Menopause Fitness Researchers: Who to Follow and Why

All right. If you are a woman who is looking for advice and you want to make the best possible choices for yourself because you're feeling a little urgency, I think I did a post today about how many days left of this summer, but more importantly, how many summers do you and I have left? And when you think about it, we've got fewer of them than we have behind us. So put on the bathing suit, by the way. And jump in, cannonball preferably. But in this episode, I am going to give you an overwhelming amount of information and hopefully sort out some of the discrepancies between information that you're getting online and help you sort out who do I go to, who should I follow, why should I follow them, and understand the differences, the distinctions, and the nuances, and Truly where they all align. And number one, I will say this right off the bat, every single one of the people that I'm gonna mention here is aligned in, they're doing this for you, for the greater good. There's probably some other personal motive, motivation. Maybe it's somebody they love, maybe it's themselves, and they're vested and vetted in what it is that they do. But first and foremost, they get up in the morning wanting to know and put the puzzle together. And this is great science. So buckle your seatbelt. This has the potential to be a long one, and it may end up being a series because of that. 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 Deborah Atkinson, and I'm the founder of Flipping Fifty, 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 Fifty, the Stronger Way app and membership. Welcome to Flipping Fifty, 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. All right, we are going to dive into this and I'm really not going to do any preamble. I'm going to dive right in and here's who I'm talking about, I'm going to start with some of the leaders. I'm going to pull it together to a bigger group and then ultimately an even bigger group of expansion. And here's why. There's some people who I think if I say menopause fitness, you say, oh, this person comes to mind and this person comes to mind. And so we're going to deal with those first 2 people first and talk about where they differ, where do they maybe not see eye to eye, and where are they completely in aligned. In addition to being on your side, really looking at giving you the best information to make informed decisions about how you spend your time and your energy. We start with Dr. Stuart Phillips, who is currently the chair at McMaster University. He supervises a lot of grad students. His name is on almost all the research related to protein muscle protein. Synthesis to longevity and aging related to muscle and protein and resistance training. He's generally in the room or he's mentioned where protein is the topic. All right. And then Dr. Stacy Sims, and all of these are doctors, doctors as in PhDs, by the way. So professors, those who've earned that academic credit, but many of them doing the primary research. And I think that's a really important distinction. I do think it's an important distinction that you also understand there's a great deal of value in actually putting it to practical application because it's not always perfect in the world where you may say, this is what the science says. And you may say, yeah, but not for me. That's— but it didn't quite work for me quite the same way. And we all understand that that is going to be true, but we have to start with some kind of a protocol. We start with some kind of a framework, and then we— ideally, if you're working with somebody who's really great, you've got somebody who can pivot with you, whether it's a program or it's a one-on-one. And so here we go. Let's start with a little background on Dr. Phillips, and then we'll move into Stacy Sims, and we'll talk about how they are same and how they are different. Dr. Phillips looks at muscle biology. Through a broad universal lens, often emphasizing that general principles work for almost everyone. And really part of, I think if I could really simplify what might be true of Dr. Stuart Phillips is he wants to make it accessible. He wants to be sure we're not getting so nuanced, making it so complicated that we discourage people from starting or from you and I from doing something because we're afraid Well, maybe we're not supposed to do that, or we're having to think so much about it that there goes the time and the energy that we had to do the thing. He wants to make it easier, and I think he's front of the line leading that charge up the hill. So Dr. Sims, Dr. Stacy Sims, views the exact same data through a strictly female-first lens, arguing that hormonal transitions change the rules for women, whether we're talking about a woman who, as you are listening, may be still cycling, even if you're cycling irregularly, and, and/or those of you who are postmenopausal who have said, nope, that ship sailed, I'm no longer cycling, so what's true for me? Dr. Stacy Sims, as we almost all do, and I will tell you selfishly, you know, when we are 30-something or 40-something Professionals or experts were probably a little bit more interested in 30 and 40-something people. And as we get to be 50 or 60, we get more interested. I've had the pleasure of working with people from the age, very young and ripe age of single digits, to teen athletes who wanted to get off the bench for basketball, golf, for volleyball, and You know, 96-year-old Margaret, who wanted to be able to get up and down out of her chair 6 times because that's how many times she calculated it would take for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to get up and out of bed and to go to the bathroom another additional time during the day. And her knees being bone on bone, she did not want any more pain than that. She wanted enough strength to do those things. So very specific. And I think practitioners who take what's done in a lab in a controlled environment and/or what's been surveyed in the real world can see things through a slightly different lens in application. And if we say Dr. Sims probably coaches and has experience with much more Active women, like been active, really enthusiastically active, declaring themselves potentially as athletes and/or, you know, I would say age-group athletes. She herself was a pro. And, you know, there's a different scope there as well than might be true for somebody who's coming to exercise as an active enthusiast who cares about health. So there's a perspective no matter what we say. But let's talk about these 2 scientists and their alignment and their differences of opinion, breaking down things across key areas. So where they fully align, the power of resistance training. Neither will argue that. They strongly agree that lifting weights is non-negotiable for healthy aging, maintaining metabolic health, and preventing sarcopenia, which is age-related muscle loss. They both agree that the RDA is too low, the recommended daily allowance of certain micro-macronutrients. Researchers openly state that the standard government recommended daily allowance for protein at 0.8 grams per kilogram is entirely inadequate for active individuals and aging adults. Most recently, Dr. Stuart Phillips, 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram. We'll come back to where Stacy's Stance on that. And 3, where they fully align, is fighting anabolic resistance. They both acknowledge that the human body ages, and as that happens, it becomes anabolic resistant, meaning it requires a stronger, more deliberate stimulus, more protein, and more or harder training to build or maintain the exact same amount of muscle. Here's where they differ. So in terms of sex difference, Dr. Phillips maintains skeletal muscle remodeling and repair operates on a pretty similar biological pathway in both men and women. Not that much difference. Dr. Stacy Sims argues that her term, and you know this one already if you know her, women are not small men. Believes that women's fluctuating hormones dictate entirely different fueling and recovery windows that could make a big difference. As far as protein threshold, I mentioned this earlier, Dr. Phillips, 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram body weight is the sweet spot for the vast majority of people. And he I wouldn't say he warns against overdoing it, but warns that just increasing protein doesn't do you any good for strength or for muscle mass. That's the important distinction here. And I will talk a little bit later as we introduce yet another scientist that has to come into this conversation, that there may be additional value for protein to be a little bit higher depending on body composition goals and— A need for satiety or blood sugar regulation. Dr. Stacy Sims on protein threshold. She pushes for a much higher number for active women, particularly. She recommends 1.7 to 2.4 grams per kilogram. Now we're coming closer to that 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, which is easier math in my book. And she's particularly advocating for the highest end during the perimenopause and menopause transition. Now, 2 things you've got to hear there. For perimenopause, a post— or in menopausal transition, we are at risk for losing more muscle and bone, not directly because of the decline of estrogen, but because of indirectly the decline of the hormones. significantly disrupts our energy level, fatigue, the sleep that we need in order to comply with the thing we want to do. May not— we may not have it in the tank because we didn't get the sleep. So it's a side effect. Muscle loss is a side effect. Bone loss is directly related to estrogen. Now, we can help put the brakes on that or prevent mitigate losses by doing resistance training and eating adequate food, including protein. But realize that that higher number is for active women and the combined active and perimenopausal or menopausal women. So significantly active. I want you to realize that, you know, if you are just barely active, that may or may not be true that you need as much. But I would throw this into the loop, and that is that Muscle protein synthesis has been notoriously looked at as a little bit higher in those people who are active than in those people who are inactive, meaning inactive people, those at bedrest, may need more muscle protein synthesis support through higher protein intake. So there are a lot of reasons why you may need more protein, but overall, it seems like we need more protein. Let's talk about their differences on protein timing and windows. Dr. Phillips argues that, I hate using that word, I don't mean he's argumentative, but he would say that total daily protein intake matters most and timing has minor perks. It probably is most valuable, I'm sure he would say, if you have 'em at regular doses throughout the day. But studies do say that if you have a total at the end of the day hit your goal. We've seen recently in the last couple of years studies say, you know, it's not like the body has a ceiling anymore. We used to think you can only absorb so much per meal. And that's true, you may only absorb a certain amount at that one time, but that the rest of it, if you overeat protein at that meal, doesn't necessarily go to waste or to fat. It still kind of has a time-release formula. Now, if you overeat on calories overall, Probably you don't do yourself any favors, but notice that there is no more anabolic window. What we mean by that, you don't need to panic if you cannot eat protein right away within 30 minutes. And I apologize because we used to tell you that, like, you got to get it in within 30 minutes. In fact, I worked at a fitness center and probably between about 2004 and 2008, 12, when I was personal training director for about 6 years at that time, group fitness director prior to that, as well as working at a university for much of that, you know, I said we should get a refrigerator and we should put, you know, something with high protein in it because if people are going to run errands, at least we're doing them a service by making it easy for them to take something with them. All right, so there's that. That is no longer there. Okay, so if you eat protein throughout the day in easy doses and you're covering your caloric needs, you're okay. We don't have to worry about it. Now, if you were somebody who is dieting constantly, you're trying not to eat much, or you claim, I can't eat all that, maybe because your digestive system is not cooperating, You probably need to focus a little bit more on exercise-related fuel before and fuel after, because throughout the clock and the rest of the day, you're not getting it in. So it can help psychologically to tie it to it's got purpose. I need to eat here. Dr. Stacy Sims insists that precise timing is critical for women. She does say you should have protein before you work out. You should make sure that you're eating something every three to four hours. Of course, if you haven't had a dose of protein, you probably need to have one to bump up that muscle protein synthesis. Now, some of the studies for somebody else I will pull in later, Dr. Abby Smith-Ryan, do lend to women supporting or preserving their own muscle mass with a little snacking before workouts, particularly for you listening who might say, I'm trying. I'm trying to do the workouts. I'm not seeing any development of muscle strength. And by the way, if you develop the muscle strength, you're going to develop the muscle tone. So don't just complain about tone. I want you to say strength. If you picked up 5 and that was work before, but now you need 8 or 10, you're going to see that tone. I promise. I promise. Keep it up. This episode of Flipping 50 with Debra Atkinson is brought to you by Alloy Health. Look, I want to talk sex. Without breaching client confidentiality, I can confidently say, if you struggle with libido or intimacy issues, you are not alone. For 42 years, I've coached women in midlife. 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But we know that you can gain muscle mass in up to almost a year, 48 weeks. And then you may plateau, but still at just working your way up from light to moderate, which the researchers in the particular studies I'm quoting, that was about 15, 16 reps. And if you're there for up to 48 weeks, you can still gain muscle mass during that time. You may plateau a little, meaning you're not going to lose that mass, but you may not gain more. If you can add more stimulus. We need more studies on that to look and know for sure. Dr. Sims, about lifting heavy, strongly favors lifting heavy. I believe her words are lift heavy shit. So low repetition lifting, meaning low reps, high heavy weight to reach fatigue, and plyometrics. You've heard her talk about jump training for women over 40. She asserts that without estrogen, women need the specific neurological and structural stress of heavy loads to preserve bone and power that comes from the jumping. And that's also supportive for bone density. So you will hear often Dr. Vonda Wright, who's always and only talking about bone, right? And, and so she will repeat that or echo it since she's come onto the scene. And what I want you to understand is you almost always hear Dr. Stacy Sims quoted for what's one of the best things women should do. I think I just heard her on Dr. Huberman. I think I've heard her say this on maybe Mel Robbins, but she's always quoted as they should jump, they should jump training. But I want you to understand something. No matter what you hear or see on social media, that is not necessarily the researcher's most important message that they want to get over or convey. It is not even the host of the podcasts wish that that's the most important thing. What happens behind the scenes for anyone like me who's a podcast host is your social media manager and your podcast manager are pulling those quotes. They are pulling it based on a couple of things. Playing the game on social media, you have to get attention to get ears and eyes on Your content on your posts, on your podcast to listen to it. And so I want you to realize that when you hear her say something or hear anyone say something that you're sick of hearing, that you wish they'd go away, it's actually not them that you want to shoot. Okay? It's you know a person behind the person behind the person who picked that. To make you have that reaction because good or bad, we're talking about them, and that is good for social media. So I want you to realize that even if you don't like it, it's working unfortunately. Okay, back to previously scheduled content. Dr. Stacy Sims. So what is she? Where is she? She is an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist. Internationally recognized for her pioneering work in female-specific sports science, health, and longevity, she's best known for the foundational principle that women are not small men and probably lift heavy shit, and challenging the traditional fitness and medical industries that rely primarily on male-based research. So I had not heard about her. Before I gave my TEDx talk that was titled— why have I had to think about it— Why Everything That Women in Menopause Learned About Exercise May Be a Lie. And, you know, I realized that hers was released, I think, a year or so, maybe, maybe more before mine, and that we were very much in parallel orbits and kind of kept Getting thrown into similar things because the context of the messages was similar, different, but similar. And the opposite potentially came out or true about mine, given I was letting everybody know that so many times women hit menopause and they are trying to go hard, they're gaining weight, trying to go hard to get it and actually making themselves exhausted. But the same thing was true. There wasn't enough research there on women to even rely on, that there was nothing to fall back on when women showed up and it didn't work for them following the directions, doing all the things. Now we know why. Now we know that's not fitting. So let's say core focus areas for Dr. Sims would be female physiology, challenging fitness norms— it's about time we start doing that— and practical application. So, She provides actionable guidelines on heavy resistance training, high-intensity interval training, and targeted protein, especially leucine, which is one of the essential amino acids that is primarily discussed for its relevance to helping older adults actually gain muscle protein synthesis and maintain their strength for longevity. Her academic leadership and roles. So I've mentioned and started just to make sure this is evenly scored. Dr. Stuart Phillips is the chair and professor at McMaster University and been a researcher in protein for as long as I can remember. He's been quoted, he's on all the studies, he appears wherever protein is talked about, muscle protein synthesis is whispered, he's in the room, or his name is if he's not there for some reason. Dr. Stacy Sims' primary leadership and roles: she's a principal investigator. She's directed major research programs focusing on female athletic health, hydration, and sex differences. She's got institutional affiliations with Stanford— Stanford, woo, sorry— University, the University of Wakedo, and Auckland University of Technology. And that is in New Zealand, if you haven't put that together. She's got plenty of co-authored peer-reviewed journal studies, 70 to 100 peer-reviewed, I believe it is now. I don't know what that exact number is. And academic mentorship. So she actively takes the lead in her field by supervising PhD students and guiding upcoming researchers in female-specific sports science. Her primary studies look like this: thermoregulation and hydration. She tests how men and women sweat and adjust to heat and cold differently. You will often hear her ask the question about cold plunges versus sauna for women. Metabolic tracking, how estrogen and progesterone alter a woman's ability to burn carbohydrates. Versus fats during endurance exercise and product innovation. So she's also an entrepreneur. She is a businesswoman. There is a reason you're seeing her interviewed so much. So she continues to publish extensively moving forward women's fitness and longevity science, with her most recent peer-reviewed studies heavily focusing on identifying. Systematic gaps in female athletic data and addressing hormonal transitions like menopause and establishing sex-specific injury and training profiles because there's just not enough out there to help women prevent injury and know what to do and what that looks like. So, so much that is there. Some of her recent studies, I'll throw these out and then we'll move on. Reproductive health and activity obstacles, culture and physical perceptions in strength sports, sex differences in athletic injuries, and international position stand on female athletes. That came out in 2023. I talked about it. There's a podcast on that talking about recommendations for women protein and carbohydrate-wise, and then menopause and caloric protein research. So important pieces that are there. Where are Dr. Phillips and Stewart aligned? Again, the power of resistance training, the RDA is too low, and fighting anabolic resistance. So these are really, I think, important things for understanding that, you know, they're not really opposing each other, but they're highly complementary. Dr. Phillips provides the massive foundational baseline of how human muscle Yeah. And how protein synthesis works at a cellular level. Dr. Sims takes that foundation, she overlays female-specific endocrinology to optimize those rules specifically for women navigating the menstrual cycle and menopause. I want to bring in 2 more researchers. And last but not least, I'll bring in another, but I'm going to start with Dr. Lauren Calenso-Simple. Dr. Bill Campbell, Bill Campbell, PhD, as he sometimes calls himself. These 4 experts, they really have this highly collaborative yet distinct difference in their scientific matrix. So if Phillips represents the broad biological foundation, Dr. Sims represents female-specific application. Dr. Colenso-Semple acts as the modern bridge between them, while Bill Campbell applies these concepts specifically to aesthetic body composition and fat loss. Or he has— he is flipping gears, by the way. He is moving into more science and studies related to women in perimenopause and postmenopause. Namely why? You guessed it, his wife. His wife went through perimenopause and had quite a ride. He's like, okay, I get it. And there's not a lot of research on active women as they enter menopause. So many of the studies that have been coming out, and there are more of them thankfully, but many of them begin to look at women who were previously sedentary, and then takes them from starting to, you know, in a 12-week program, what happens? But what about us, right? You might be saying, if you're active and you were, and then you thought, well, I'm immune to all of this, because I know I did. I, you know, I got that myth busted. And, you know, sometimes the universe has a funny sense of humor. And, uh, it did in my case, at least it thought. And so what you want to look at here is how do these 2— Dr. Calento-Simple, she calls herself kind of the scientific mediator. You know who the Food Babe is? The Food Babe— and if you don't know, please go look her up, so I won't go into a detailed description— but the Food Babe really was— became the whistleblower on food and the food industry and processed food and what we get sold and how things are represented and just blew the whistle on it and kept doing it. And now she's got tons of fans. She's one of the go-tos for people. Well, I think Dr. Lauren Cullen-Semple is kind of this scientific mediator, and she's taken on this role of I don't. She blows the whistle on anything that she thinks is a myth or false, and somebody's saying, for instance, that there should be a menopause supplement of any kind, or there should be a menopause workout because she's looking at, and she actually was a student of Dr. Stuart Phillips. I think I'm absolutely correct on that. But, you know, so she comes from the school of that and she's really taken that. So she's kind of in your face about don't let any or any coach that tell you you need a menopause-specific program, you know, is probably selling something. So you really takes a track that In, I take offense to it. So I will, I will tell you that because it's kind of pointing a finger at, at me and what I do. But I think it's missing the mark because I think we are both on the same side. And number one, that's your side. We're on your side. She is on your side. I am on your side. And I think that she's wanting to uplevel the fitness industry, which was really a chief desire of mine and has been for You know, I've been in the industry for 42 years and probably been a goal of mine for 32. There were things and gaps I could see we could do better, and we still need to do them better. But I don't think that we're going to help anybody who needs it by saying, you're wrong, these people are wrong, this is what they're doing that's wrong. That will make someone run further in the opposite direction. They're not necessarily going to change what they're doing, but they're going to Whisper it to people who are unknowingly out there and vulnerable, like you maybe, as opposed to saying it out loud where they fear now being ridiculed, like a comment not intended to ridicule, but I think that's the way it lands. We sometimes alienate the people who need it most by the delivery of the message. I'm sure I'm guilty of that. And I'm sure I would say every human probably is, whether you're talking about a relationship in your own home or you're talking about a relationship as a leader or a team member in a work situation. It's often not the message, it's how the message was delivered. It's the delivery of it. I think we can all agree we've probably been on the delivery end of that just landed wrong, like you could have said that differently. And, and I think That's the turnoff for me. And in part, it makes me feel as if that's a play for social media. She's getting a lot of attention because she's arbitrary, controversial. And so is that just a game or does she really want to do good? And would she really be asked to come and speak to the fitness industry who she's pulling apart? I don't know. I don't know. But I, I do want to say I have a lot of respect for her and anybody who's willing to stand out, be different and unique and speak their mind. I'd love to have her in a room and on a podcast. So I'm working on that. I can't get a response from her, so we'll keep trying. And it doesn't mean she's avoiding responding. It means potentially she's busy. She's not answering direct messages. So there's that. So where does she align with Stacy Sims? Like Sims, she actively researches women. So that is her area. She firmly agrees that the fitness industry has vastly understudied female physiology and that hormones estrogen and progesterone play critical health roles. Where she aligns with Stuart Phillips and differs from Sims, unlike Sims, who often advocates women must train drastically differently across the phases of their menstrual cycle, Colenso-Semple takes a more conservative evidence-based stance and says no, purely no. Her research often shows that while fluctuates— or hormones fluctuate, men and women actually gain strength and muscle at the same relative rate. And the practical impact of the menstrual cycle on daily performance is often overcomplicated. She works to demystify hormone fearmongering in female fitness. So that's kind of her stance, really, that women don't need to train differently than men, period. And I would say, if you're listening, you've already discovered that's probably not true. And I'd love to hear from you. DM me. So on Instagram, that's a place to get to me directly. I see those, nobody else. But I don't want an email. My inbox is overflowing, so I can't respond to anything but private clients. Thank you. Let's talk about Dr. Bill Campbell, and then we'll take a little break. Dr. Campbell is a professor of exercise science and the director of the Performance and Physique Enhancement Lab at the University of South Florida. And while Phillips and Sims and Colento-Semple lean heavily toward health, longevity, and clinical physiology, Campbell's domain has been— it's shifting— optimized physical appearance. Physique, making you look good. I mean, who doesn't want that? Fat loss and muscle retention. He's now starting to look at fat loss in peri- and postmenopause. Do we love him or what, right? So where he aligns with everyone, he's a massive proponent of high-protein diets and heavy resistance training. He heavily researches how to prevent muscle loss during active dieting. So he is of this recomposition. You know, looking at what can happen. His unique contribution to the mix: Campbell's famous for studying diet breaks, meaning don't diet all the time because we're going to slow that metabolism, and refeeds after dieting, being sure that you realize you've got to benefit by bringing that metabolism back up or it's going to go down. His lab specifically researches how to take structured intentional breaks from caloric deficit helps maintain metabolic rate and preserve lean His female-specific crossover— and while his work applies to both sexes, Campbell's lab has published landmark data specifically on resistance-trained females. His research proved that when women are in a caloric deficit, those who eat a specifically higher proportion of protein lose more body fat and retain more lean muscle mass than women on lower protein targets. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Okay. Had to add that little part. All right. When we come back for part 2, I'm going to summarize how they all compare. Did you know your skin can absorb more chlorine in a 10-minute shower than from drinking 8 glasses of tap water? If you wouldn't drink it, why would you bathe in it or bathe small children in it? That's why filtered shower water matters. And the best choice you can make is getting the AquaTru Shower. AquaTru Shower uses an advanced 4-stage filtration with KDF, a special copper-zinc blend that neutralizes chlorine the moment water hits it. Plus, it filters chloramine and other harsh contaminants. If you color your hair, this filter protects your dye longer than tap water would. Have I got your attention now? With four luxurious steam settings and four colors to match your bathroom, it turns an everyday shower into something that feels like a spa. My friends at Aqua True are offering 20% off today for my listeners with promo code SHFLIPPING50. Aqua True Shower comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get this exclusive podcast-only offer now. At Aqua True, head to aquatrueshower.com. That's A Q U A T R U S H O W E R dot com. Promo code S H flipping five zero. Okay, so here's my suggestion: If you're taking a break, that was a good place to do it. Come back and your pickup right here. Here we go. So. If we were comparing all of them, let's look at their primary specialization. This will tell you why follow them. Stuart Phillips, human muscle protein synthesis. How do you build muscle? Dr. Bill Campbell, physique enhancement and fat loss. And stay tuned for fat loss in menopause. Dr. Lauren Colento-Semple, female endocrinology and strength training and kind of a Mythbuster, if you will, Dr. Stacy Sims, female-specific sports performance. And so I want to be inclusive there. You know, she's talking to active women who are not necessarily playing sports. You don't need to be, you know, having to compete in triathlon. But, you know, I think you and I, if we are actively and vigorously participating in golf and pickleball, and we're getting after it with our resistance training. We're doing HIIT. We're doing it because we want a specific outcome. I think you can qualify yourself as this is somewhat sports-specific. You are active enough that we could qualify you as a very active and/or, quote-unquote, athletic. You have a goal. Your performance is not about a medal or a podium. But it's about winning. Let's win longevity for ourselves, shall we? All right, let's talk about target audience. Stuart Phillips, general population. He's talking to men and women. He is paying a little bit of attention to menopause because menopause is having a moment. And you know, I think he cares about being a whistleblower if something is just BS and somebody is You know, convincing someone they need something that they don't, making it harder. Again, because I think he really comes from the premise— and we need to get him back here to speak for himself. So if you're listening to this, Dr. Phillips, I'm talking to you. We need to, you know, look at how do we simplify and make it easy for people to get started and to feel that they can get results because they can. Fairly easily. Bill Campbell, bodybuilders, aesthetic fitness, people who want to look good. And I think with that comes a little limiter in that he's expanding who he's talking to. He's beginning to study perimenopause, postmenopause, and thankfully study those women who were actively training prior to as they enter it. What about them? Because that's a unique segment of menopause. Um, Dr. Lauren Colento, simple active women, general fitness. Stacy Sims, female athletes, menopause transitions, and kind of that real specific niche. But I would say that overlaps with active women with the menopause transition. It's kind of been a theme all the way through, right? We're more and more You and I are tuning into it. More of the population is tuning into it. Women who are in perimenopause or maybe even asymptomatic, not experiencing symptoms, are tuning into it because everybody's talking about it more. So it's only natural that those researchers would be listening to the demand and the gap and answering, really. So their core scientific philosophy, Dr. Phillips, broad cellular baselines, total daily protein, and lifting to failure are what matter most. Of all of them, resistance training is what matters most. You can't just protein eat your way to muscle. Dr. Bill Campbell: High protein protects muscle loss, especially in caloric deficits while trying to recomposition. You can do that— a caloric deficit, losing fat at the same time as maintaining or gaining muscle. Lauren Colenso-Sample: Women are unique, but don't overcomplicate biology. Basic strength training rules strictly apply. She's like, uh, don't color outside the lines, don't tell anybody that they need a specific training program for menopause. Uh, Dr. Stacy Sims: women are entirely distinct from men. Training and fueling must shift with hormonal changes. And I think at the bottom line here is, how about you? You know, if you're looking or struggling with anything specifically You may lean into wanting to listen a little bit more to what someone here has to say. Dr. Bill Campbell, you may want to tune in and start listening a little bit more if you're trying to lose fat in menopause. And it's not going to be tomorrow, but he is working on studying, and there are things that from his background we all can make an educated hypothesis and theory. And the more background you have on fat loss overall, we can look at the science on menopause. And this is what we did back in 2013 because we had to when we built this way. The physiology of menopause, the physiology of exercise, when we pull the two together, what do we find to be true? And then looking at the large pool of men, women, and trainers and their training clients that I've managed and supervised over years and decades. That gives us a practical application. What do we actually see kind of slant? So you want to look at someone maybe who's got answers and who also will help you simplify and just say, look, maybe you don't need anything specific. First of all, just start. And that I think is where Stuart Phillips and Lauren Calento-Semple are like really there, just making it easy. Let's just get you started. And watch what happens, and we can always pivot or take a detour if needed. So if you want to know how muscle builds at a cellular level, you look at Phillips. If you want to know the best lifestyle hacks to lose pure fat without losing muscle, you might look at Campbell. If you want to know how the female body uniquely adapts to those demands on lifespan, you know I would say you look at. Stacy Sims. And then for common, no-nonsense, you know, just get started, you know, I would go with Calento Simple. And if you're looking for absolute flatline, definite black and white, I think Calento Simple again. Unfortunately, at 62 with, you know, 42 years in this— 44 if my own experience counts I don't think anything is black and white. So it gets hard to say, you know, women don't need a menopause-specific. A lot of women do need a menopause-specific compared to what they were doing. And so that is actually why Flipping 50 is here. And that's not meant to be a defensive statement, but I think you should try that on. Does that apply to you, what you were doing? Before that was working isn't working anymore, then I think we're on the same page. Let's pull in one more, Dr. Abby Smith Ryan. And my hope is that we've got an interview set up with her, I think, in the very near future. She too is in that going back to school, semester starting again space, as Dr. Stuart Phillips is. But she adds a highly pragmatic dimension to this mix. So she effectively slots between Dr. Stuart Phillips and Stacy Sims, acting as a direct peer and frequent academic collaborator to Dr. Lauren Coleto-Sample and Dr. Bill Campbell. As professor and director of the Applied Physiology Lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Ryan is widely considered one of the foremost active laboratory researchers in sports supplementation, body composition testing, and female metabolic health. Very cool. And I think also very cool to layer the fact she's probably in her mid-40s and was a collegiate athlete runner. So she's got layers of, I've been an active female, I've been a pretty elite active female, and what am I going through? We're each a study of one, so that that just gives her a basis for potentially getting curious. Though not not anything more, but I think even that is very important. Her academic stance: supplementation and body comp. Well, Stuart Philip tracks basic protein biology. Campbell studies fat loss. Dr. Smith Ryan's lab is the ultimate. Proving ground for how sports supplements, specifically creatine— she has a lot to say about that— caffeine, and beta-alanine affect the female body across different age brackets. So the creatine advocate, she's arguably the world's leading researcher on creatine for women. Yay! Okay, her work heavily pushes back against the myth that creatine is just for male bodybuilders. And I didn't know that one still existed, but I think we've busted through it, or hope that we have, showing its critical benefits for female brain health. Don't forget that it's not just for muscle, cellular energy, strength during perimenopause and, and menopause. And by the way, just a plug for creatine while we're talking about it, it is for recovery. So that you can recover better, faster, and feel stronger in the next workout—not necessarily to build your big bulky muscles. Good luck with that, right? Gold standard metrics. Her lab specializes in advanced body composition. You'll hear her talk about that in posts if you're following her on Instagram, like multi-compartment modeling and DEXA scans to track visceral fat and muscle quality. So where does she align with everybody and where does she not? With Stacy Sims, the alignment is, you know, the two of them are deeply committed to filling the gap in female sports science, both of them with an athletic competitive background. They heavily agree women need to lift weights, heavier weights, and to scale up their protein and nutrient density during perimenopause to protect their metabolic rate. And I just want to throw this in, not to dish or disregard or disrespect either of them, but I do want to point out that they both come from a very competitive, active athletic background. Lifting heavy comes natural to them. They've had to— they've pushed themselves. They know hard conditioning. So in talking to a woman who's not been active potentially you, listener, or who's been inactive, or who is a little bit older. Now, I want to say Dr. Sims is, and I think it bears saying, is in her early 50s. I know she's 50, but 51, 52, right in there. And Dr. Smith-Rein, I think, is almost maybe 8, 7 or 8 years at least, if not a decade younger. And that matters. You know, if you are someone who's maybe postmenopausal, you're in your 60s or 70s, if they haven't had a lot of experience working directly with that clientele and/or obviously they haven't been there themselves, it is hard to future forward what that will be like. Because if you're young and invincible and nothing is going wrong, you think this is going to stay just like it is. And can't tell you how I know that, but it exactly You know, what happens. And so just realize that, you know, going heavy, as heavy as you safely can, I think is the best caveat for you. Different opinion in terms of where do they differ. Like Dr. Calento-Semple, Dr. Smith-Ryan takes a more moderate, strictly data-bound approach to the menstrual cycle. Like there's nothing proving And that women need to exercise differently. And I think Dr. Smith Ryan also will put in some science that she's done showing there wasn't any difference in performance during any of the four weeks in a woman's cycle, but was what was different was the perception of difficulty, meaning in those last couple of weeks, particularly the last one, and that is that week right before your premenstrual basically, that week right before your period, the perception is it is harder. And I don't know about you, but I would definitely say yes, for sure. Definitely when I would work out and, you know, for years and years I taught fitness classes or I led boot camps and, you know, was potentially training for marathons or triathlons. And while I was still cycling, it was that last week of my period. It felt harder. I always felt better because I did it in relationship to symptoms, which I didn't have a lot. I was knock on wood. I was pretty fortunate. But the perception is it's harder because you are potentially more tired, and it's just more effort. But performance did not change. So you may be still able to hit the same speed or hit the same resistance or weight depending on. What sport it was. And that comes directly out of Smith Ryan's lab. So a woman can perform at an elite level regardless of the cycle phase, and she leans toward more autoregulation. You adjust your workouts based on how you feel, and you recover, you know, day to day rather than a rigid calendar-based, I'm going to change my programming during week three and four. And you know, I think that's a normal way to go. You want to you want to be careful, right? Because it's I don't feel like it today, so I'm not going to work out. You know, you got to be careful about that. But if you're looking at it from your calendar, saying you know week three and four, it's reasonable to say I'm a little more tired. So maybe I will do a little bit more of a recovery workout than a hard one. That's reasonable. And I think for those of you who influence younger daughters, daughter-in-laws, that will be relative to you too. Share. With Dr. Colento-Semple, they align and represent rigorous modern wave of female academic researchers. They align closely on the idea that while hormones matter, basic principles of progressive overload, basic principles essentially of fitness and caloric consistency are still the dominant drivers of muscle growth and strength. With Bill Campbell, Both Smith Ryan and Bill Campbell, highly respected university lab. They run them. They're focused on applied human performance. They collaborate within organizations like the International Society of Sports Nutrition, share an intense focus on body composition, validating how protein or high protein strategies allow individuals to lose fat while keeping their hard-earned lean muscle. So protein is definitely a factor for both. So the summary of this entire dynamic, we have looked at Dr. Stu Phillips. If you want to know muscle, how it repairs, how it builds, he's your guy. If you want strategy to get lean, maintain muscle, you follow Campbell. If you want to know your menstrual cycle, whether it should dictate your lifting cycle, you look to the balanced data You have Calinto Simple, Smith Ryan. And if you want to throw somebody into the mix who definitely caters to female-centric blueprint and it's optimized for athletic performance, you look to Sims. And I think collectively they all offer value and they certainly are not the only leaders, but they are in the lab doing the primary research. Their names. Are the authors on peer-reviewed journals that you will find in PubMed. And just a word about that. I know I will hear many women say, I want the research. I want to know what the research is. I want you to dig a little deeper and to know what you want to know about the research. Simply going to PubMed, every one of those journals is not peer-reviewed. All peer-reviewed journals are not equal. So you want to go in and make sure that there's an advisory board that reviews submissions that may reject or accept, and they may send it back and say, we'll take a look at it if you change this, this, and this. That is truly peer-reviewed. And all studies are not created equal. Random controlled trials, RCTs, are the ideal. Longitudinal. So random controlled means The researchers don't know which group is the subject control group or which is being actually given the protocol that we believe to be working. They are looking at it blindly when they're looking at the research studies. Sometimes a double blind means the subjects don't know and the researchers don't know, and longitudinal studies are over time. So it's a Longitudinal RCT, even better, and a large enough group that it really makes a difference. That's also an important distinction. If we have a group of 7 or 8, you know, it's— we've seen something, we have a hint, but we don't really have a great idea. We don't have a lot of input. And if it was a survey, We're just collecting, and there could be a lot of nuances within the responses to that survey based on individuals. So that's just you and me answering, and so that's a little iffy. Then there's opinion articles that get published in peer-reviewed journals, and that means that educated researchers, like anybody here, might get together and they form an opinion, but there's not been any research actually done on it. So that's a very different thing. And, you know, if I was going to go to somebody about muscle protein synthesis or the amount or special circumstances, of course I'd ask Dr. Stuart Phillips. And so do I care if he wrote the opinion? Am I going to listen to it a little bit more? Yes. But I think you want to be careful to understand What's the weight of that? So heaviest weight, the biggest hitter is going to be a longitudinal RCT, random controlled study. And then maybe just random controlled, a longitudinal, an opinion, not so much, but a review of lit where we're taking a pool of say 20 studies looking at the same thing and trying to extrapolate from that what have we found from this body, big body of research now that here's what we can attest to. Here's where there are still gaps. Here's what we can't say. But a single study generally answers one very deep, not wide question. So each study, you have to really read it and understand it, or at least have it interpreted by someone who does understand the science. So when you're saying, I really want the science, sometimes you're hearing skimming the top. I, I read things online, social media, by lawyers turned coaches, and it's like, okay, I think you missed the point here, you know. And they're showing card after card of a carousel. They're summarizing it in their interpretation of it, and that's like a journalist interpreting something as opposed to actually getting the facts. So just be careful. And I would say same thing of me, you know, find a voice you do trust. Maybe it's me, and I'd be honored if that were true, but you want to understand what is it that I'm hearing, how does that apply to me, and what's the value of this study and science. And that's an important thing, I think, for all of us to consider. Who— we do want the science, and we're saying that And I want you to be sure that, you know, if you're asking AI, you're not getting all science when you get that answer. It is scraping the internet and any Tom, Dick, and Harry, or Polly, Sue, and Karen who wrote an article, they're scraping all of it. You don't know what is opinion, what is partially made up, and what is actual fact when you just get it from AI. So, as of yet, we don't have enough you know scholarly information vetted and only scholarly. If you ask for citations, AI is still making up journals. It sounds really good, but sometimes there's no journal behind it if you go look. Okay, I'm gonna leave you with that. Menopause fitness researchers who to follow and why. Bottom line on this one. I could have given you this early, but I'd follow them all. I would follow them all. And, you know, I would say the things that they post that you don't like, I would ask yourself, why don't you like it? Get curious about your reaction, your response to it, and then dig a little bit deeper and say, are there questions that I need to ask here, or is this based on a belief that I've just had for a long time? And just because someone posts something one time doesn't mean you have to change your opinion. But is it maybe just the way they've chosen to relay the message? And if we think in the morning on the— give everybody the benefit of the doubt, nobody gets up in the morning wanting to alienate another human. Maybe that just comes from the way that that person communicates and chooses to. And they don't realize it's landing negatively on somebody else. Just ask questions. Get curious about your own response. You could learn a lot about yourself, but also, you know, go in and ask a respectful question of someone if you don't quite understand it. And almost every scientific researcher or expert who's online. Will give you a, a very respectful answer if you do. So I hope that was helpful. If it was, please do me a favor, share this with a friend, share this with a trainer, share it with a sister who's hoping for the best and wants the best information for herself also. And I look forward to hearing from you. You can catch me, and me specifically, in the DMs in Instagram. I'll see you on the flip side. The information shared on Flipping 50: The Stronger Way is for educational and informational purposes only and 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.