich out of your pocket. You're gonna have carbohydrates, a bar. It's not gonna taste very good at the end. You're gonna get tired of eating, but you have to do it. It's like it's your job to do it and stay ahead of the curve, because if you bonk in the Grand Canyon, your way home is a helicopter, right? Not a good choice. And so you've got to stay ahead. You've got to do the training, you've got to follow the training, get practice, the results that you're going to need to do while you're at the event before you get to the event. Know what your stomach will tolerate. When it gets really hot, you get really tired, you're gonna want to eat less. So you want You want to train your gut to take in food and be able to digest it under higher periods of stress. All of this is really important. So I say this more not for those of you who are just, you know, doing chronic cardio. I think there are fewer of you. I think women are— we're aging, we're aging with intelligence about our need for muscle, our need for bone density, but we also have these things that we love to do. And I would be the last person to tell you don't do these things. You know, I am having a push-pull relationship with— I'm registered for an Ironman in Cozumel this year because I deferred from last year. And I think I deferred for many reasons. I was extremely busy leading up to it, just didn't work out well. And I also think it's more than that. I think intuitively my body and my mind both know what's best for me, that I really don't need to do this, that I've proven I can do it. And, you know, I think a part of me thought, you know, if I'm not gonna do it now, I'm probably never gonna do another one. I'm just not gonna get back in that habit. And I like who I am when I'm training for an event. I think of myself differently. It's why we do our retreats It's a reach for women. And so if you're, if you're so inclined, you have one last small window of opportunity to get in this year to Moab. We will do June in Boulder, Colorado in 2026. It'll probably be the next one I offer right now because a lot of things are up in the air in terms of where I will reside and live. But stay tuned to that. We want those things to happen, to train for it, to realize you can do that, especially if they bring you joy. But you've got to consume adequate protein, more or over and above what you would on a normal daily basis. You have to really, you know, get an A on the quality of the things that are going into your body, with room for extracurricular because you need extra calories if you're active. You can do that and it's not going to hurt anything, but they can't make up your only calories. Like, you can't have pie instead of protein. That won't work. All right, so be sure, number one, that you are tracking, you're measuring, you're looking at where am I in terms of my lean muscle mass when I started the training, right now before the event. Look again after the event. Don't drive yourself crazy, but also don't keep your head buried in the sand. That, oh, my clothes are fitting looser, I love this. You want to look at why that. Don't get behind it. So it's very difficult when we reach a certain level of anabolic resistance, difficulty gaining lean muscle. It happens by 40, and it's worse potentially with each passing decade if we're not doing the right things. And even to a very active woman who resistance trains, does what she needs to, to gain muscle or maintain it, You know, we are going to be more anabolic resistant at 70 than we were at 50. Even those of us who know best for ourselves, that will happen. We can't stop time, but we can do the best possible and slow it the most by looking at these things. I'd love to know, are you drawn to endurance activity, and have you found that the window in post-menopause is allowing you to potentially come back and play with that without losing muscle mass. I'd love to know what your experience has been. You can join us on Facebook at the Flipping 50 Insiders group, or DM me on Instagram and let me know about you. What are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 today. Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit Flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes. And I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman.