Muscle Protein Synthesis in Menopause: How to Plan Pre and Post Workout

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. 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. If you're losing tone, can't seem to get the results that you deserve for the time and the energy that you spend, you can blame it in part on muscle protein synthesis in menopause. What you did that worked isn't going to anymore. In the dance between muscle protein synthesis and muscle protein breakdown, your muscle protein synthesis is stepping out on you. It's going to take a little bit more effort to win this tango. I'm Debra Atkinson, and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness and menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but the 3 generations you influence. My unique 40-year career includes being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, a subject matter expert for the fitness industry, an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week here, I interview experts behind the scenes and the nutrients of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve. So in this episode, let's talk about this. During menopause, that transition, muscle protein breakdown occurs at a faster rate due to lower levels of estrogen, not to mention lower levels, levels of testosterone, but there's also— there's a time factor. You're, you're no longer 25 when you were at peak muscle mass, and every decade after 30 gives us another edge, or gives muscle protein breakdown another edge against us, and we have to work a little bit harder to gain that muscle protein synthesis. Doesn't mean we can't. But we can't do the things we did when we were 25 or 30 and expect for them to work. Estrogen, for instance, is a natural stimulus for muscle. The problem is multifaceted. Reduced testosterone, which can start declines much earlier than estrogen in some women. If you're not sleeping well at night or staying in deep sleep, the times when you do produce testosterone and growth hormone, another important factor in gaining lean muscle, you won't have those important hormones going to bat for you, kind of making good on the strength training that you might be doing. And also when you don't sleep at night or you sleep too little or poorly, your cortisol and your insulin levels are such that your in-muscle breakdown and in fat storage when that's true. And this is when a woman goes to the gym, actually is doing the things, and feeling as if she's not getting rewards or seeing results. Feel familiar? There are two things that stimulate muscle protein synthesis in menopause. I'd love to ask you this rhetorical question: do you know what they are? I realize this is a one-way conversation, but if you have come up with exactly these two things, you're way ahead of the crowd because then you can do something about them. Number one, adequate protein intake on a per-meal basis. And yes, there's at the end of the day what we want you to hit as well, but it's in a dose basis that it will be absorbed best and used most optimally, even though recent science says you actually may be able to absorb and use that Uncle Buck steak hanging over the plate. Probably it's not the best recommendation. Protein is the first. The second of these two things that stimulate muscle protein synthesis is adequate mechanical stress to the muscles. And if we were talking about bone density, it would be to the bone. So that decreased muscle protein synthesis results in an increased need for protein. So obviously, if your natural resources are not doing what they did once for you to hold on to that muscle or help you gain it, then you should default to these two other things that we know are mechanisms for increased muscle protein synthesis. So number one, increase the protein sources. That are best, best sources of protein are those that are high in leucine. For you plant-based protein eaters, it's not great news for you. You're gonna need to supplement because the best sources of leucine are animal protein. And it's not great for those females out there, and there's a lot of them, that we don't tolerate dairy like we used to. Our gut doesn't handle it well. It's constipation, diarrhea, it's congestion, it's gas, it's bloating, or it's affecting leaky gut in a negative way. So you're not absorbing either that or other things that you might be eating. And all of that contributes to a part of the problem— not being able to put to use the things that you're consuming, the very good foods. Most likely preaching to the choir if you're here and listening, my guess is. But we need that leucine, and potentially whey protein is not your ideal way to get it because that is dairy. I know some people will, will ask, what can I Use that if I tolerate it, you know, and don't shoot the messenger. So it's not for me to say you should, you shouldn't. My take would be, are you 100% where you want to be? And if you're not, why might that be true? And you want to look at those list of things that you could be doing that could be food sensitivities getting in the way of you getting what you want. So don't shoot the messengers, but do, do your own homework, right? And figure out what would that be? So especially if you're not consuming much protein or you find it hard to consume, you wanna lean into that leucine potentially with a supplement. Plant proteins unfortunately just don't have much leucine to help with this process. The best sources are animal proteins like beef, bison, or wild meats. Here's where I find some blogs, podcasts, even research findings let us down collectively, us as in females. Suggestions to supplement with leucine would be well-intended potentially for a frail older adult unable to consume enough dietary protein or unwilling to, and at later stages of life. But for you, most likely midlife woman with the potential for decades ahead of her, the full range of amino acids in the body will be important in your ability to thrive and maintain all areas of health. So it's the difference between hanging on, right? Okay, not getting enough protein, not getting enough dietary calories, period. Maybe supplementing with leucine will help, like, slow the downfall. But, you know, do we want better than nothing, or do we want energy and vitality? So in consideration of questions like, should I supplement with leucine, my thoughts are usually not in isolation if you're not getting adequate dietary protein overall. You may also want to supplement specifically with it post-workout or at meals when you aren't getting adequate protein. But I like to see complete essential amino acids first before isolating with greater amounts of individual essential amino acids, even though it is, and it always has been, leucine that is associated with lean muscle gains, particularly in older adults. I began publishing something called the Protein Report for Women in Menopause in 2013, and it stemmed from a protein symposium that I had the honor of co-hosting at Iowa State University, which is my alma mater. It was in honor of Steve Nissen, who had discovered HMB that you hear so much about. So if you're familiar with products Boost and Ensure. And I'm sure you all are now— these are household words practically. You have some awareness of HMB that was picked up by Abbott companies. The ingredient is used much more widely now, and not only for the drinks intended originally to help bedridden, frail older adults consume high-protein drinks to reduce muscle strength loss while they were hospitalized. I also hesitate to suggest to anyone without first looking at food logs or having you assess what you're consuming from whole foods that they go immediately to a supplement. But for many, it can be helpful, and it's always, I think, a great idea to have it as a— it's a backup. You know, I will take essential amino acids as a backup. They're on my shelf, but I can't remember, you know, within the last 2 weeks, I don't think I've taken them. Um, you know, if I search further back than that, probably the last time I did have them with me and take them was traveling. You know how it's— you're getting to the airport, you're flying, you're landing, you miss a meal without even intending to. So there is good news about muscle protein synthesis and menopause. A study in the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and this was recent, 2022, shows that when women in menopause increase dietary protein, good things happen that can offset potential muscle breakdown and fat gain. There is a protein hypothesis, and this was first talked about, published in 2005 in the Obesity journal, that goes like this: when you or I are not getting adequate protein, our bodies will signal hunger. Unfortunately, it's not saying, "Hey, you need some salmon. You need, you know, a burger." Unfortunately, no. It's just going to tell you you're hungry, right? And you want something. Unfortunately, if protein isn't the choice, often excess calories are consumed with less satiety and less micronutrient density. And still, the protein need is incomplete, so your body may keep telling you you're hungry. So muscle preservation doesn't occur while excess food is still going to be stored as fat. So not really what you're looking for. So you've really got to tune in to— if you're not getting adequate protein, you will be one of those people who say, yeah, I'm hungry all the time, because that should be your first answer to anybody who says that. You know, I remember sitting at a training with, um, a couple fellow personal trainers, and, and one of them was sitting, you know, next to me chomping on a bagel. And, you know, somebody was saying, 'Are you guys hungry? Ready for a break?' You know, the leader of workshop. And she's like, 'Yes, hungry all the time.' And I'm like, 'I have some protein. Please just have some protein.' You know, but there are things when sometimes people don't want help, you know. So you've got to— you got to know when to when to give it, when to hold on to it. So think about this. If you don't get the message that what you need is actually protein, that's the reason why you're hungry, you are probably going to eat in excess and store that excess as fat. But you are not likely to overeat protein. You're less likely anyway because it's so satisfying. You know, you're going to get to this level of fullness where you just don't want anymore. In fact, studies show that when the percent of protein was increased, total calories or energy consumed was either the same or it was reduced. But in most cases, high protein was inversely related to total caloric intake. And that is, you eat more protein, you consume less energy overall. If you're seeking a caloric deficit without feeling deprived, and you want to spare muscle loss and even gain lean muscle while losing fat, protein is the way to go. And again, satiety is your best friend. If you overeat a little bit more protein than you need, a recent study should, should calm you down just a little bit. The study was published in Cell Reports Medicine. Showed that a big bolus of protein can result in greater, more prolonged anabolic response. And just let me break that down for you. So a bigger anabolic response, meaning it's like you are riding your bicycle up a hill, and if you're not getting any protein in, you're riding on a flat. It's just boom. But you can think about the riding up a hill as you're actually increasing your muscle protein synthesis so that you can gain lean muscle. Which means you also can lose fat easier, have more energy. You're going to want to move more. You're going to want to say, yes, let's, let's go for a walk. Let's go play 18. Let's go. Let's just— let's go, right? That's the whole idea. But if you have this great big bolus, your body can actually absorb it better than we used to think. But now you're up at the top of this hill. So imagine coming down. You're not going to like, boom, you're at the bottom. You're going to have to ride it down.. And that the bigger the hill is, the longer that slope down, meaning the longer it will take your muscle protein synthesis to come down. So it's like a delayed response, which is kind of nice. And that didn't used to be the case. The, the thought used to be protein's like any other food. You eat a lot of it, you eat too much of it, it's going to be stored as fat. And I think we still want to reserve that this is true, and we also don't I believe I'm not, I'm not of the camp of carnivore, like meat only, never eat plants. I think we want plants. I think we want, you know, to get a wide variety of diversity of vegetables in our diet as possible. We don't all tolerate the same ones, and there may be things going on temporarily to make that true. But I do think we want vegetables, we want those antioxidants. And until somebody convinces me otherwise, I'm going to believe that we need those things. But it's important that I think we don't squeeze out those or our desire and room for those by having too much protein. I think it's, uh, let's figure out a way to do both and have a happy marriage. And I also think there's a great place for fibrous kinds of foods like beans and legumes. So yes, you're getting some protein content from them, and in all together, that's great to get some of your protein from those sources. It's just only that makes it very difficult to get all the protein you need without a very high level of carbohydrate. So the question still lingers, though, you know, what about women? Women in midlife and later, particularly with greater anabolic resistance— that means we're resistant to gaining of the lean muscle— we have greater anabolic resistance than men do and less muscle mass relative to our own body weight than men do. So, you know, we might have thought at one point there's an upper limit of 40 grams of protein We can process it at one time. We now know that's not true. As of, you know, just recent, this last 3 to 6 months, and I'm doing this live in February of 2024, post-workout protein intake of 20 to 30 grams was previously sufficient in young adults and mainly males. So please note that for older adults to have the equal muscle protein synthesis, protein requirement post-workout had to be double. So that is 40 grams compared to 20 grams. And yet we could still achieve exactly what the males were going through who were 20 in 70-year-old males. Now, in this particular test, that was it. It was male to male, which is better than male to female or female to male, but We don't know exactly what would happen with females, but I'm guessing it's going to be somewhat similar in terms of it's gonna take far more protein for an older woman than for a younger woman who's already at peak of muscle mass to sustain the same muscle protein synthesis. Now, in that particular experiment, the workouts that they did was also similar, so we're not saying that that the 20-year-old picked up a 50-pound dumbbell and so did the 70-year-old. But we're saying relative to the percentage intensity that the 20-year-old worked, the 70-year-old worked at the same percentage of intensity, most likely with lighter weights. But I don't know, that could have been a feeble 20-year-old, right, for all we know. So important that you realize, you know, when we're comparing apples to apples or oranges to oranges, this is the way it comes out. We still have to have more protein to hit the same muscle protein synthesis. So while it's a good idea to consume meals across the day, if you're going to get in all the fiber and the vegetables that are micronutrient dense, if you're occasionally stuck, you find you're faced with not having gotten enough protein, having a bigger bolus at a single meal, like, or one meal a day, or two larger meals may still support muscle protein synthesis, or at least not devastated, right? So important place to be is you don't want to be at the place where you're dropping off. At least maintain. For most of us, long-term ingestion of one meal a day is not sustainable. And if you have a valuable social life and, you know, quote unquote, you're breaking bread or pairing protein with your loved ones, you know, one meal a day is not going to work most of the time. But if you're fasting, You may need to worry less about muscle loss if you can get in a big bolus in one meal. So important again, think about, you know, what you're looking at. If you're seeking a caloric deficit without feeling deprived and you want to spare muscle loss and even gain lean muscle while— or without, you know, losing muscle while you're losing fat, it is possible. It's very possible. So be sure that you're kind of very much realizing what is it that I need to do to get the results that I want. So let me summarize that again. If you're seeking a caloric deficit, so you want to decrease your calories a little without feeling deprived and you want to spare muscle loss and even gain lean muscle while losing fat— all good things, right? Protein, protein is your friend. So you can gain muscle in spite of your anabolic resistance. So as we age, we are potentially going to have that. That doesn't mean you can't overcome it, doesn't mean you will lose muscle, just means there's the opportunity for that if you don't do something about it. According to the new recommendations by the International Society of Sports Medicine, their position statement for female athletes in order to counter anabolic resistance, they suggest that women should have at least 10 grams of protein before or immediately after exercise. In spite of the recently mentioned ability to potentially absorb a large bolus of protein, women in later stages of life with greater anabolic resistance may still find spreading doses of at least 30 to 40 grams over more than multiple meals, like 3 to 4 hours apart, will probably be most beneficial. Okay, the summary of today: at the very least, for high-intensity intentional exercise beyond going for a walk, break your fast. So don't, don't do fasted exercise anymore. And the reason for that is at midlife, we do have a tendency toward greater, greater muscle breakdown, muscle protein breakdown. It doesn't mean we have to give in to it, doesn't mean we have to go that way or that it will happen. It just— if you let it run away with you, it could. Yes. So break that fast so that from your overnight fast, where again you've gone hours without protein, so you are going to be in a muscle breakdown position. And then you don't want to go into exercise, which causes muscle breakdown, right? So set yourself up for success by fueling first with at least something if you haven't had a meal yet today. Consume calories, ideally higher in protein, for resistance training exercise, and include protein for high-intensity exercise or, or interval training. But it also carbohydrate. So a little, you know, bit of protein— so a smear of nut butter on a half a banana or on a, on a couple of rice cakes would, would be something better than nothing. Or a half a banana thrown into a mini protein shake just to fuel you, not to overwhelm the gut. You know, you want it to empty out of the gut very easily, so it's not a lot of not a lot of nut butter. We don't want a lot of fat. And that's it. That is the lowdown on muscle protein synthesis during menopause, why it becomes a bigger deal, and a bigger deal for females than it does for males. Now, if we, you know, all make it successfully to 75 and 80, things are going to even out a little bit. But right away, females are always slightly smaller So there is that. But to a woman who remains active, specifically active lifting weights, she's going to retain some of that muscle protein synthesis. So there is no reason you need to adopt, uh, the, the thought that you're going to lose muscle, you're going to get weak. You don't have to. But you also need to potentially dump the 'I'm too busy,' because there's going to come a time when you don't have the choice, right? That if you're choosing right now not to exercise and realize that you are choosing it, you may feel too busy, but if somebody's got a gun to your head and says, do you want to live or do you want to die? You could probably find some time to work out, could you not? I mean, this is really an important thing not to put off because at a time later, if you put it off and put it off, put it off, you will be weaker. You will have lost muscle because you let that happen. But it didn't happen because it has to with aging. And this is where we have to see— this is the difference in our generation. We know that there are 80-year-olds who are thriving. They're strong, they're vibrant, they even have endurance. They're doing amazing things. And there's no reason you or I can't be that. Surround yourself with people like that. And if you are not already in one of our programs and in one of our private groups, groups, why not join the Facebook group, at least the Flipping 50 Insiders group? That's Flipping 50 Insiders. Thank you so much for listening. To listen to a decade of episodes and get all the show notes, visit flipping50.com and you'll be able to find all of the previous episodes. And I made it easy to make the most of your listening time with the top 10 episodes in 5 areas that our community really cares about, like bone density or weight loss or how much protein do I really need. AKA, you can bet that this episode will land among that list. So if you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who also wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle choices and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife women. What are you waiting for? Let's start living 50 today.