Muscle and Strength Loss Prevention After 50: A Checklist

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25 milligrams of CBD and 25 milligrams CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Mm-hmm. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. All right, if you are thinking you want more muscle, more muscle tone, you want less fat, you want to recomposition basically, or you're in a position where you have lost muscle or lost the ability to exercise in a way that you know will preserve and spare your muscle or help you gain it, you're not even able to look at that because, you're compromised, you've got an injury, you've got something that needs to heal, maybe from an elective surgery, this is your episode. And stay with me. So if you feel like you're trending upward, you're trending well, we don't know when life is gonna strike. Stay with me. This one is really for everybody. Hi, I'm Debra Atkinson. You're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause, and you're not slowing down, you're just getting started. But the old rules don't apply anymore. The workouts that worked before, they're working against you now. The advice you've been given, incomplete at best. I'm Debra Atkinson, and I'm the founder of Flipping 50, the pioneer in fitness for women in midlife. For more than 40 years, I've been in the trenches with women just like you, and for the last 12, right here on this podcast and, and the founder of Flipping 50: The Stronger Way app and membership. Welcome to Flipping 50: The Stronger Way, where science meets strength, where you'll find the tools, research, and real talk to build the body and the life you want in your second half. Each week, you'll get evidence-based exercise and nutrition strategies, conversations with leading experts, and honest answers to the questions your doctor didn't get. Answers to in medical school and doesn't have time to answer in an appointment. This is your show. Let's get stronger. We are talking about banking today. Yes, right? Not finance. However, we're talking about banking muscle. It's a key reason to exercise, but it isn't what motivates most of us, certainly when we're younger, and maybe not even today if we're quite honest. You know, once you see or experience yourself muscle and strength loss from bed rest due to illness, due to injury, or elective surgery, you can't unsee it. For those of you using a medication to lose weight or to reduce inflammation or otherwise trying to lose weight, all of these also apply. So of course, I hope it goes without saying, weight loss is not necessarily your goal. Weight composition change is a better goal. Mm-hmm. Body composition optimization is your goal. Muscle and strength loss can occur simply because of aging. So we all are fighting that and we're somewhat losing that battle just a little bit. But the goal is, you know, that could be a huge loss or it can be a very small and tiny one. We're going to go for the latter. If you do the right things and you can be eating the right protein, lifting the weights, and still lose some muscle because of aging. For those of you still reluctant, to lift weights or limited in weight that you can lift because of an injury condition or a moment in life that you're in, this is not something that you want to put off. This is not something that you can backburner. Not now. In your 30s, maybe, maybe got away with it. But in your 40s, it was a little more serious, but you didn't see it. In your 50s and 60s, it gets to be much more obvious. Yeah. You go a week without lifting, you're going to notice changes. And I guarantee you, at first, you may flirt with, "Oh gosh, I like that. I lost a little weight." And then you get on that smart scale, and I hope by now you've got one in your bathroom. Not that you have to go to your doctor's office or the gym or your nutritionist to get on. In your bathroom. So you can see it week to week when it's changing in real time because that slippery slope of, "Oh, I've lost a few pounds, I feel lighter," doesn't last. Unfortunately, it will come back to bite you, you know where. And that is a slippery slope because if you lost muscle, really hard to get it back. We have to work really hard to do it. So if you're unable to eat less for periods of time due to surgery— Let me say that again. If you're unable to eat and you are eating less during periods of time due to surgery, meaning you just have no appetite and potentially you're on some kind of a medication or pharmaceutical that's making you a little loopy. You don't really care about eating. You're not moving things 'cause you're not moving your body. You know, that gets all tangled up in the outcome. Your body will pull amino acids from your muscle to function. So every cell in your body needs essential amino acids. It's why we eat protein. So true story, really recently, On the first evening of a Flipping 50 retreat in Boulder, I had no less than, you know, 102 details to juggle in 24 hours. But as I answered a simple question about my grandson's name, you know, because it was like an obvious conversational question, but I was thinking about what's in the refrigerator, what time we hike tomorrow, what I need to pick up, that I need to call my delivery driver. Somebody asked me my grandson's name and I was like, Debra Atkinson. I was like, "Uh, just a minute." Like, 'cause I was just not on that page. Like, I wasn't even in that book, you know what I mean? So I paused. Is that crazy or what? That's not unusual when the brain is stressed or overwhelmed with overload, but it was definitely a wake-up call for me. Now, where does that go? We can't coast, right? So if we do that to ourselves all the time, stress for the brain, and stress to the muscle. The tipping point is what I told myself, right? Whether you think of it in terms of stress or in terms of your muscle, we've gotta collectively focus on the things we can control because sometimes we cannot control life. It just shows up at your doorstep. A routine elective surgery can turn into anything but and have a ripple effect on the family and the caregivers, not just the person in surgery. Banked muscle is necessary to make the difference between small muscle loss and big muscle loss during that time. So loss of sleep actually occurs with hospital stays for almost everybody. It's the worst place in the world to be to get a good night's sleep, don't you agree? We know loss of sleep or poor quality sleep actually compromises muscle and coordination reaction skills and decreases muscle protein synthesis. If just one night of sleep deprivation. So imagine countless or an extended type of period. That's gonna be really hard. So it's the person going through it, but it's also the caregivers. They're not immune. At 23, I remember feeling this for the very first time. I remember hugging my mother when I had been away working out of state. During my summer vacation from college. And I came home at 23 because my grandmother, her mother, had just been diagnosed with cancer. And I wanted to be sure that I had a couple weeks with them before I went back to college. And I remember hugging my mother when I arrived at the hospital. And in that instant, I felt like I become— like her caregiver, like I was now taking care of her. And I remember how small she felt to me, how vulnerable she felt to me. And I felt like she was shrinking under all the stress from the woman that I left, you know, when I left in probably May, maybe early June. It was the first time I remember comforting her as opposed to the other way around, you know. And my grandmother, who had always been a robust woman, lay in the bed so much smaller than the grandmother that I'd known my whole life. So those two instances for me really came to life when I was fairly young. A year ago, I did— personally, I did stem cell therapy. So again, an elective kind of a, I'm gonna do this. It wasn't painful or incapacitating. That wasn't the reason I chose to do it. I chose to be proactive and do it before it got to that point so that my rehab would be far greater and the results last longer. But my hesitation was in the inactivity that had to follow in order for stem cells to actually quote unquote take. And I think we all need to be thinking that way. You know, I'm thinking, do I wanna, you know, have something done to my bunion? Or, you know, what would that look like if in 10 years I haven't done it, you know, versus I do, which is worse, right? Taking the break now while I'm very, able to recover and probably get back to things versus I wait another 10 years, gamble that it won't get worse. It's, I think we should all be thinking these things. So I want you to imagine these are the things that I did to recover after stem cell therapy with low-level activity and the things that I recommend to clients that I'm working with, whether they know they're going into an elective surgery and will have time off, or they are on the other side and they are looking at, "Okay, I didn't plan on that, but here's what's going on for me now in my life." So that's where this episode is going. We're gonna go through 5 things and really, you know, the last one may not be what I would do on a day-to-day basis or in supplement for the gaining of the muscle or prevention of muscle loss, but it is an important piece of being able to apply the other ones. So I'm going to share with you a couple of things that I believe are really keys beyond high-quality nutrition. And I'm— my hope is that this gives you some hope. And as a midlife woman, we know that you influence so many others. So whether you are looking at this for yourself or you're looking at this for someone else, and yes, it would be fantastic, I think, if we thought we all can do this with just whole food and a good life and naturally, quote unquote. Yeah. The truth is that's probably not as realistic as many of us would like to believe. We've all been exposed to so many more toxins. We've had periods in our life, maybe long periods in our life, where we were unaware of how we really need to be eating and sleeping and exercising, and we weren't doing it. And now it's time to look at, You know, you either are looking at, "This is optional for me," and not really taking your aging very serious, or you are really getting diligent and you're going to make some headway. Because the sooner you do this, the further north of 50 you are, the better off your future is going to be. Don't wait. Don't say, "Well, I'm going to really focus on that in retirement." I would make time for this right now so your retirement is actually better. Yeah. Than it could be otherwise. So number 1, the top thing that I would recommend for anybody to do is always in order of priority. What are you gonna do? We don't jump to supplements. We first look at what are you doing your everyday thing. So I don't think it matters if you're on a budget or you're not on a budget. These are like the budget basics for health. So this is nothing to do with you've got the means to buy all kinds 'Okay, great.' They're probably not going to work really well unless you have the ABCs first. Supplements are intended to be what they are, a supplement to a whole food diet. So the number one thing to protect your muscle, to optimize your body composition, there are studies that are proving for, for increases in protein, not changing any exercise, you can improve fat loss and lean muscle mass. Now that's not really a wise choice in terms of, "That's all I'm gonna do," you know, but it is good to know that it can have an impact. Now, if you're already fit, I don't know that that's gonna have a huge impact on you because you're probably already trying to optimize your protein in and do the right thing. Mm-hmm. But if you were just getting started, that is one way to give yourself a real leg up and a boost in what it is you're doing. This episode is sponsored by the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. It is the framework that we designed our entire membership and program based on. Since 2013, I've been developing that after 30 years of working with women in midlife. That was born, and in 2018, we rolled out the Menopause Fitness Specialist to train other fitness and health Pros on how to actually prescribe exercise. Here's where we're going next, in case you want to get started now, that we're actually training physicians on exercise prescription, knowing they get very little of it in medical school, and hoping that it also bridges the gap for you who may be a fitness or health professional, or want to be, who works with women in menopause, because— Yeah. There is so much demand and so much room for you right now. If you are working with women in menopause but not getting all the results, don't have a reliable, predictable framework that gets you results over and over that people know, like, and trust, come and talk to us. We'll put the link in the show notes for today. That's the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. And if you wanna head on over to fitnessmarketingacademy.com, it's where we have all of the content dedicated to you, health and fitness pros. So the number one thing is cover your protein needs. When you can't eat solids, let's say you are, again, your gut is compromised or you're unable to swallow or chew, obviously that's gonna be a problem, or your appetite wanes, which could happen because you're taking a weight loss medication. You know, this is a really good time to support yourself with protein shakes. But again, I would go back first to looking at what are you having for breakfast, lunch, dinner. And what really is the problem? I hear often that it's really hard to get the protein in, but I don't know what really hard is to an individual who's saying that. So sometimes when you're saying that, it's mentally hard for you to make yourself eat that much because you've grown up for decades hearing, "Eat less, exercise more," that that is somehow the virtuous way to lose weight or to be slim. And thinking that slim or skinny is actually a very virtuous, you're just going to die sooner and risk falling. Why would you want to do that? You know, I think it's time we turn around and start using common sense and realize there's nothing, really nothing, that you want to be attached to when it comes to just simply being thin. That's not really the goal. So look at, you know, what your needs are. Are you able to eat? Do you have an appetite? Then within that, eat the highest nutrient-dense types of foods that you You know, if you were comparing a steak to chicken or a steak to a piece of fish, if you want the most essential amino acids and the least amount of calories, you're actually going to choose that steak. You know, for the ounces and the calories that you're getting, the quality of what you're getting is far greater. And that is totally opposite to what a dieter thinks, right? So think about the quality of what it is you're getting. You need those essential amino acids. You need— that's why we're eating the protein. You get fewer essential amino acids essential amino acids when you have poultry compared to beef, when you have fish compared to poultry, compared to beef, when you go from plants to fish to poultry to beef, it's kind of climbing up or down the ladder depending on who you are. So this is a good time if you can't eat, you can't stomach it, you're struggling to break things down, you're not very hungry, to support yourself with protein shakes. Mm-hmm. And sometimes I realize it's an other, an alternative because you're not going to eat something else. But other times it's just a supplement, like, "Do this between meals because you're not getting your calories in and we need to maintain that strength." In this case, I don't mean a commercial prepackaged, pre-prepared protein shake that you buy already mixed up in little 6-packs or 8-packs, can't remember what it is. But I too had a teenager who wouldn't have any breakfast, so we resorted to that. You know, and yet it is— that's where you go when all else fails. He wasn't going to do anything else. And, you know, spending a lot of hours on the golf course, in our case, not eating. Everybody looks at him and they're like, "Feed that boy." And I'm like, "I know, I'm trying, I'm trying." You know, and it was just, you know, attention-filled sport makes it really difficult to eat until the round is over, you know, and then he would eat really well. You know, that's not really enough for a growing young man to, to sustain themselves. So similarly with older adults, you often find they don't want to cook for themselves, or maybe don't have the energy to cook for themselves, which is a vicious circle. So they don't cook for themselves, so they lose energy. So drinking easy, convenient protein shakes may be the way to go. But for you and I— Mm-hmm. You know, enough vitality to do this for ourselves. Prepare something. Find a shake, find a protein with no sugar, no soy, dairy-free if possible, if you don't tolerate. And I know whey is all the rage and I get it. It's higher in leucine. It's very easily absorbed. It is the notorious and traditional one. However, pea protein gives it a pretty good run for the money. Mm-hmm. But what you need to keep in mind is if dairy causes inflammation for you, whey protein is dairy. So you want to consider how well does that go down and not create bloating. But when you're making a true smoothie, it should be a substitute for a meal. So you want veggies, you want fruits, you want a fat, you want some fiber in it. It should operate like a, a literal meal. So you want a minimum of 100 grams of protein a day from real whole food. Mm-hmm. Supplemental shakes as necessary. But that's a minimum for metabolic health. According to research recently shared by Dr. Stuart Phillips, 1.6 gram per kilogram of body weight may be a ceiling for the amount of protein that we need to gain strength and muscle mass. Now, that's not the only reason that you and I want to eat protein, potentially. So it also has great benefit for optimizing body composition. I want you to remember how I started, that there is proof that eating higher amounts of protein in the diet can improve lean muscle mass and improve fat burning. Both ways to recomp the body. And so we want to look at Do we need to be doing that? And we have more interest than just weight training alone, more than just gaining strength. So keep that in mind. All right. So what I want you to do is consider whole foods the number one, then adding a protein powder, but using whole foods to supplement in that shake. We're not just talking, you know, do protein powder and water, you know, and try to get by with the fewest calories. That again is not necessarily the goal. So once you've covered your protein needs or you've done everything you can to consume it through whole foods, number 2 would be you add or you substitute another smoothie, but you add essential amino acids. Particularly if you're struggling with, you're really committed to a plant-based protein diet and you find it's not working. You're not gaining muscle, you're losing muscle, you're losing strength. The quality of your muscle may not be as good. Essential amino acids are game changers for a lot of the vegans and vegetarians that I've worked with. So supplementing with capsules, you can also do this in a powder. Powders don't taste very good. Essential amino acids, as it turns out, have kind of an afterbite, so not great. But I use essential amino acids from Accelerated Health Products. You'll find that at flipping50.com/AA. Resources. It's also on their website under Debra's Favorite Things. And, you know, I take them as insurance, you know, with me when I travel more than at home. And at home, I really don't need them. If I've been that busy at home, something is wrong because I work for myself, so I better be able to figure out the job schedule and the eating, right? But the, you know, the lack of control when you're flying across time zones, you miss a meal here and there, you're with people maybe at a conference or family family who they're not eating the same as you. And so I use it at nighttime, at bedtime, I'll be like, "How was my protein intake today?" And if it wasn't that great, I'll take a little insurance is what I call it. So it's like having a serving of a, you know, a steak or piece of salmon without having the calories of that. So I'm getting the protein, however. Third thing. Add collagen when it's joint or bone, connective tissue kind of healing that needs to happen. So if you've had a break or a sprain or a strain, I would definitely look at that. So let's do this again, 1, 2, 3. Number 1, cover your protein needs. Make sure that's done. And if you right now realize, "Oh, that's me. I need to pay attention to that. And yet I have this whole stack or cupboard or drawer full of supplements." Go back to square one and get that protein right. You've gotta have the basics in there. Then essential amino acids, and third would be collagen. Now, even our collagen has all the essential amino acids, and you'll read that on labels because people know we're looking for it. We know, or marketers, producers know you're educated enough to look for that. However, the low profile in those essential amino acids literally is so low that's not enough to get over the hump for muscle. So collagen is not something you're taking to help boost your muscle mass. It's something that you're taking to help the integrity of your connective tissue, the joints, the ligaments, the, um, synovial fluid, and all of the little pieces in your joints that matter outside of just muscle. So we need those if you're healing and/or you're extremely active, it may help you bounce back, be a little bit more resilient. And if you do have a strain or a sprain, or heaven forbid, a break or fracture, potentially you will heal a little bit better. So, you know, there's a difference between clean breaks and dirty ones. So you want the clean one if you have to get one. In our collagen, you know, we use something specifically called Fortigel and 3 other collagen forms in our collagen. Brand to support gut health, hair, skin, and nails, as well as bones and joint integrity. So the combination of that is really important to me, and I take that daily, you know. So whether it's helping my hair, skin, and nails, I don't know. You know, I'd like to turn back the clock a little bit more, wouldn't we all, in the way that looks. But it's like, would I deny myself the experience of life experience that I have right now? I don't think so. So— So there we are. We've got 3 done. You got 'em? Protein, essential amino acids, collagen. The 4th one is something you may or may not have heard about. Consider Yolked, and it's like egg yolk, Yolked, or MyosMD. And these are by the same company, Myos. These both contain something called Fortetropin. Mm-hmm. And that is a registered trademark. Fortetropin has been shown to help build muscle, improve mobility, and enhance recovery from injury. So let's face it, gaining muscle is really hard-earned in midlife, more so for women than men even. And before we do it, we will benefit from changes in muscle quality. So you may see You may think, "What? I'm doing all this work and my scale is not changing. I don't see any change in muscle mass," but you still may be gaining strength. That's evidence you're changing the quality of that muscle. I want you to really key into that. Fibers get stronger, more muscle fibers are recruited, muscle's less likely to have marbled fat within it. Those are all happening while you think nothing's going on, it's not working. And yet I would bank muscle with the support of Yoked. And what do I mean by bank it? For the rainy day, for the surgery you didn't know was coming, for the surgery healing recovery process that maybe doesn't go as well as you thought, for the step down on the curb that you didn't see and you went down, for those moments when you have to be less active than you've expected that you would be. You want to bank muscle so you're ready for that rainy day. Yeah. Yolked is one way to do it. It's an easy-to-take supplement that you can take by mouth or add to smoothies. I mean directly by mouth, meaning you can tear off the top, you actually take it. It tastes to me like vanilla frosting from cake, not that sticky sweet. And yes, I honestly do like that. So, um, I— sorry to say, a little bit, then I get a headache, but I do like it. So you can take that really easily and it travels I stick them in my purse. I remember I was still taking some. I was kind of on the last week of it when I moved. So here I am driving a car, I've got a cooler, I've got a dog, I'm crazy out of my mind with details. And in my purse I had my Yolk. I was like, "I gotta finish that. I got 3, 4 days left." And so super simple. You can also take— the other side of the brand is for clinicians, like doctors, and they might have it in their office, but you also can buy Myoos MD. It's a clinical quality with 2 times the concentration of yolked. So it comes in an unflavored option for those of you that prefer that. And that you can stir into, like, I stir it into yogurt, you know, with a little bit of berries or granola in the morning. That's sometimes just a quick quick pre-workout, so takes the edge off and I'm not starving before I go work out. And you can also dump it into a smoothie if you prefer to do that. So easy to use when it's unflavored. We do the same with our collagen, by the way. It's— you could put it in your coffee if you want to. You can dump it in smoothie. It's not going to change the taste of it. In 3 months, I gained about 2 pounds of muscle. I went through stem cells therapy almost a year ago in June of 2025. And for the first 3 to 4 weeks, really, my doctor didn't want me doing anything. I'm like, did you tell me that beforehand? Because I'm not sure I would have done this. But I was like, I don't want to lose any muscle, you know? And yet, if you do too much, you're going to create inflammation where there's already inflammation and you prevent the healing that actually helps the stem cell take, right? That you get the rewards from it. So I'm like, I'm not going to screw that up because it wasn't free. Yeah. And, you know, I don't want to— I'm not a huge fan of big needles, so I don't really want to do that again. It wasn't bad, by the way. It was more like curiosity for me than anything. I didn't stare right at her when she put that needle in my leg, however, so there's that. But this was something that I was like, okay, with 3 to 4 weeks off and then still another couple of months of not doing a lot, you know, I began doing upper body lifting, started walking a little bit more, but it was It was probably 3 weeks before I walked. 45 minutes was a long walk. And I'm used to walking at least an hour, you know, at least an hour every day with a dog, without the dog, so forth. So I was very cautious, but instead of losing, I gained 2 pounds even while not doing a lot of stimulus myself. So then I rotated it out. I thought, "Okay, let's see what happens if I take it out and stop." I maintained it. So I held on to that and then I cycled it back in when I got really busy during a move. So, you know how that is if you've done it or you've helped somebody else recently. You go through all the packing. Those are some long days. Mm-hmm. And the mental lifting of the organization and what do I need to do in this, in that order, and where do I need that, and can I pack this up yet or I can't pack this up yet. And, you know, a lot going on. And then the actual move itself and the unpacking, unboxing. So there was a period of time there, probably for about 2 months, where I knew I was going to be really busy doing just life, then moving. And so I Started taking it again and again, gained about a pound, rotated off, and I'm probably due to do it again just to kind of give myself a good hit or a shot to take it back. I have recently witnessed my brother going through this elective shoulder surgery and life changed pretty dramatically. So I am thinking much more cautiously about what am I doing right now to, you know, look at where will I be in 10 years and If that were me, how well would I come through that? What am I doing for prevention? Because nobody wants that to happen. But, you know, I'm thinking about an elective for a bunion, and you might be thinking about it. I'm thinking, do I want to do stem cell again and just give it one more little edge to preserve that muscle in the movement for another, you know, 20 years or so? Yeah. So thinking about that. But it's a very easy-to-take supplement. I have a link, I'll put it in the show notes, that will give you an option to save significantly from it. And I think you're going to love it. So watch for sales, they do have some. And, um, Fortetropin, however, is made from eggs. So I should let you know, if you don't tolerate eggs, this one is not for you. And I'm sorry I've teased it so well. Yeah. The last thing I want to share with you is not really for the preservation of muscle, but it is for the— all of these things won't work if you can't break down, digest, and absorb the essential amino acids and the supplement that you're taking. So digestive enzymes are really important. And I, I caution you to think about the big and obvious things like gas and bloating, And are those true for you? And then your diarrhea, constipation. Are you regular? You have a good bowel movement every day? And if either digestion or elimination, as I've just given them to you, are problematic, digestive enzymes would be something I would say I would definitely try these. But particularly after a meal that is higher in protein. Mm-hmm. Do you notice it's harder to digest? So as a, for instance, you know, with a smoothie, a liquid already broken down, or what I will have in the morning often as a first meal, first breakfast, if you will, it's kind of a pre-workout, pre-movement snack, is I'll take Greek or goat yogurt, stirring into it a probiotic powder for gut health and my protein powder and a little berries, maybe a little grain-free granola, and so there's my, you know, initial— I'm probably not going to take a digestive enzyme with that. Live cultures in the yogurt, it's already fairly broken down. It's not like a steak where you got to chew it, you got to break it down, and you got to really work at it. But if I'm having, you know, a lunch of, you know, almost anything with chicken or salmon or turkey or beef, you know, sometimes I'll just have a few bites of, you know, from a steak the night before. I'll just have the leftovers from that. But if I'm having anything like animal protein, I'm gonna definitely take digestive enzymes. The ones I like are called Mazyme, and never would have known I needed them in my life until I did. Somebody gave them to me a couple years ago, and I said, I already have something. And, you know, ignorance. Ignorance is bliss. So that was me, super ignorant, because I didn't take the time to actually do my homework and say, "Okay, I need it." I think it's really easy if you're on the listening end of this to do the same. So just going to give you a, you know, I wish I'd listened a little bit better to someone who said, you know, "You may want to try this and here's why," and gave me some reasons, not just, "Try this one, try this one, try that one." Yeah. 'cause I think it feels a lot like everybody's talking about supplements. I know it because as a fitness expert of 42 years with a presence on social media and on conferences and as speakers in a panel, I'm approached every single day by multiple supplement companies. "We'd love to partner with you." Da da da da da. I'm like, even I don't wanna hear about one more supplement, you know? And so I'm thinking for you, I'm like, I don't think my audience can handle one more supplement. Tell me why this is life-saving and we'll talk. But if it's not— and I would consider everything I've given you here life-saving if we're talking about preserving muscle mass and muscle strength. We've got to do those things. These are the best of the best. And the one I haven't mentioned is creatine. And, you know, I'm going to release a YouTube video on that. So within— this is the month of June 2026— if you want to go and look at it for beginners, and I've released a different one several weeks ago that you also may want to go and look at. But creatine is also one of those things. But I would look almost at these other things first. These are more directly related to muscle, directly related to protein. That's what I want to cover here in this one. And then realize— And creatine too. But we need digestive enzymes just to break down the salmon, the chicken, the the beef, the whatever your choice is, but the proteins and the carbohydrates and the fats as well. So we're looking for digestive enzymes that are lipase, amylase, and protease. The one I'm using here and talking about, I'll put in the show notes, has 4 times the amount of protease, the ability to help you break down protein, as most probiotics. That's pretty significant. And I think that's really important. Mm-hmm. And we wanna look get. Let's consider, do we need that? So there you have it. So I'm gonna share the things that I will do and won't do, say if I'm standing in my kitchen or when I'm traveling, say I'm doing an 11-hour drive and pit stopping at gas stations and truck stops along the way. And I don't know about you, but I drive hard. So, you know, if the goal is to get from A to B, I don't— or A to C, I don't like to stop at B very long. I like to go. So we stop— we meaning I, me, myself, and I— we stop, we get gas, we go to the bathroom. We try not to stop between getting gas, but that is really hard. So here's what I will do when I need protein. And sometimes I need that protein just for something to do, like keep myself awake, get a little bit of a pickup, you know, even though it's not necessarily a mealtime or I'm not hungry. Yeah. Here's what I do. I will do a couple of boiled eggs. They're easy to find at truck stops, gas stations now. I will do rolled-up nitrate-free turkey that I bring maybe from a cooler if I'm on a road trip. I will do nitrate-free bison, venison, or beef strips or sticks. And I know some of you are thinking, "What about beef jerky?" So high in sodium. That I've done it before, but I find it kind of addictive. And the next day I will pay for it. I mean, my eyes will be so puffy. And so I know it's got something in it that doesn't agree with me. I won't do a protein bar almost ever, you know. And I would say I can't tell you that I do a protein bar when I go for a hike. So So I've spent the last week, you know, on hikes in Boulder. And so I'm using— I'll name my brands for you— Bobo's Bars or Aloha Bars. So Aloha are much more balanced amount of protein, carbs, and fat, not high in any of them. And a Bobo Bar I take because it is high in carbohydrates because if you're bonking, you're on consecutive day-long hikes, you probably need a little bit more carb to keep recovery coming, especially in midlife. But, you know, I don't do a, quote-unquote, a protein bar. I find that kind of ridiculous. I think a protein bar, a really good protein bar, would be a, you know, a bison or a venison stick. So literally doing the beef, not actually doing a protein bar with other ingredients that you do not want. Interesting. So even on the trail, I'll only do a bar, or if I'm on a bike ride and I need something in my jersey to keep going. They may sit on my shelf, but I don't consume them if I'm standing there in my kitchen. I eat real food. I think it's kind of ridiculous if you have access to a mini refrigerator or a cooler. I want to eat real food as much as I can. So, you know, I don't eat a lot, but what I do eat, I want to be the highest nutrient density. I don't see protein powders as an all-the-time thing or certainly as a weight-loss supplement. I view them as a way to pack nutrients into an easy-to-digest and convenient, time-efficient way to avoid skipping or skimping on breakfast. And so you can set yourself up for success for the rest of the day. Mm-hmm. For your own decision-making in how are you preserving muscle, how are you taking care of yourself, I would ask, you know, with your choices, for instance, looking at standing in the gas station, all you're going to ask is, "Is it better? Is it better than what you were doing before? Is it better that you have that than you have nothing?" That's a frequent question that I will get. And sometimes I'd say I've answered that for myself and the answer would be, maybe do nothing is better based on the choices I have here. If, you know, doing a little bit longer fast or not eating between meals is okay. You know, chips and pancake mix with protein added don't make them all of a sudden healthy options unless you were already eating pancakes or you won't give up chips. Then maybe, maybe there's a little boost there, but it certainly doesn't make it healthy. It may be for you that it's extremely small steps. Step and it does help. So your order at a fast-food restaurant, maybe instead of McDonald's you go to Chipotle and because you're at Chipotle and you're now choosing higher-protein, lower-carb kinds of options. Think of that as, "Is it better?" If you're drinking a packaged protein drink, is that better than not having anything at all? In some cases, that might be the case. Yeah. I think about my mom and when she was older in her 90s, you know, beside her rocking chair, a La-Z-Boy, she had a Tupperware container of cheese-flavored crackers sitting next to her on, you know, below on the low shelf of that side table. And I'd be really— For her, in her case, I would say having a prepackaged protein drink instead of would have probably have been better. So think about your own, what is the definition of better? I'm going to put a lot of links in the show notes today. And this is not meant to be a persuasive argument or a sales tool, but this is the way that, personally, at 62, I'm thinking about, you know, what is my smart scale, my bioimpedance scale, telling me right now? And that is really the other thing I would mention. If you don't have one, you don't have a Hume or an InBody, those are a couple that I really love. I would make sure that those get on your list, that you're doing it somewhere, sometime for you, for your family, and you are monitoring what is going on, not using a weight scale alone, not even using the way your clothes fit. And I know we got away with that and it was actually a pretty good choice 20 years ago, but it's no longer a choice. Because you won't know until it's too late if you've lost muscle. So we can't afford to do that, friend. So let's stay a little bit healthier. Quick recap. Those items were: number 1, cover your protein needs. And if you need to do that with the support of protein shakes, that's where those land. Second, add essential amino acids. So that is either capsules or powder. 3, add collagen. Remember collagen is an extra. It's not only for the muscle. It's not enough to get the muscle, but it is great for connective tissue. 4 is consider trying Yoked. I love it. I will rotate that into my repertoire for until all time is ending for based on what I know now. I also like the Myoos because it's 2 times I think the yolked is a little bit easier to take. So anything with flavor that's like, okay, kind of a little treat. Um, I don't give myself too much sugar during any given day, so it's a nice alternative there. Then digestive enzymes to help you break all of it down and absorb it. And creatine didn't appear on this list, and for good reason. These are all just far closer to what it is you need to do as the basics. So out the next level or layer would be creatine, but it wouldn't be first for me. Okay. I can't wait to hear your questions and your comments. Let me know if you have some. I have not talked a lot about Jokdorm MyosMD, but as I've thrown it in, I'm hoping that you're understanding when it would be appropriate, who it would be appropriate for. I have a brother recovering from that simple surgery, right, who is probably going to be, you know, laid up and a lot slower to get back to things than we all wish that he would. But he is a great candidate for Yoked to MioSMD, you know, after He's getting all the protein that he needs at home. There you have it. 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 responsible for any injury or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast.