How to Lose Weight for Active Women Over 40: Women’s Exercise Nutrition

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It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. Many women want to lose weight. To lose weight for active women over 40, they also don't want performance to deteriorate. So I'm talking about the kind of activity level where you and I are maybe enthusiastically active, or we are competitive with ourselves, or participating in 5Ks. We're toeing the line. Or we're challenging ourselves with adventurous endeavors like hiking the Grand Canyon. So this is for those women who have an awareness that they perform and function in a certain way. Maybe it's just that subliminally or unconsciously, you're very aware that the hike around South Mountain takes X amount of minutes, and you don't want that to slip because that's kind of a source of pride when you can knock off a couple. Is that just me? I think not. Look, I've been an Ironman triathlete, you know, and when you get to that much time invested in activity, sure, every, every swim, every long run, every bike Or the entire triathlon, you look at, you know, how did I knock off time? Look, even the transition, we look at where can I knock off time there? But you know, overall it's a lot harder to knock off time in something like that unless you are, say, competing in a 5K or 10K, where then it's really much easier to see how have you done. Have you done lately, and what's happening for you over time, over the long haul. And what most of us know is we don't want to go backwards. So if you're out on the golf course and you're hitting it down the fairway, no one ever says, well, I don't want to hit it 275 yards, I just— I'll take 250. Never is that going to get easy for your ego, right, to say I just don't have it anymore. So we want to be careful that we lose the right kind of weight, right? So many women want to lose weight. To lose weight for active women over 40, we also want performance not to be negatively affected. There are a few things to consider. First, it's not the eat less, exercise more dogma that will get you what you really need and want. Most women want energy, tone, definition, right? And I think sometimes that's an oversight, or maybe undersight. We underestimate how we might feel if we cut off our fuel supply and ask ourselves to do more. Crazy, but true. So we want tone, definition, energy, strength for now and for later, because let's face it, I think the older we get, the more we're actually thinking Okay, you know, maybe my mom's no longer here. That's my case. I'm thinking it's me, I'm the velvet hammer now. I don't know if you use that term or not, but I love it. You know, it's so— it's like I've got to be this example of here's how we age and here's how we don't age in our family. The buck stops here and we can take control. Better blood sugar control that supports reductions in belly fat and overall insulin sensitivity. We want that, and that can come from muscle. Am I right? We want all that. But eating less and exercising more, if successful at all during menopause and post-menopause, will generally cause the opposite. They'll cause less energy, worse mood, poor sleep, less muscle tone, and spirals down from there, if you can believe it, with long-term ramifications to health. Being active, whether sports performance level or just athletic active, requires energy. There's still a way to juggle the goals of maintaining or improving performance while still dropping a few pounds of extra cushioning. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50, where I address your top struggles and concerns, and most of all, hope to inspire you about the way that you can age as opposed to the examples that may be limited. I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy vitality that you want, need, and deserve in the second and better half. So obviously we're talking all about weight loss because, you know, as we approach the end of the year and the start of the new year, a lot of times that's what we're thinking. We want to start off better. We want this year to be better. We would love just once and for all to get a handle on it. And I think there's something really great about what we're seeing now. We're seeing a lot more examples of women who are doing it, and we don't see behind the scenes enough. You know, not everybody who is actually doing it, living it, wants to share what they're doing and how they're doing it. And that may be partially because it's not all that healthy, and maybe they're afraid it will blow up. But sometimes people are closed-mouthed about what it is they're doing because they don't want others to do it, which is crazy, crazy to me. I mean, no two of us are the same. If somebody else looks good, it doesn't mean that you also can't look good. So junior high called and wants that feeling back. Let's just support each other. But I wanna dive into this episode now because there's a lot of goodness here about how you can do this. And there's a lot of studies and research and references will be in the show notes for those of you that are prove it to me girls. As am I. Here we go. So we're going to talk about eating to lose weight active over 40, close to the beginning and after completion of exercise. This is really important. So I call this bookending your workout— before you start and after you finish. Peri- and postmenopausal athletes should ideally aim for a, a bolus or an big enough amount of high essential amino acid containing intact protein source or supplements to overcome anabolic resistance. Let's define that. Anabolic resistance is the status of muscle loss being more likely than muscle gain, and it requires more intense exercise stimulus like strength training or weight training, quality protein stimulus and recovery to overcome it. Think of that as a three-legged stool. Gotta get adequate exercise, gotta get adequate recovery, and a part of adequate recovery is adequate nutrition, including protein. Now, if we could put a fourth leg in there, it would be sleep. That's the king and queen of recovery. And American College of Sports Medicine review of literature stated that 20 grams of protein pre-exercise and then 40 grams of protein after for older adults to boost muscle protein synthesis that was similar or comparable to that of a 20-year-old when their workout conditions were comparable. Now, you're not going to say, well, the 20-year-old went in and picked up a 50-pound dumbbell. I mean, the 70-year-old didn't do that. But if we said, did they each pick up a weight that fatigued them in 10 repetitions Yes, right? So comparable means the comparable intensity level, not that they picked up the exact same weight. And that's a really important distinction. That's, that's why you can be doing the same exercise video as someone else with more or less experience, stronger or weaker than you, and still be following it, because the weight you pick up will be the weight appropriate for you. Even if you're both doing 15 pounds— or I'm sorry, 15 repetitions— You— one of you may be lifting 25 pounds to do that. The other one might be fatiguing at 8 with 8 pounds. So what somebody else lifts is none of your business. Okay, so don't compare yourself. If you reach fatigue, you have been successful, my friend. And if you've reached fatigue with no injury risk, even better, right? That's what we're after. Okay, time your pre-exercise fuel for optimal digestion. So this is where what you have pre-exercise is not such an easy question to answer. It's got to be based on, well, are we talking you're going to work out in 20 minutes? Are we going to talk you're not going to work out until 2.5 hours over your lunchtime? So what you can eat then has a big, big difference. So it's important that you realize that. So within 30 minutes, so 30 or 29 or 28 or anything closer, of a workout, the easier to digest your fuel has to be. It's not just a comfort factor, like you don't want to feel weighed down, bogged down, but the diverted energy that goes to your gut for digestion will be competing with the need for blood flow to deliver oxygen to your working muscles, and both digestion and performance will suffer. So a simple shake— it's what I call it With protein powder and unsweetened almond milk or water even may be the easy way to go, especially before a strength training workout. That would be fine. If you want carbs or a little bit of something for what I say is for your stomach to work on, you know, put half a banana in that. That's just enough carbohydrate to kind of get you lit up and get you going, and that will help prevent early fatigue in the workout, which is a great thing. If you want a little bit more carb yet, you could have half a cup of oatmeal with protein powder stirred into it. Don't forget that protein, because in a half a cup of oatmeal you get mostly carbs. There's not too much protein in there, and you need to get that. Pre-workout, I want you to avoid fat and fiber. And the reason is that emptying from the gut, again, especially if it's 30 minutes prior, a mixed meal that's eaten pre-workout should allow at least 2, 2.5, or 3 hours to be fully digested. Some will feel most comfortable if this is longer than that, like it's 4 hours since you had breakfast or since you had lunch, you're going to do a workout. If it's following recommendations, that otherwise we want you to have. We want you to have high fiber, high protein, and high fat at most meals. Given recommendations range from at least 10 to 20 grams of protein pre-workout, and below are some examples— well, below in the show notes, right— are some examples of protein sources. So I'm going to give those to you in just a minute so you've got an idea of what does that look like. What I would love right now for you to be doing is thinking about that. Do you know if you were going to have 10 or 20 grams of protein pre-workout of something that's not going to stick in your gut and just sit there like a lump and divert blood flow from the muscles where you want them to go, do you know what that would be? The more challenged you are with gaining lean muscle mass, the harder time you're having losing fat potentially, or you're attempting to lose weight while you're retaining your muscle or gaining it, the higher end of the range of protein workout you want it to be. It's almost as if you are helping yourself avoid breakdown or starting recovery before you even begin the workout. Win-win. So here's what we do: high essential amino acid examples of 10 grams, or actually a little bit more in some cases, of protein. Small, half a Simple Shake. And Simple Shake, again, it's just your protein powder with your water. Now, I know this, you don't want dairy before you're about to work out. I learned this back in my— I was 30, I think, when I started, 31 when I started running marathons. That was my first one. I was— I think I had an 8-month-old who was probably started training a little sooner than that, but— and was pushing him in a baby jogger for a lot of miles. I think I made it up to about 12 miles pushing him, and then I was like, you can't do this anymore. He doesn't need to go, and his diaper is too soggy after we came back. But you know, that simple shake, you know, is really important. And dairy like milk or whey protein even are gonna create a lot of mucus in them, you know, like phlegm and coughing and sneezing. And you may not even have what you'd call a full-blown allergy or sensitivity. It doesn't maybe bother your gut, but still, these are things that you don't want happening to you. You know, if you are going out to a golf course, maybe you wouldn't even notice that. But if you're going to do anything much more vigorous, you will definitely notice it. So stay away from dairy. And ordinarily, I would have to tell you this, that I'm not an anti-dairy person. I like cows. But here's the deal, you are probably not breaking down your proteins as well, and dairy tends to be an inflammatory kind of food for anyone. So if you're struggling with weight loss, your belly fat bloat, constipation, or diarrhea, or kind of vacillate in between them, take a good look at dairy and where it might be creeping into your diet that you're not thinking about it, or thinking, well, I don't have a problem with that. If you test it, you may find that indeed you do. Testing it by eliminating and then reintroducing is what I mean, not in the lab, although that might be helpful too. So even if you tolerate it, which I find a lot of women don't later in life, sometimes Greek yogurt or cottage cheese are sources of protein again, I don't recommend pre-exercise. If you do want them and, and include them, again, just take a good look at yourself. Any reason why, for inflammation's sake, you wouldn't want that in your diet? Okay, so here's what 10 and/or 12 grams of protein look like. 2 eggs, like 2 boiled eggs. You could scramble them. That's actually 6 per egg, 6 grams of protein, so it's 12 grams. Again, if you tolerate eggs, we treat them separately from dairy, but a lot of people may not be able to have them every day but get away with sometimes. Half a cup of steel-cut oats with protein powder stirred in. So you just make it so it's a little bit more watery, and as you're cooking it, you stir in a little bit more, uh, liquid, whether you're using, say, unsweetened almond milk or you're using water. Quinoa. So you could have a little quinoa kind of substituting that, if you will, for steel-cut oats. But I would also generally— you you may have to stir in a little bit of protein because quinoa has per serving about 6 grams of protein. So you kind of want to get there over the edge and get, get at least 10. Choices vary as to whether you want carbohydrates prior to your workout to avoid early fatigue during those sessions or not. So we're going to visit again the term overcoming anabolic resistance. So remember Anabolic resistance is that place where the muscle is in a state of breakdown much more than a state of buildup. And anabolic resistance is kind of a term that is very like— the analogy is insulin resistance. We need insulin to come in and do its job, but we're resistant to it, meaning it takes more and more and more of it than it should, and that can put us into fat storage. That's not great. Anabolic resistance means we are resistant to gaining muscle. That's not good. But what that means is it's going to take more stimulus through the strength training we do, more stimulus through the amount of protein that we eat, and potentially more rest and recovery in between workouts. A study in the European Journal of Sports Science found higher protein intakes— and I'm going to give you like some ideas here without going you know, so your eyes roll back in your head with 0.8 grams per kilogram a day. So in the European Journal of Sports Science, higher protein intakes— and we're talking how much higher, you say? 2 to 3 times the protein in recommended dietary allowances, the RDAs. And that RDA hovers at 0.8 you know, on average during periods of energy restriction can enhance fat-free mass. So what I just said is when you're trying to diet, cutting your calories down, you need to increase your protein above and beyond what you normally need. Now, so if I'm talking right there to a non-believer who isn't quite eating enough protein, I'm telling you two things. I'm telling you, you got to get that protein up if you want to maintain your muscle at this weight. But if you want to lose weight and maintain muscle, you have to eat even more protein. All right, I know it's a lot to swallow. See what I did there? Athletes— and let's include the very active, the very active you and me who like to work out, we, we enjoy exercise, we want to do it more— we're aiming to reduce fat mass and preserve fat-free mass, that muscle or the everything else except for fat in your body, we should consume protein intakes in the range of about 1.8 to 2.7 grams per kilogram. Now just hear this for me, okay? Hear the difference between 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day or 1.8 to 2.7 grams per kilogram. That is a dramatic increase, but And this is according to research that for the very active, we need to sustain that lean muscle mass or your body is going to go get it. It's going to go get those essential amino acids, which are the building blocks that it needs for fuel. And it's not only your muscle, it's your brain, it's other tissue and, and processes that happen in your body that need them. And if you are simply not eating them because you're dieting, your body will break down its own muscle. It's catabolizing it. And that's not good because ultimately that will cause you to be weaker, cause you to be fatter because you are losing muscle. So you're not leaner, right? It's just a simple default. You didn't necessarily have to gain fat. You lost the muscle. So now your percent of fat is higher. But because you're doing that, you will be less active, and that means that you're burning or expending fewer calories over time and not getting stronger because you're less active, right? So all of this really, really matters. So you want to combine your increase of protein with a moderate deficit of calories, and you don't want to go any higher than 500. And if you were a smaller, petite woman You know, 500 calories is a lot because your intake may not be all that much. You might be at about 1,700 as this is your total, and hopefully you're not going well below that because you're probably creating your own inner battle. Your body is already preserving energy and trying to slow down instead of to speed up, which is what you really want. So if you're a smaller statured woman, you know, you might create a deficit that maybe is just 300 or 400 calories. And, you know, it might feel like it's going a little slower, but I think for a smaller woman, that's still a significant percent of your total intake. And you want to be sure that you're performing resistance exercise, not all the time and every day. You still have to have that recovery. So I'm going to give you some examples. What does this look like for you? And if you really like to see this in print, I'm going to I put it all in the show notes so it reads just like a blog. Say you weigh 130 pounds, so let's round it up. If we convert that to kilograms, it's 59. Let's just say 60 for easier math, and that's on my part. So based on body weight, if we do the calculation and say we're going to put you at 2.7 grams per kilogram per day of protein, that is 162 grams of protein. Okay, yes, so that's for you active woman who wants to maintain lean muscle mass. So if you right now are thinking that I can't lose weight, or I'm losing weight but I feel like I'm also getting fatter and getting flabby, this might be why. If you're getting like a minimum of 90 or 100 grams a day, you're still off by over 60 grams. So we don't want to force-feed you, but I want you to use that as a good example. Now, that was based on looking at your body weight. There's also— we can calculate using your fat-free mass. So for the same 130-pound woman, and let's say you're 25% body fat, right? So 18 to 28 is the healthful range. Subtract the fat weight, and if we do math, 130 times 0.25 will give us— your fat weight is 32.5. We subtract that from your body weight. We now have your fat-free mass, which includes everything but fat. That's bones, internal organs, and your skeletal muscle. 97.5 is that mass. Now we can calculate fat-free mass times your protein, that would equal— are you sitting down? 200 and— I don't want you to sit down, keep walking, okay? 224 grams of protein. That's a bunch, right? But do you see what we're doing here? I mean, it should be really raising the bar for you. And protein first. You're thinking protein first. How am I planning my meal around protein? If I'm hungry, what protein do I need to be consuming right now? So it's really important for you to look at high-quality protein sources full of all the essential amino acids. The more you're struggling to eat enough, the more you may want to look at essential amino acid supplements. So using the high range number for each body weight and for fat-free mass based on protein recommendations the daily protein recommendation would be 162 to 224 grams of protein daily. And that's with the goal of losing weight while being really an active person and making sure we're resistance training with a moderate caloric deficit. Take a median number of 180 grams of protein. That kind of splits the difference between that 162 and 224, with every gram of protein offering 4 kilocalories, that means you'd be taking in about 720 of your kcals per day from protein. Now, you know, think about how this goes back, right? Fat per gram gives you 7 grams of— or calories. Carb gives you 4. Protein gives you 4. So just to give you a little reminder there, so you are potentially, if you're a smaller framed woman, you know, you might be a little under, maybe you're at halfway of your caloric intake, especially if you are trying to have a moderate caloric deficit. 720, you know, when 720 puts you at 1440, that might be it. So you're, you're at 50% or a little bit higher potentially of your intake from protein and the rest from carbohydrates and from fat. So I want you to prepare to be confused. So in fairness, these are— those numbers are here and I have the resources cited, but I also want to give you this. Health organizations weigh in, pun intended, not necessarily on losing weight. So prestigious organizations, quote unquote, offer these calculations for a 130-pound active woman. The American Diabetic Association, at least the range would be 59 to 106 grams per day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 48 to 169 grams. That's all over the place. World Health Organization, a safe lower limit of at least 49 grams a day. I want you to keep something in mind. These recommendations vary in the goal. The least amount of protein to avoid death or illness is definitely not the same to thrive or to add lean muscle tissue or to add strength and to add energy. So clearly we have a gap. Of course it's confusing. We also have emotional relationships to food and beliefs that we've had for a really long time. And you know, you and I get really attached to our belief system. Those are likely factors in your reaction to this episode, whatever it is. It's like, "Are you crazy?" or "This is a lot to take in," or "I definitely want to go see the show notes." So you're either nodding or you're shaking, even though the science is the basis of the content for the episode based on references right? We don't, as humans, adopt it readily. We don't necessarily change just because there's scientific proof that it's there. Let's say this. Say you don't want to lose weight, you want to maintain. Daily protein intake should fall within the mid to upper ranges of current sports nutrition guidelines, and that's about 1.4. This is sports nutrition, not just your everyday Joe. Or GIL. So it's 1.4 to 2.2 kilograms— or grams of protein, I'm sorry— per kilogram per day for women at all stages of menstrual function, like pre-menopause, still in reproductive years, peri-, post-menopause, and contraceptive users as well, with protein doses evenly distributed. And that means breakfast and lunch and dinner, right? So about every 3 to 4 hours across your day. And those athletes that are still having a cycle in their luteal phase, and peri- and postmenopausal athletes, or consider yourself just very active, that's you regardless of your sport, you should aim for the upper end of the range. So that 2.2 grams per kilogram. So thinking about that, you would probably be right back to about 180 grams of protein if you were 130 pounds. So going back, just to give you that, that good idea again. So let's do the math there. And if you are just there to maintain, here's what that looks like. 130-pound woman, and that's about 129 grams of protein. Pretty much it's 1 pound, 1 gram. With a 150-pound woman, it converts to 149 grams. So it's just That's where this instruction to, you know, 1 gram to 1 pound, that just makes it easy and very user-friendly. So do think of it as your dose, though distribution is not just adding up, you know, I had 6 grams with some nuts and I had this. You really want to get at least a minimum of 30 grams, not 30 per— you want a minimum. That's your minimum threshold. You can get 40, you can get 50, and ideally you may need to in order to have fewer meals if you can. You may also again want to try essential amino acid supplements. And if you're not eating all the protein that you need, I highly recommend you do take the essential amino acid supplements. That's all 9 of them, not just 3, the branched-chain amino acids. Take all of them so you've got all cylinders firing, doing all the things that they should be doing. To lose weight for active women, examples of a day of high protein meals are going to be in the show notes. But pre-workout, for example, 20 grams of protein in a simple shake, or minimally, maybe you have 12 grams of protein in 2 boiled eggs. Meal examples: this meal is 45 grams of protein. Um, in a post-workout smoothie, you can put your protein powder, you can put some nut butter, you can put some collagen. And collagen itself would not count, but it's adding to the essential amino acid profile of the protein already existing. Another one, it's 51 grams of protein in a serving of salmon. Add quinoa to that as a side. Maybe for dessert you have some Greek-style yogurt with— and that's almond-based yogurt— with some berries. You could have a meal with 43 grams of protein with a taco salad with ground bison plus black beans, and that's just nothing else. So maybe you also have some kind of a dessert that's got protein in it. You could have 46 grams of protein with 6 large sautéed scallops. Invite me over if you're going to do that. Maybe a 3-bean salad offers another 8 grams of protein, and a black breen— black bean brownie with 9 grams. So creative ways to get things in, but you do have to really do some counting. So I'm not an advocate of calorie counting. That said, however, a snapshot of the number of calories that you take in can be extremely helpful. Many women are far too low what they actually need and too low in protein and not lifting weights with adequate intensity or sleeping. So all those things will add up to, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. And you may temporarily think you're successful at the weight loss game, but unless you mitigate these losses muscle loss will result in you feeling weaker, less energetic, and have a slower metabolism. Weight loss with an on-target activity plan means having a slight caloric deficit with an increased amount of protein from a maintenance phase. And other research that I've shared suggests increasing protein by about 10 or 15% above your minimum where you normally ride, along with a reasonable deficit if weight loss is needed. So let's challenge that. You don't need weight loss. What you need is fat loss. Maybe you need to gain lean muscle and the fat is actually okay. So get very clear on what really is the biggest problem. You may need both to lose some fat and gain some muscle, but remember, ultimately it should be about what puts you at the biggest energy state, right? You should be energetic, sleeping well, happy, and in a good mood, that probably tells you your nutrition and exercise are on point. Additionally, to lose weight, one last tip: creatine supplementation of 3 to 5 grams a day is recommended for the mechanistic support of creatine supplementation with regard to muscle protein kinetics, growth factors, satellite cells, myogenetic trans— transcription factors, glycogen and calcium regulation, oxidative stress, and inflammation. Postmenopausal females benefit from bone health, mental health, and skeletal muscle size and function when consuming the higher— the 5-gram-per-day doses of creatine. And that's an everyday thing. Creatine mono is what you're looking for. And I will put some— all of this, it's going to read like a blog as well as the studies. So our Stuart Phillips, one of our presenters at the What, When, and Why to Exercise for Women of 40 Over, Stacy Phillips— or I'm sorry, Stacy Sims is on one of the studies that's listed. And actually Stuart Phillips is listed in two, one from 2015 and another from 2018. And the study that Dr. Sims was listed as one of the research— one of many researchers specifically looking at females in sport. That was from 2023, so extremely recent. So go and grab all those, just take a good look, think about where you are. But I would highly recommend track, track for a few days. Where are you before you dive in and start changing? What if you just knew what you were doing on average? That in itself would be insightful. Then work on changing. And then in a couple weeks, track again. See how well you've done making changes. There you have it. I hope that was helpful going into a new year. Let's think about the health, about the strength, about the energy instead of about the weight loss. Think about what you have to gain, and I will see you on the flip side.