Is This Perimenopause or Something Else?

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I'm Debra Atkinson and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness and menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. 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 and 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 to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve.

My guest today is Abby, and Abby is a single mom of 5 kids between the ages of 15 and 24. She owns her own business, operates as a realtor, and works out of her home. And we met in DMs of Instagram, so this is so 2025. I really— her question came to me and and I think she'd read a post. We were talking about something related to how to exercise if you're, you know, between 40 and 50 or in perimenopause or postmenopause. What's the difference? And she posted a question that made me scratch my head, and you'll hear a little bit more about that during our interview. But if you're a woman who just really isn't sure what stage you're in and what it means to you in terms of your exercise needs, your nutrition needs, how things might change, what signs and symptoms that you might be looking for to make changes, this is your episode. So I won't say a lot about Abby. We don't have a traditional bio, but I will float this out there for anybody who's listening who feels like, "I'd love to ask a coaching question." We have a private Facebook group. It's called the Flipping 50 Insiders, Flipping 50 Insiders, reach out inside of that group and say, "Hey, here's my question." We sometimes will simply answer those questions on an episode, or I will pull you in and say, "Look, if you'd like to do some live coaching, I'd love to talk to you and let's just share this problem." We don't have to reveal your entire identity. We just need to let people know you're a real person and you've got, you know, real questions just like they do. So you'll help a lot of people by doing that. If you're interested, you can reach out to us again. It's on Facebook. We're at Flipping 50 Insiders. Well, hello, hello, Abby. Thanks for being here.

My pleasure.

So glad to have you. And I have to tell everybody, this is, this is my new girlfriend from Instagram and in DMs, we had a little conversation about something, and I, I don't remember what it was that triggered, but I know you asked a question, and, and probably we were talking about how to exercise when you're in perimenopause or postmenopause, if I remember correctly, because you said, I'm 52 and I'm not in perimenopause or postmenopause, so how should I exercise? And I read it 3 times and I was like, wait, what did I miss? Um, because like, how could you not be in one or the other of those? And I thought, oh my goodness, she doesn't know. It just dawned on me that you don't know. And it was like, you can't be alone, so we're gonna unpack all this. So as we, we let this unfold in a couple more follow-up DMs, I think I'd asked about signs and symptoms. And I think I read your response really too quickly and I missed the last line on a paragraph, and that was that you had this extra 20 pounds that you couldn't get rid of. And I was like, Abby, that's your sign. Like, you've got the sign. So talk to me about that. Let's start there. So a lot of us carry 20 pounds and we may carry it throughout our lives, but did this come on in midlife? Or like, when, when did you realize, okay, I'm— I don't need this, I would like to remove it?

I did, um, I did come to this 20 pounds, um, after giving birth to my kids, um, and it was, uh, like I'd gotten down to what I considered a healthy weight after that and maintained it for quite some time, and then bit by bit You know, 2 pounds, 5 pounds, all of a sudden it's 10 pounds. And this is over a period of several years, so it didn't seem unrealistic. And, um, it also— I also kind of gave myself the pass that, 'Ah, you're getting older, you know, this is just kind of what happens.' And then all of a sudden it's 20 and there's no making headway on any of it. And it doesn't— it didn't feel like changes that I made in health, lifestyle, diet, exercise made any difference or made enough of a difference. And it was certainly the, the most difference I found was in a lifestyle that I didn't feel was reasonable to continue.

Got it. Okay. And one of the things I remember you telling me is that your friends tell you you're doing too much. So describe— so those are actually pretty good friends to have, right? But, um, As long as you're asking for the advice, maybe I should say that. But tell us, what, what are you doing exercise-wise? And, and everybody heard in the intro, 5 kids, so we know you're doing a lot outside of exercise. But what are you doing, like, for exercise? And what does a week look like for you?

So normally during a week, I do 5 days of strength training and What I was doing when I was told I was doing too much, I was doing 5 days of strength training and I had just come off of my running season. I live in Florida where it's, you know, exceedingly hot and muggy in the spring, summer, and early fall. So I do a running season from late fall through early spring, and my longest race this year was a 30K. And so while I'm training for that 30K, I'm also doing 5 days of strength training. And for strength training, I do a video from YouTube. There's a, um, a plan that I follow, and it's usually 20 to 35 minutes a day, and it's very fast-paced, very little rest, and I think personally I do pretty heavy weights, uh, for a girl.

Um, okay. Oh, well, let's just X that statement right now. For a girl, that is like, ouch.

Well, I think it's reasonable that most men can more easily lift heavier weights, but, um, I think I'm pretty strong cheeky poo, so.

Okay, so can you describe— are we doing what people will call a split routine, meaning different muscle groups on different days, or what does that look like?

Um, it usually starts off with a full body day, then, um, a lower body, an upper body, and then Thursday is usually some sort of Um, it's a little bit lighter by the time Thursday rolls around. I'm sore pretty good, so sometimes that's a yoga day, sometimes it's just different mobility and cardio. And then the last day is another full body.

Okay, so I think of weights, I think of heavy, light, medium, by way of repetitions. So about, can you tell me how many repetitions of exercises are you doing?

I'd say it's usually 12.

Okay.

10 to 12. Sometimes the work interval is 20 seconds, sometimes 30, sometimes 40. So, okay, essentially however many I can get done in that amount of time. Usually if it's a 20-second interval, I'm lifting heavier weights, but it's for a short time. Longer intervals, lighter weights.

Okay.

And you're—

are you trying to get as many reps as possible during that interval? Is that the goal?

I usually get to failure. So my, my personal goal is more so, um, to lift as heavy as I can than it is as fast as I can.

Okay, great. That was the right answer, by the way. Gold star. Okay, yes. Okay, I love that. So you mentioned— so the thing that I heard there most of all is you mentioned that by Thursday you're kind of more tired and more sore, right? So you're doing yoga, it's kind of a recovery day, and then How do you feel then when Friday rolls around? Are you like ready to go and roll into that workout, or is that one just kind of get it done?

Um, well, honestly, all of them are kind of get it done.

Okay. Okay.

I love working out because how I feel afterwards, and I know it's good for me and that kind of thing, but most days it's like, okay, get out of bed and put your workout clothes on so that you don't have an excuse. So, but to be more specific about Friday, I would say I feel refreshed enough to not dread it, um, in a, in a physical body sense as opposed to a mental, a mental sense.

Okay, awesome. Do you have a smart scale at home? I love you so much. Okay, that was good. This is your Mother's Day ask. Okay, great. So do you know what's happening with your lean muscle mass? What's going on with that?

Well, let me pull up my little app.

Okay.

I was— I, I got that— I got a body composition scale after you and I first talked and have just been doing a ton of Dr. Googling on it too. Um, okay, so Tell me again, my muscle mass? That's what you want to know?

Yeah.

Oh, this is revealing. Um, so, okay, I'll be completely honest. This is scary. My weight— is that helpful information?

Yep.

Okay, my weight is 164.8. Okay, my body fat percent is 24.3.

Okay.

My muscle, muscle mass, 117.4.

Okay.

Skeletal muscle. What's skeletal muscle?

Yes. Do you have that? Is it telling you skeletal? What is it?

44.1%.

Percent, or is it kilograms or pounds?

It says percent.

Okay.

And my body water is 52%. Like, seriously, can I just stick a straw in me somewhere and drain it? Because that's like 8 pounds a gallon. I could lose a bunch.

We need to do some math. Okay, we need a calculator. So we want 164.8 times 0.44. What is that? Because we want to know, I want to know your skeletal mass in pounds. I get 72.5. What do you get? I was the girl who sat at the kitchen table with her dad for hours after dinner doing math, so don't trust me. Um, okay, so that's not a bad number either, by the way. Um, So if we look at your weight is 168 and 144, or 44% in 72.5, what I want you to lock in is that, that 72.5, we don't ever want to go down. So if anything, we want that to go up, or the percent body fat would like to come down. But that is not a bad number either. I mean, you're within a healthy range. So, you know, for, for women— and every scale has its own calibration, and it probably gives you its own— you're in the green, you're in the high, you're low. But, you know, way back when, when I was in undergrad, you know, Jackson and Pollock set these up, and it's for females, 18 to 28% is healthy range. And it's so wide because You know, we have our comfort zone where, you know, I would have to be obsessed and almost anorexic to be at 20 or 21%. You know, I've always ridden comfortably at 24, 26, and people are often surprised to hear that. Oh, you're— but you're in fitness, I would think. And the lower is not necessarily better. You know, we, we need a little buffer. And, um, if we no longer have a period, we're no longer cycling, we don't have that evidence that everything is fine. But if we Often women who become too lean, especially younger girls, will skip a period or they won't be regular because they don't have enough body fat. And where, where healthy is for any individual woman is different than the next. But, and you may be more comfortable at a lower level, but it looks to me like, you know, these numbers are not terrible even though the weight feels potentially not ideal. What do you think or say when you, when you like live with that body fat percent, you know what that is, or the weight? Where are you carrying it? Is it evenly distributed or where are you carrying it?

I'm very hippie.

Okay.

Junk.

Okay. I hope you have girls because they really—

you should.

I, uh, I am—

I've always had in my head that I wanted to be around 20% body fat, but that's just from hearing things. That's not from personal experience where when I felt at my best, I knew what it was. I have no idea what it was when I felt at my best.

Okay.

Um, and you, you put me on, you know, governmental weight scales and I'm obese. So I think that hangs in my head that, "You're obese." I mean, like, it doesn't matter what this number is or that number is, you're obese. And not only do I not like that title, right? I don't like what it means for my health. If I am, I mean, and if that if that scale that the government has established is even applicable.

So when you say that, are you referring to BMI?

Not exactly BMI. My BMI is essentially off the charts as well for that.

Yeah.

I don't think it's BMI. I don't know. It's been a long time since I've looked. I'm beyond frustrated, so I don't even look at the data anymore.

Okay. Well, here's the real data. And, and we of course don't know your smart scale is calibrated in the way it is. If you went into your doctor's appointment or you went to a DEXA scan and you got a body comp that way, might be different because each of those scales is just different, but it's probably not going to be dramatically different. But the demarcation, the best one for declaring obesity, is 30% body fat. You're at 24.3. So you are nowhere close to obese, you know, based on that. BMI is just body mass index, and that range— the, the ideal is between 18 and 24.5 or 9, and, and above that is obese. So you may be thinking about that number. You may be thinking that, but BMI was never a good way to look at— we don't know how much muscle or how much fat you have. That is just body weight and height. How tall are you?

Um, well, it depends on how much Pilates I've been doing and how straight I stand, but 5'3.5".

Okay, so you're screwed. I mean that, you're screwed. You're never gonna have a good BMI because you chose the wrong parents. Now we know. Okay, that's— but seriously, very few of us who, who do eat anything and who are, you know, 5'3", 5'2" are gonna have a good BMI. It's— that's just some of the facts of life. So you're— for you specifically, percent body fat is the better gauge for what's going on health-wise. So your heart, for instance, is so much healthier if you have more muscle mass than if you have less muscle mass. And so it's not fair just to say a given weight for a height is not great. Now, your, your knees or your hips and your ankles, you know, probably would feel better lighter too. So coming back to that, but just I wanted to unpack all of that, um, and look at, you know, where are we going. And so first things first, I'm gonna kind of vomit out some things for you based on the strength training that you're doing. So first of all, I love that you are doing strength training, that you are so diligent at doing it. One of the things that I might suggest is that you— if, if it's moving quickly— is that you slow down or you find something that is moving slower and you do maybe 3 sessions a week instead of so many. And, and you can— if you count yoga as strength training, you can include that and, and do more a week. But I would say do your really heavy one on Monday, do a heavy one total body on Friday, and then maybe on Wednesday you do something that is much more functional in nature. But again, you were already doing this, reaching muscular fatigue, but I'm I'd be wondering if you're actually giving yourself enough recovery time, because it may be that we're tearing the muscle down every time we exercise. That's what we're doing. And so if we don't have the time between sessions when the muscle repairs, we're not getting that lift of more muscle fiber, stronger muscle fiber, more metabolism. We're just only getting the metabolism boost while we're doing the movement. But in the end that may be robbing you of more lean muscle. Does that make sense?

Sure. I've actually, since seeing your— some of several of your posts, particularly about, um, not doing HIIT or doing HIIT the wrong way where you don't get essentially to failure.

Breathless.

Yeah, primarily that's relating to cardio, but yeah, and then recovering. So The last week or so in my workouts, my strength training workouts, when I finish a set and my heart rate is elevated, I pause it, pause the video until it comes back down and start back up. And I feel like that, that gives me an ability to do my second set or third set better because I'm not just dying from the first one and moving on quickly.

Perfect. Yeah, I think that too is a great change. When you run, how many days a week are you running?

None right now because we're out of season. Oh yeah, it's 80 degrees in the morning and I'm not having that. I am a sweaty Betty and it just doesn't need to— I don't need any of that. But so I have switched to walking now and great. I would say at least 3 to 4 days a week I'm getting 10,000 steps a day. Um, basically never below 5,000. But, um, I would say I do walking. I love being outside, and I do walking primarily for my mental health. So, um, it kind of depends on how rough my week is how many steps I'm getting in.

That is great. And I— you might find that that's a great exchange just in potentially. So you're doing long runs, so right, when training for a 30K, that's nothing to sneeze about. So it may be that, you know, that kind of distance was potentially increasing your cortisol levels, which is catabolic to your muscles, so it's breaking them down. And if you were coupling that with fasting, you know, that could have had kind of a tipping point. So although fasting is proven, you know, to have huge benefits for autophagy, for helping with gut cleanup, supporting, you know, so many things that can be helpful for a female specifically, but it also can have a detrimental effect on cortisol if you, say, combine it with exercising, and you're exercising in a fasted state. If you're— and we'll talk about sleep, you know, how are you doing with sleep? Oh, uh-oh, I saw that face. If you're listening to the audio, there was a face. Just want you to know. Talk about sleep.

Yeah, real quick about what you were just mentioning about cortisol. Yeah, I just had some blood work done, and unfortunately I haven't gotten the results back yet, Okay. But I had my cortisol specifically checked, and in the past I had it checked, it was high. My lifestyle lends itself to a higher stress lifestyle, but I also, personality-wise, I'm real good at stress. So my question is, you said in particular running those long distances could have spiked cortisol, and I'm wondering if there's a difference between a woman in her 30s running long distance versus a woman in her 50s?

Mm-hmm. Yep.

I get so motivated when I go to a race and I see this white-haired old lady half bent over just going, and I'm like, first of all, when they pass me, it's really irritating, but it's so inspiring seeing them out there. And I think, well, then why should I be quitting?

I mean, mm-hmm, that is a great question. And though Yes. So between like the 30-year-old, the 50-year-old, and potentially the 70-year-old, right? So I mean, if we were comparing all of them, the 30-year-old is— well, she's a bitch. I mean, she's still got natural high hormones. She can do anything. She can go into the weight room and look at the weights and she's gonna gain some lean muscle mass, you know. She's just gonna—

yeah.

So they have hormones on their side. They're in that sweet spot of reproductive hormones. They peak in muscle mass, you know, at about 25. So you're coasting for 5 years, you're keeping it very easily, and then we start losing it each decade, 3 to 8%, depending on what we're doing. If we're doing lots of endurance work, we might be losing it faster. If you're doing resistance training, you might be holding on to it, and you might be kind of just cut in the middle because you were doing both, right? So, but the real thing to look at is the cortisol level. So at 30, you're dealing with it. And, and I would have to say this, this is a caveat, I think it's hard probably to be a 30-year-old, you know, or a 20-year-old in today, maybe that more than it was when we were. But that said, you know, in general, they've got hormones on their side and they're not working against them, and they can get get away with more. They, they have more latitude to, you know, they could do a little more endurance than they should. They can do a little less weight training than they should, you know, but they're, they're going to be okay and not really notice it until, you know, that, you know, they're kind of in reproductive peak in their 30s to 40-year-old. But at 40, by that point, even late 30s and early 40s, most women are entering into perimenopause. Meaning some of us don't know because we were on oral birth control or something that controlled our period, so we didn't know that we weren't actually cycling regularly. We were getting a false regular, you know, indication because we were protected and it just was happening automatically. But if we don't have night sweats or hot flashes or start getting belly fat maybe, or start getting more fat noticeably, progressively, we might just pass it off as, you know, I'm getting older. And, and we kind of have in the past, all generations have accepted that's just a part of aging, you know, and, or I'm busy, you know, I've got 5 kids and I've got a job, and so I'm a little less active. And maybe I understand that, that I'm not, you know, the activity level that I did 10 years ago. So, but at 40, when estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, they all start to decline. But for women, estrogen is like a muscle stimulant, a natural muscle stimulant. And when it goes down, our body's response is that cortisol levels go up. So just for punching your ticket, being a woman in midlife, our cortisol level went up in response to any stressor that we have. And we are less sensitive to insulin, meaning— so we eat carbohydrates in the same way we've always eaten before. We're probably having higher blood sugar after a meal than we did before, and it takes more insulin. And when insulin is present, we're in fat storage more often. So stress from the cortisol plus the insulin. These two guys together are belly fat bullies. They relocate it to the midsection, and/or depending on where you've held it, you know, maybe for you it's going more in the hips, but that region. What happened to the 70-year-old is that—

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At least when we're about 60, post-menopause, things even out, you know, I mean, our hormones are lower, but they're even. We're not on such a roller coaster. And generally life is smoother. Like, all the kids are out, we kind of did our thing, and, you know, more— we're more tolerant. We can stand more exercise. We can probably come back to the things we love again. But during that middle place, we may want to reduce the volume and instead increase the intensity. Like, do the interval training, do the high-intensity reaching muscle fatigue stuff so that we can hold on to it and reserve the really long run for like your junk food, you know, on the weekend. Do it occasionally, but don't do it all the time, and you'll probably be okay, you know. So you can still keep that love child passion but not throw yourself under the bus like every day all week. Does that help?

For sure, that makes a lot of sense.

Okay, okay. So back to Since we were talking about cortisol, back to sleep. What's going on there?

Um, I don't sleep many hours. I usually get— I would say 6.5 is pretty good for me, um, and 5.5 to 6 is more common. Um, I do track it. I wear a Garmin. And I track it in my app. And I usually have maximum or right around an hour of deep sleep and less than an hour of REM. And in that, in the sleep cycle, I usually have 25 to 45 minutes of awake and restlessness. So I don't know. I mean, I do know one thing that I do. I take my phone to bed. Other than that, magnesium oil on my feet, stop eating before bedtime, exercise during the day. You know, I feel like I do all of the things, except for the blue light, that I'm supposed to do to encourage sleep, but it eludes me.

Hmm. How long has that been true?

Um, I would say probably 3 or 4 years.

Okay, so it's recent. It's not a forever thing.

No. Okay, sure.

No. Okay, so potentially that again may be another sign, right? So the weight loss resistance and the sleep as well. And so I'll tell you how important this is, and I don't have to tell you if you're only getting 5 or 6 and you want more, it's like preaching to the choir. But it is so important, and studies show that taking subjects, putting them in weight loss programs, divide them into we're going to make you long sleepers, you have to sleep 9.5 hours. So we're gonna— lights out, you have to be at least in your bed. Other group, they only get 5.5 or 6.5, I'm not sure which it was, hours, but distinctly different, shorter. They looked at both of them. The program was effective. Both groups lost weight, but the group that was the long sleepers lost more weight, and more of it was fat. They maintained their lean muscle. So again, that could be a contributing factor to, you know, if metabolism is slowing down in heart, we're not in deep cycles of sleep enough. That's when we release testosterone, a growth hormone, and those are what are like sealing the deal on the strength training that you're doing. We need— you're bumping the opportunity to release them up. You're doing what you should, but the sleep is not there to release it during those deeper cycles. So we go 1, 2, 3, 4 cycle, we go through another 4, we go through those phases like multiple times a night when you're sleeping long enough, and you're probably not getting there or staying there long enough in order to help. So let me ask you this, so you said magnesium, have you tried taking it as a supplement or just like magnesium on the feet? That's what you mentioned.

I do have a solid multi that has a solid amount of magnesium in it. Like, I, I confirmed that it's at least for the average person, it's, um, the amount of magnesium I'm supposed to be getting.

Okay, well, that's where you're wrong. You're not average, number one. Okay, but extraordinary. Here's, here's what I want you to think about, and I'm gonna share with you, and I'll share with listeners— we'll put this in the show note— there's a podcast episode I did with a woman named Carolyn Dean, and she was probably the best interview about magnesium that I've ever done, ever. And it was just magnesium from start to end. She talked about all the different forms, talked about how many things it does in the body, many related to metabolism, but she also talked about how we start and find out what you need, because your need is different than my need, it's different than any, any of your friends' needs. It's a two-tolerance kind of thing, and it's, it's also a no-harm, no-foul, meaning you're not going to take some and like overdose on it or, or have it be too much. Your body will tell you. So I'm going to ask you an on-air question. I I very rarely ask on the air, but are you reg— are you regular?

I think, I think I am, but I take a probiotic, so I don't know if—

Well, that's okay. So probiotic is helping your gut. But what— here's the reason I asked, because there's lots of different magnesiums, and you can choose ones that help you with regularity, or you can know, I'm gonna avoid that because I'm fine. I don't want anybody messing with that. And so to me, it sounds like you're in the latter. So we would choose like magnesium glycinate or magnesium threonate so that you would take those because they're more— they're better absorbed anyway. And citrate is the one that actually helps more with regularity. For you listeners, by the way, probably 90% of our audience has some degree of constipation, so I throw that out for you. But the way you determine it is I would go get a specific if I were doing this. So I would go get a specific— I want, you know, magnesium glycinate, and I might go get like a 200 milligram. So that's not very much. And then I would do it for 3 nights and say, did that help or no change? And then because I've only got 200 milligrams, I might double that and say 400 for the next 3 nights. Did that help? Any change? And then again, so now I'm going to go to 600 next 3 nights and keep going. And I'll give you this for relativity, not for comparison's sake, but I take between 800 and 1,500 milligrams a night, and more is if I'm traveling. That, that higher number is just because time zones and different noises, and I want to sleep, and I usually have to present early, which is no fun if you haven't slept. So, um, but I just to say, don't be scared if that keeps going up. The RDA, by the way, for any of you who are like science geeks, the RDA is 400, but that is really not helping any of us who are, say, at an insufficient amount. If you think of it, we've dug ourselves in a hole. So if you just go take the RDA, you're not even filling up that hole. So temporarily, and this is true of lots of different vitamins or minerals, but only magnesium. It's the only one I would suggest doing like this. Other things like vitamin D, it's better to test your level and then decide how much then do I take for a short period of time to bring that back up out of the hole and then test again, because you don't necessarily want to be on bigger doses of it for a long time, but we want that sweet spot. But with magnesium, your body will tell you, and it's not going to absorb something that it doesn't need. But if you reach that point, you will. And what the saying is, melatonin gets you to sleep, but magnesium keeps you asleep. So it's that if you're not getting that deep sleep or you're waking frequently, magnesium is probably the place to start. Does that make sense?

Sure. I, I— that's one of my concerns. Like, I know that there are some vitamins, like vitamin C, you take too much, you just excrete it. Yeah. So I'm assuming magnesium's like that.

You won't— yeah, it's not going to build up in your body. Yep. And it's not going to cause any problems, but you will probably first find your sweet spot. You should find that place where I'm feeling better, I'm sleeping better. You also might find that you're recovering better from exercise because there are things related to muscle, muscle relaxation and absorption, lack of cramping, um, so many things that will support you. But yes, you know, and if you get up to— you're at 800 or 1,000 and it's not helping, first, I would be surprised if that were true, but reach out to us, you know, and let's look at what else. And it might be that you want to pull in a different one, but I would just start with magnesium glycinate. It's like the Rolls-Royce in terms of absorption, you know, and begin to take it up, you know. And I would take it with dinner. Magnesium is absorbed really well with food, so then it's in your system as you get ready to go to sleep and as you wind down I'm gonna ask you about the phone. So you have 5 kids. Is that why the phone goes to bed with you?

Um, actually, the phone goes to bed with me because I date a man who's— who lives about an hour away from me. And so at night, we normally talk before we go to sleep.

Okay.

So, okay, how sweet is that? Okay, you are a teenager. Sweet. So if you can, with that, after the go to sleep, turn it off, put it across the room, get it away from you, would be great. But you know, if that's a part of your nighttime routine, that may not be all that bad, but putting it by your head is probably not the idea. So there's that. So with the exercise, I love that you're running now, and it may be a great opportunity, you know, while it's heating up in Florida. You've got this, you know, next 6-7 months where it's gonna be hot and humid that maybe you're not running, and you might find that the combination of the weights and the walking, you know, are really helpful. You know, I know you said you really vest. I like a weighted vest. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Great for bone density.

A few days ago as well. And yeah, the one that I'm using is only 13.5 pounds, and my very first thought when I tried it on was, holy smoke, this is— if I weighed 13 pounds more, this would be my everyday. And, and if I weighed 13 pounds less naturally. I mean, so, okay, yeah, I used it for a 2-mile run and he was like, that's the worst 2-mile run I've ever done. That felt like a 4-mile run.

So absolutely, yeah. And so if you've already started using it and you've already adapted, great. Otherwise, for anybody who's listening, you know, starting that with, you know, maybe 10 minutes of a walk but not the whole walk can be a little bit easier, especially if you tend to overfire in your upper traps up here. You might notice you take that off and you're a little bit tight because it's pushing down on you. You're likely to push up. So just think about adapting, get used to it little by little. If you already went out and you did that the other way around, I guess I'm not very good at little by little. Too late. Yeah, I kind of suspected that might be the case. Okay, so the biggest changes I would make— you made that naturally from running to walking, you know, this season. I really like it. I would try to make it almost mandatory that you're going to get between 8 and 10K a day, with or without the, the vest. You don't have to always use it, but it certainly will be a metabolism boost if you're wearing it. But it's also good to not wear it and see how much lighter and faster you go because you don't have it. So play Play with it, doing the strength training, total body, going a little bit slower, really reaching muscle fatigue still, you know, like on your Monday and your Friday. And then on Wednesday, maybe that's your total body, body weight with a yoga session. So it's unilateral work, it's got rotation in it, flexion, extension, lateral flexion that you don't have in those more traditional kinds of exercises, but yet you're still getting stimulation and you're getting some kind of a mind-body, you know, a little bit of a cortisol release from it because you, you have to focus, you know, and what's going on, and that can be beneficial just to escape anything else that's going on. The only thing we haven't talked about— so we hit on sleep— the only thing we haven't talked about is how's your protein consumption? How are your, how are your meals and food?

I don't track it. Right now. I have in the past and I find that to be very helpful, but I am drawn towards protein. Like whenever I'm hungry, whenever I'm craving anything, I want protein. So I have a protein-heavy diet and fairly low carb. I even tend to make, you know, a more full meal for the kids that would include rice or potatoes or something like that, and then I just leave that off my plate. Um, but I'm pretty— I struggle getting in enough protein in a day without having too many calories.

How many is too many calories?

Well, according to my body composition scale, my basal metabolic rate is, um, 1,600 calories.

Okay.

So do I understand correctly that if I want to lose weight, I have to be in a calorie deficit of that?

No.

Okay.

No.

There's somebody that I listen to that is very anti-calories in, calories out. And I understand that it's—

Yeah.

You know, more what foods you're eating than how many calories you're getting.

Yes. But let's, let's back up just for a second. So that, basal metabolic rate, that's like your resting metabolic rate. So that's just you breathing. That's not you walking. It's not you walking with a vest. It's not you cooking dinner. It's not, it's you on the couch breathing. So it's no activity. So imagine if you were, you know, if you were in your running mode and you were trying to do that, your body would be saying, "Oh, hell no, sister. We're going to stop. We're going to preserve you. We're going to pack this on because This is the rainy day and we're saving it. And so your body will respond if you give it too much of a caloric deficit as a stressor. This is like, you are stressing me out and I'm scared for you, so I'm going to help you survive. So a little bit of a caloric deficit, yes, is okay as long as you haven't lived in one, because this is— listeners, I say this for you more than, more than for Abby, but many of our listeners have lived like trying to skip or skimp and not really eating great meals. And we've under eaten for years and we put the brakes on. So if they— we then keep hearing, create a caloric deficit, just eat more protein, we're going even underneath where we were. And all we're doing is just like putting the brakes harder on as opposed to turning it back off. If you lived in a caloric deficit for a long time, you may actually need to climb the calories back up a little bit to say to your body, we're okay, we're gonna be okay, we're fine, it's all good, it's all good. You could shed the weight now. And if you think of your body's on your side, it doesn't actually want to carry extra weight. It wants to be as efficient as possible, and so it's going to do that being lighter. And not having as much stress on the knees or the hips or the joints. Knowing that you're a runner, it wants to move you through the air faster, most efficiently, you know. And so if you feed it and fuel it— and this became more important for women over 40. So between 40 and 60, that gets really important. But after that, you're gonna get it. We're gonna know, okay, I have to keep eating this because I'm gonna lose my muscle if I don't. So from From 40 on, it gets really important that we eat enough. So I would say, you know, if 1,600 is your basal resting, that's a great metabolic rate, actually. It shows you do have a lot of fat-free mass, so you've got room to play. You're probably needing an extra 300 or 400 calories at least just for your activity level, right? So, you know, 1,900, 2,000 calories is probably as low as you should go. And maybe you can back off a little now that you're not running as much and you're walking a little bit more. But that at least probably doesn't feel like starvation, you know, that leaves you a little bit more room for protein and, and all the, you know, non-starchy vegetables that you want, you know, and a few maybe, you know, starchy but what we call resistant starches. So it's contributing to energy and you know, no brain fog, but not, not to going to fat stores in the same way that a processed food would. Does that help? Yes.

What, um, what specifically— what kind of carbs are you talking about that are resistant?

Like sweet potatoes, um, brown rice, quinoa. You could have berries and citrus fruits. You know, so we're just talking, you know, little bits at each meal, mostly for satiety, for energy as the day goes on. Sometimes we sleep better if we have some carbs at dinner and may digest a little bit better because mostly those resistant starches are what contain fiber. So it's easier for those of you who are listening who are constipated. If you're going really low carb or keto, that might be related to, you know, your challenge. Just reintroduce the sweet potato and you might feel better. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, fair enough.

Okay, a question you may not be able to answer.

Okay.

Any truth to the— if you cook your rice with coconut oil and then freeze it before eating it, does it really have an effect?

Like it becomes a resistant starch?

Yes.

Yes. And the other, the other one that's true is white potatoes. So sweet potatoes are resistant starch, but white potatoes aren't, except if you cook them and then cool them, like you stick them in the refrigerator and you pull them out, you can reheat them, but now they, the enzyme in them has changed from that cooling process. So they're a resistant starch. So white potatoes aren't terrible even if you just had them hot, you know, it's, It's really the order. And if you remember this, if you eat the carbs last at a meal, the impact on your blood sugar is far better. It's like 70%, 75% better blood sugar response than if you had them first. So just move the potatoes to last, have the fruit and berries last. Yeah, that can make a huge difference. Not even changing what you're eating, but the order of it can change things. Okay. Yeah. Was this helpful?

Very.

Okay. I'm gonna come stalking you into your DMs, so I want to know how you're doing.

Sounds good. Sounds good.

All right. Thank you. First of all, thanks so much for being here because somebody else needed to hear this. And that's really— listeners, if you're listening, this is why we did this. It wasn't certainly to put Abby on the spot. Hopefully this was helpful for her and nothing like quote-unquote being on the spot. But you know, where we get to a spot where it's like, wait a minute, who moved the cheese and why isn't this working anymore? And if you're wondering, you know, about filtering or vetting all the information on social media, I want to throw this in because it's very applicable. Recently somebody said to me Well, I'm doing that because social media tells us to do that. I'm like, social media doesn't have a mother or a degree. I mean, let's please not, not listen to social media. I mean, if you find a voice you trust on social media and know you're listening to a human that you could ask a question of or that has some relevance or is sharing something based on science, that's different. But collectively, you know, we only see the good parts of somebody. We only see their stomach when they're having a good day. We don't see it on a bad day, you know. So, so take everything in with a grain of salt and know, you know, a lot of people want to be an expert, but sometimes they're just pretending and they're repeating something they heard, but they don't actually know the full details that you need to hear. So I appreciate that. Thank you again, Abby, for being here.

Thanks for your time.

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