Intersection of Blue Zones and Modern Muscle Science for Longevity

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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. All right. It's hard to know which way to turn. Left, right, Blue Zones and modern muscle medicine don't seem to live on the same map. It's hard to argue with either. And before I dive fully into this short but thought-provoking episode, I wanna let you know if you're new here, I believe in animal protein. And eating a lot of plants in addition. I've played with vegetarianism right at about 48 years old. And so I did my own experiment on a result, or its result, on body composition, on repetitive eating and what I found myself doing, on muscle strength, and on energy. And my conclusion was, for me, Beyond 2 months, I was very clearly getting smaller, leaner, but it was not really lean at all. I was losing a lot of muscle, and I was losing it because I knew it in strength. That's where it showed up, just like almost any woman. I loved it. I was smaller, and yet You know, very clearly I was struggling through workouts that should have been easy for me. So I concluded that doing the best I could to invest in optimal health, the optimal foods, I still find myself eating on repeat and it didn't work. So I speak to it from, yes, this is where I live and have most of the time, but I have flirted, I have tried, and I have looked at this is probably not going to bode well for me, my muscle, my bone density, and my future. So I've come back. You may be the opposite, but I want you to know in transparency, that's where I'm coming from. And even if I'm trying to not be biased, I think it's hard for any of us not to be biased. So I also, I've consumed a lot of salads in my life, but I haven't had many raw vegetables or greens in the last 2 years. I eat them mostly cooked and And my body seems to be a lot happier for it. I do use protein powder, even created my own brand after swearing up and down, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever do that for 30 years. But they are to me a supplement. They are not the whole food. So when I have them, by the way, I'm not having protein powder and water. I'm not trying to do this as a way not to eat real food and calories. I do them as a vessel for a 2-minute option, as opposed to skipping or skimping on a meal that I'm not going to sit down, slave over a stove, and definitely not going to microwave something. But I do it so that it carries fat and fiber and vegetables, a little bit of fruit, and the protein in it. And it's in a Go Cup if I need it to be there. Whole food shines. So I tell you all of this, so if you hear a bias in this, I'll try to keep out of it. You'll know why you're hearing it though. I aim to view this from your vantage point and make a little sense of the incongruency of the infobe-city that we all have coming to us today. You're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause. And you're not slowing down, you're just getting started. But the old rules don't apply anymore. The workouts that worked before, they're working against you now. The advice you've been given, incomplete at best. I'm Debra Atkinson, and I'm the founder of Flipping 50, the pioneer in fitness for women in midlife. For more than 40 years, I've been in the trenches with women just like you, and for the last 12, right here on this podcast, and, and the founder of Flipping 50: The Stronger Way app and membership. Welcome to Flipping 50 the Stronger Way, where science meets strength, where you'll find the tools, research, and real talk to build the body and the life you want in your second half. Each week you'll get evidence-based exercise and nutrition strategies, conversations with leading experts, and honest answers to the questions your doctor didn't get answers to in medical school and doesn't have time to answer in an appointment. This is your show. Let's get stronger. So here's where this episode came from. Just, I have a lot of conversations, as you might guess. Some of them are DMs from some of you, or on Facebook, or our community in the app for our members, challenge participants, or program participants. And I meet a lot of women live in retreats. And because women gather together at conferences asking about this, because it's what I do, I have maybe more conversations conversations than you might, depending on who and what you do. But these— this, this episode is really— these thoughts are meant to give you clarity to something I don't think people are putting to words. And I think it's— there's a little incongruency about, like, do we really need that? Like, all the protein, all the meat, is that really good? Do we need to go to the gym? I don't like to go to the gym. And You know, but what about all those people in the Blue Zones? So I'm gonna try to paint it. I'm gonna try to pose it in a way that you actually have your own thoughts and you can formulate what do you believe. And did you know that there is some incongruency living in you that maybe you need to address to follow through with the programming that whichever way you go? You're committed to it at least for a while to test it and the results that you get. So here we go. Blue Zones. Let's talk about it. They represent a walk everywhere, eat beans and plants, no heavy lifting required, and very little, very little animal protein. Modern muscle is medicine, and high animal protein is all pretty much steak, Steak in gyms, right? The two with very compelling arguments could leave you, even if unknowingly conflicted. And if that's not enough, you're gonna scroll through Instagram and you're gonna see some plant-based hottie and wanna look just like her, right? And then you're gonna scroll to the next one who's had 3 kids, has steak alone, no plants, thank you. For dinner and lunch. To back up a step, the Blue Zones include those areas of the world studied because of the longevity of the population and importantly extended lifespan. So not just how long they live, but they live healthfully. They don't die of a lot of disease. So what is so magical about them? We all kind of picked up on them from Dan Buettner and National Geographic first brought them to our attention and started to study them from Sardinia to Loma Linda County in California. There are common denominators. By now, if you are listening, you've lived 4 or 5 more decades of your adult life. At least there have been a lot of experiences that have made you think and defend one thing for a very long period of time, and then maybe after learning through science, media, or school of hard knocks—anybody go to that one?—you have completely changed your defense. I have experienced over and over the evidence that walking, walking quite a lot, actually made more difference in my fitness level my body composition specifically, than did hours of running and swimming and biking and weight training. I have experienced that over and over and over, and yet it's still like, it's a surprise when I start walking more and, "Huh, wow, this is so easy." Like, hello, you've got the evidence and the data clearly right there. It first happened to me at 18. When I started my fitness journey, not knowing that's what I was doing, walking with my mom. That's it. Wanted to lose a few pounds to be seen in a bathing suit all summer after high school graduation and cake and cinnamon rolls and cake and pizza and all the things that are your last few months of graduation. And we'll leave anything else out just in case, right? But You know, I did it then, but it took me until about 45. I was 45 when I did it again. And the reason I did it is I was golf mom for my son who was playing, you know, at a pretty elite level in high school golf and starting to play tournaments and traveling. And I was that mom because I had the golf experience in my background. So I walked, I walked the course. I didn't just drop them off. I parked, I walked the 18 holes or the 9 or whatever it was, sometimes more than that. And again, as the pandemic struck in 2020, I came back to walking again, like so many of us did, just to get outside, to see people, even if just waving across the street. It was really nice to be out and away from all of that. So at 18, 45, and 57, I've done it. And that was basically post-puberty. So right, midlife, after a baby, and then post-menopause for about a year. And, and fitness became easy simply because of walking. And yet still I default to weight training and sprinting to manage age-related losses in fitness. And I will, and I would advise that you do too. This episode is sponsored by the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. It is the framework that we designed our entire membership and program based on. Since 2013, I've been developing that after 30 years of working with women in midlife. That was born, and in 2018, we rolled out the Menopause Fitness Specialist to train other fitness and health Pros on how to actually prescribe exercise. Here's where we're going next, in case you want to get started now, that we're actually training physicians on exercise prescription, knowing they get very little of it in medical school, and hoping that it also bridges the gap for you who may be a fitness or health professional, or want to be, who works with women in menopause, because there is so much demand and so much room for you right now. If you are working with women in menopause but not getting all the results, don't have a reliable, predictable framework that gets you results over and over that people know, like, and trust, come and talk to us. We'll put the link in the show notes for today. That's the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. And if you want to head on over to fitnessmarketingacademy.com, it's where we have all of the content dedicated to you, health and fitness pros. That's just good science in light of our contemporary push-button, remote-control, voice-controlled lives and doorstop delivery. They're staples, those things, that strength training and the HIIT, high-intensity sprint intervals, but they're not the major foundation. So it doesn't make a thing less important just because it's the icing on the cake, just because you do it less time. Diamonds are small, thank yous are fleeting, and a wink takes a fraction of a second, but they all have a significant influence on us. And so too does sprint training. You only have to do it 5 total minutes a week. Hello, thank you very much. And there's a lot of people I think that would agree just doing 5 minutes a week would be much more fun, or I could commit to that compared to 2 to 3 hours a week in doing less intense exercise. The longest living people in the world really only walk. A colleague of mine just said that recently, and I wanted to push back, but we can't argue facts. This we know to be true of all the Blue Zones. However, there are so many factors that in their lives that we'd have to consider if we really wanted to say, is that enough for us? We don't hear of them falling and fracturing either. They are active in daily life, but not actually lifting heavy necessarily. They live in a more sheltered environment. They live a more sheltered life. As they age, they move in with their extended families, being honored and functioning as a part of the family, but not necessarily are they taxing their bodies. They contribute. Maybe they cook food or they garden. They play with the children. They may spend hours in a deep squat doing that gardening, but they aren't carrying the burden of running the household, say. They do enough for the lifestyle that they have. We, I think, tend to want more. We want more adventure, more activity, more travel, more that involves not being a senior member of a large family living in a home with them because we want independence involving living on our own, caring for it, driving our own cars. I mean, won't that be a big day when you can't drive anymore? I think so. The cost of convenience shows up in our aging if we allow it to. Their lives in the Blue Zones and the world's, though active, are more gentle— gentile, what's that word— than our own desired lives may be. So I love my kids, but I don't think I wanna live with them. I'd love to live on a compound with them, By the way, have you seen this whole thing? You know, the ones where, you know, you live on an acreage altogether, but there's like a pasture between you and the other families and the kids can walk across the pasture to grandma's house. It's all safe. You wave across the yard to the parents, have got them, no stranger danger, but still respecting each other's privacy. That I would do. I think it's kind of a cool, still independent, every family doing their own thing, kind of deal. The change in our eating habits though is something else we have to consider compared to older adults in the Blue Zones. It is dramatic. Think about in the Blue Zones what they ate their entire lives versus what we've eaten. I hate to think about the things I've done to my body, from mac and cheese with orange colored powder mixed up. Did anybody else love that as much as I did when we were gonna have that? And then we'd maybe have hot dogs with it. Oh my gosh. Okay. But my mom had Cheez-Its, a Tupperware container with Cheez-Its beside her La-Z-Boy chair at the— in the last year of her life. I mean, you won't find that kind of thing in the blue zones. By 90, we will have— most of us consumed a fair amount of processed and fast foods. At least now. I mean, I don't know what will happen to these future generations. I hope it improves. But even if you're saying, I don't do that, but didn't you at one time before we knew better, or when we were kids? Because even if your family shelters you while you're at home, as soon as you go to school, man, it's all over, isn't it? Somebody— the neighbors— I remember my neighbors first took me to McDonald's, and I was like, Are you kidding? This is what I've been missing. I was like, wow, this is so awesome. But then there's Ho Hos and Twinkies and Oreos and Doritos and onion dip and, you know, all the things that you do or have done. I mean, yeah, I had so much chemical-laden instant coffee and Diet Coke in my past, even well into my 30s. Really, the body comes with receipts for all those things. In, in the end, you may be able to pay down on some of that debt, but you can't erase it completely. I know some of you are sometimes insulted because you get back DEXA scans and you're like, how do I have osteoporosis or osteopenia? I lift weights, I do all the things. But did you Have you been absorbing all that stuff? What about in your 20s or your teens or your 30s? It's hard to say. So what I think we, we can do, no matter what, because we can't change our history, is we can take from the Blue Zones— the basics work: move daily, avoid long bouts of sedentary time. Lots of sitting, not good. I have a meeting right now. I have another meeting and another meeting. I'm gonna sit for one, stand for one, and sit for another, and then I'll probably go for a walk or to the gym. But plan that. Mitigate your sedentary time with purposeful movement. Just illustrated that, but also standing, sitting, standing, sitting. And eat as clean and healthfully as possible. Try to get a good definition of what that is. Garden or visit your local farmers market. Shop at a co-op. Drink clean water. And I would suggest testing it to really know what you're drinking. Spend time outdoors every day. Get natural sunlight on your skin without sunscreen for a time every day. Prioritize your sleep. Avoid processed foods. Those are really pretty basic, but if we just did those, we'd be so much better off collectively. You may be way ahead of the crowd. I get it. I would also say watch your body for signs that what you're doing is working or needs tweaking. The whites of your eyes, are they white or are they yellow? Clarity of your skin. You cannot lie, so wash your face, put on your, your magic if you want to, but what does your skin look like? Is it glowing or is it dull and dry or is it blotchy or breaking out? Aches and pains or joints, in, in joints or muscles. Could be either. But this also, yes, it can be musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause and declined estrogen. But I also want you to realize it can be the food that you're eating doesn't agree with you. Regularity. You should poop every day, okay? And if you're not, that might not be— that's your normal maybe, but that's not normal. We need to eliminate toxins. Excess estrogen and other toxins that are in our body stored in fat through our poop, our sweat, and our pee as well. But appetite and cravings— you should have an appetite for meals, you should not have cravings between. And fat storage location— we're going to have some fat, we should. However, if you're storing it in the middle, visceral belly fat, you have a really tight belly, we can't pinch an inch, that's when it's going to get more serious and alarming. If you want to dive in and unpack anything in regard to your health, I'm going to make you an offer here that you can't refuse. Register for a single comprehensive session with me with a complete review of your exercise, your movement patterns. We do that via video and the meeting is on Zoom. Your exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle habits that support or could be blocking your optimum health. I'll provide a comprehensive assessment about your most important priorities that include your longevity, personal goals, and a plan for what that looks like going forward— where to start, where do you go next. Regularly it's $997. Currently we're doing it for $497 for a 90-minute session plus the follow-up so you know what to do. You can apply if you want to that $497 for a next step if you decide to do additional coaching. But my guarantee is that you'll walk away knowing what you can do, even if you do it all yourself. All right, what are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 together. The information shared on Flipping 50: The Stronger Way is for educational and informational purposes This is only not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider before beginning any exercise program, making changes to your diet, or adjusting any medications or supplements. Individual results may vary. Debra Atkinson and Flipping 50 are not responsible for any injury or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast.