Protein for Menopause Hormone Support

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 25mg of CBD and 25mg 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. Feeling moody, low energy, constantly craving carbs in midlife? It might not just be your hormones. Could be your protein intake and its effect on your hormones. In today's episode, we're unpacking the protein and hormone connection. Why your daily meals might be the hormonal tune-up that you didn't know you needed.

I'm Debra Atkinson, and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness and menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman.

It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence.

My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause-and-beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve.

Welcome back to the show. Today we're unpacking something most midlife women are totally missing: protein for menopause hormone support. And I first want to give you all an apology in case, in case I assume that you already know something. I find that Actually, I've found very recently several times that the universe is kind of tapping me on the shoulder. You know what, it does that. It's not really loud, but then it will get louder if you don't pay attention. I'm getting that quiet whisper that we're skipping, we're skipping ahead, we're assuming that you know about the importance of protein, about the importance of eating your carbs last at a meal, about the importance of doing small muscle groups last in your workouts. Making sure that you're taking adequate rest and recovery days, but also making sure you understand what rest and recovery means. It's not sitting on the couch, that active recovery is far more beneficial. It's just you're not going full out, all out workout, hard and heavy every day, or you're probably setting yourself up for an injury. But if I have, if I have assumed too much, I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear if you feel like, wait a minute, everybody's talking about this and I'm, I'm still here and I don't understand this. If you don't recognize that you're in perimenopause or what it is for sure, you're not quite sure about where you stand on hormone replacement, or you still are a little bit fearful even though everybody's talking about being on them, and you still think you can do it all naturally and think supplements, or that you don't like to take supplements and you feel kind of proud when you that, let me know. Okay, let's make sure that we're going in the right direction with how we're helping and supporting you, and that in fact we are on this podcast. We want to be the ones you tune into and you feel like we're catching you up where others might have left you behind. So if you are over 35 and you're noticing things like weight gain in uncommon places for you, like particularly belly fat, yes, but a lot of women will notice them. Okay, I'm getting fat around the knees, I'm getting fat in my upper arms, I'm getting fat under my bra line or my armpit or those— what do we call them— flanks? That's an ugly word. I'm so sorry, but you know what I mean, I think. If you have cravings that won't quit, you have mood swings, and that, you know, you're tired but you go to bed and you're kind of wired and struggle to actually get to sleep or stay asleep. Or wake too early, or hopefully not for you, but all of the above. It's not just your hormones. It might be the protein intake. And maybe the easy solution for your hormones apart— not saying that it's the only thing you might want to do, just saying it is an and. And I believe, truly believe, that if we make the lifestyle changes that take us 80 to 90% of the way, some of us are still potentially going to want and/or need and realize the value in terms of longevity, not just symptoms of bioidentical hormone replacement, but those will be far more effective when you're doing the lifestyle changes that you need. And likewise, the workouts you're doing will have far greater efficacy if you're on HRT at the right dose for you. So let's talk about this. In this episode, I'm going to break down how protein supports your key hormones like estrogen, cortisol, insulin, and testosterone and growth hormone. Why your protein needs go up in midlife. Spoiler alert: estrogen used to help build muscle for you, or at the very least, preserve it, hold on to it. And now it doesn't. It has left the building. And how to resist or resistance training. Yeah, how to resist training— how to use resistance training and high leucine protein sources to turn your metabolism back on. Plus, I've created a free, by the way, Protein for Hormone Support Challenge. It gives you daily protein goals by just handing it to you. Every recipe that you're going to make for yourself, or you can double it for you and somebody else, or triple or quadruple for a family, is 35 grams of protein. You don't have to think about it. You just have to pick the flavors that jump out at you. And if you're feeling like I'm picky, well, there's over 120. I think you'll find something. Just even— it's free. So the price is right for you to just browse that. So I set it up so if you wanted to, you were really ambitious or really crazy, like I remember my first year of marriage, I don't think I made the same recipe twice. And any year after that, I made them millions of times. But there was that first year. If you wanna do that, knock yourself out, you can. But if you wanna do it a little bit more sanely and just choose a few favorites that you'll rotate during week 1, choose a few different favorites you'll rotate during week 2, you can do that too. And we'll talk you through that with, some email communication and/or some coaching inside the group. So I'll share how to join at the end of the episode. It'll be in the show notes. As we move through midlife— and let's define it, should we? I would say midlife is probably anywhere between 40 and 60, right? So we have the ability to live to 120, so 60 is still legit. It's legit midlife. So I'm just outside of that just now, like 5 minutes outside of that. But our hormone levels don't just dip. For females, they plummet. Cortisol spikes, insulin sensitivity nosedives, testosterone and growth hormone decline, estrogen takes a sharp downturn. What's often missing from the conversation is protein. So when we talk about those things, often we can get into a blame and name the hormone to blame game. But it's really a lot of our habits will impact some of these things. Now, you're not going to gain muscle and all of a sudden now you do have estrogen. It's probably not going to work that way. But we can offset with our lifestyle activities, stopping some things and starting others, how we can achieve some of the very similar and maybe better results even than when you had when you were younger if you weren't a regular exerciser with our exercise, and namely today, protein. So we're going to connect the dots between protein intake and your key hormones: cortisol, insulin, estrogen, testosterone, growth hormone, ghrelin, and leptin. And spoiler alert, your 20-gram-per-meal target probably not cutting it for you anymore. Okay, so we're gonna dive into this one by one. Just a quick shout out to those of you who won it. Remember the protein challenge to support you getting this naturally, as I think sometimes we make it a little bit too complicated. I know for a fact that I as a coach have made it too complicated for some of my clients in suggesting let's track first, let's count and I would love to have you do that. But if that just feels overwhelming, what if we just started focusing on— here's recipes that naturally do what we want them to do. How about you start making and eating some of these? That may be your best first step if it just is like, I'm not tracking, I'm not counting, not going there. But you can go here because we all have to eat. Okay, so let's talk about this We're going to look at cortisol first because it's kind of got a bad rap. I think we can all agree. So cortisol levels increase during midlife, whether you admit it, you like to acknowledge it, or you don't. When estrogen goes down, our corresponding response in the body is cortisol goes up. So also goes up in response to low blood sugar or high blood sugar or stress, common when meals are higher in carb and lower in protein. A high-protein diet blunts cortisol spikes that we all get post-meal. So if we're not eating, it's been a couple of hours, our blood sugar is fairly stable. But right after a meal, within about 30 minutes, we will see— if we were looking at it with a continuous blood glucose monitor, we'll put one of those or a link to the one I love inside of the show notes as well— we'll see this little whoop. And we hope we see a little— there's a little hill there instead of a mountain peak straight up. So let's say you had spaghetti and you didn't have very much meat sauce on it at all. You just had the vegan or the vegetarian, so there's not very much fat. There's just carbohydrates and tomato sauce and some spices. So it might still taste yummy, but it's not helping your blood sugar any. So that problematic, we're going to have a much bigger spike. Whereas say you had meatballs With that pasta and tomato sauce, not as big a spike. Say you had the meatballs first before you then had some pasta, probably the least of all spike. Interesting, right? Okay, so cortisol and protein. If you have more protein, you're going to have lesser of a spike at any given meal. Now, of the 3— carbohydrate, protein, and fat— fat actually causes the least amount of blood sugar elevation. But what we know about it is it's calorically dense, so lots of calories for a small amount of food. So having that sparingly when you eat— say you're eating grass-fed, grass-finished beef, you're eating salmon, you're getting some built-in fat there that actually helps with both the source of the protein and the fat— tend to help to stabilize your blood sugar a little bit or having some fiber at that meal is also going to be helpful. So depending on what the pasta was made of, let's say it was a black bean pasta, probably not going to spike your blood sugar quite as much, right, as just a regular grain type of pasta. Okay, let's talk now. In response to a blood sugar rise, the hormone that comes out to fix that is called insulin. So insulin's stimulated by protein somewhat, but it's modulated in a way that helps with blood sugar stability. So I want you to hear what I just said. I was just asked this question the other day, and it was in reference to protein. And she said, you know, some quote-unquote other guru expert says that you know, too much protein can spike blood sugar. And it can, and it sometimes depends on what type of protein, what's your current status, your stress status, what are you having with it in conjunction with it. All of that can impact how much your blood sugar will spike. But protein stimulates insulin, but in a modulated way. It helps to stabilize your blood sugar stability, not spike it. In older populations, protein helps serve and preserve insulin sensitivity. So for midlife women, this is really important right now. I wouldn't call us older populations, please, right? So, but at 40, between 40 and 50, in perimenopause in general— not every woman is in it in that period, but generally between 40 and 50, at some part of it, she's in perimenopause— so we can safely say that we can draw that conclusion. But when we look at insulin sensitivity, women in perimenopause have less of it. It's why we call it the opposite. We call it insulin resistant, meaning your body is making it, but it's not getting into the cell. And the reason is estrogen was like here escorting you into the cell. And now it's not. The door is kind of closed, and so you have to have more and more insulin to get it into the cell. You're not sensitive to it. So nobody's showing up at the door and saying, come on in, insulin, in terms of the cell. So especially when you combine protein with resistance training, doing that strength training on a regular basis, you become more insulin sensitive. And these are from studies, you know, back in the day. These are what I called back in the day, almost, not quite, 20 years ago. And you might be saying, and this is legit, you know, that why not— why aren't you sharing current, more up-to-date research? Well, in some of this, when the foundation for research in a certain topic is laid, we know that some of this is a given. Do we need more studies on what happens specifically to women in perimenopause versus postmenopause versus premenopause menopause? Absolutely. But we do know that in general, in aging populations— and so take that into— that probably means both men and women— protein helps to preserve insulin sensitivity when it's combined especially with resistance training. You're even better off. And we've known that, right, for facts. And you've seen it probably yourself if you've started to strength train. Next, let's talk ghrelin and leptin, because if you, if you ever picked up my book You Still Got It, Girl: The After 50 Fitness Formula for Women— I wrote that back in 2000, I think wrote it in 2015, published in '15 or '16. It's terrible that it's that long ago, but we are updating it, by the way, this coming year. And cortisol goes wonky, ghrelin and leptin go wonky, right? I know, great, highly technical term, but I think you get it. So ghrelin is your hunger hormone. Leptin is the satiety hormone. So ghrelin tells you you're hungry. Sometimes ghrelin lies. Yes, it's not, not a great hormone, right? Protein is the most effective macronutrient at suppressing ghrelin, meaning the more protein you have at each meal, the more in control of your choices, your blood sugar, you're going to be up until your next meal. So in fact, there is some proof that the higher your protein meal, the higher level protein you're eating at a meal, the higher or better choices you will make at the concurrent meal. The very next meal, you're going to make better choices because your blood sugar is stable. When do we get out of control? It's that feeling like I need to eat and I need to eat right now. And I don't really care what it is, like move your hand or I might stab it with my fork. That, that is like describing a pregnant woman sometimes. Did you ever have that? I absolutely did. You know, I was fine. And then, and then it would be like, no, I'm not fine. I'm hungry right now. Right. And I've never experienced that again, ever. Not, not even, knock on wood, in menopause or post-menopause. But that was like, I don't care, get out of my way, feed me right now, I need to eat. That changed everything. But ghrelin will do that to you if— and often this happens after a night of sleep deprivation— your cortisol can be so off that then you are really much more vulnerable to snacking and, and dare I say, binging. It's not necessarily that, it's just you get this gnawing feeling that you're hungry and it may in fact be a physiological feeling, but it's not like your stomach is growling. It's more of a low blood sugar because of the deprivation of the sleep, the change in cortisol, the blood sugar swings. It, it's, it's all a domino effect. But then here's where leptin teams up with ghrelin. And remember, it's your satiety hormone, so it's the one that tells you you're full even if you have food on your plate and you can push away. Now, some of us don't recognize that because we were raised in the Happy Plate of America club. Anybody else had to sit there until your plate was cleaned? Oh my gosh, I stared at that tater tot casserole for hours. I would finally sweep it off my plate into a napkin. I would slink out of my chair, throw it in the garbage, slink back up into my chair, and then get up from the table and let my parents, who were in the living room, kind of could me know that I was done. Yes. So I could have gotten easily up from the table without cleaning my plate if I had tater tot casserole sitting on it. But other than that, leptin has left the building means you can't stop eating. You're gonna just keep going even though you're not— you know, you're eating more than a normal person would. You're eating more than you normally would. And this is not the same thing as you say no one can eat just one in a bag of chips. That is much more related to processed food. They put the things they put in there on purpose so that you are addicted to the taste and the flavor and you want more of it and you keep coming back to it. It's a little different than that. This is just a— you don't ever get that sense of you're full. You, you are constantly hungry. So protein helps with this as well, helping to regulate your leptin sensitivity over time. The protein theory is something that is a great thing for us to share right here. And really, it goes that if the body doesn't get enough protein, if you haven't met your body's protein needs, it's going to tell you all the time that you're hungry. And the problem is the message is not very clear. It's like you're first learning French and you really don't know anything except "oui," "bonjour," "arrivederci." Is that— I don't know, maybe that's Italian. Okay, enough of the foreign language lessons. But the problem is the message isn't clear. From that protein theory, it's going to tell you you're hungry, but it's not going to shout out to you, "You need protein." It's just going to send you into the break room at work, opening that drawer where you have your stash in your office, or into the refrigerator where you open it up and you stare inside, you know, and somehow, you know, the leftover doesn't look all that great, but the cookies, cookies sure do, right? So it is that cookies, cakes, chocolate, you know, You're just going to be a little vulnerable if you don't have that. So you have ghrelin telling you you're hungry, you don't have leptin telling you you're full. Bad combination, right? So let's look at protein's relationship with estrogen. What exactly is that? So it's somewhat indirect.

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If you will, estrogen is what we call an anabolic hormone, and you're either anabolic hormones or catabolic hormone. So anabolic builds us up, preserves it, keeps it. Catabolic is what it sounds like almost, is a little bit of cannibalism. Catabolic means we're in a breakdown, and you can't be on the fence, really. Pretty much we're in breakdown or buildup. The fence is very, very narrow, so don't be thinking you're sitting on that, just preserving, staying. You're one or the other, right? So be on the other, right? That's where you want to be. So what I need you to think about is We want to maintain that muscle, the insulin sensitivity, so we get the insulin into cells. Therefore, we don't need the insulin anymore, so we're not in fat storage anymore. And we want metabolic efficiency, meaning if we eat more carbs on a day because it happens to be a birthday cake, or somebody decides for their special treat they want to go to a pasta Italian place instead of something that prefer, maybe a little bit more healthier, you can do it. It's not a big deal. And yet other days you eat higher fat or higher protein levels, your body can adjust up and down, burning a little bit more, burning a little bit less, depending on what you give it. No problem. An estrogen decline like that rock and roll roller coaster we go through in perimenopause, or the abrupt boom fell off the cliff kind when we hit menopause, it will decline in perimenopause and menopause. Its natural support of muscle protein synthesis disappears. So that anabolic result that we got from it— thank you, God, it was a gift— we don't get anymore with estrogen no longer stimulating naturally muscle protein synthesis. Now make no mistake, Even in our 40s, in our 30s, we did ideally need to be lifting weights. So even if we weren't, we got, we got a hall pass to some degree in the slowing of our muscle loss because we still had estrogen. But as we don't have that anymore, what's to protect us from losing that muscle? Nothing, right? Unless we start resistance training and we begin eating a little more protein than we've been used to eating in the past. For the most part, I have yet to find women who started working with me in their 40s who were eating adequate amount of protein. And, and likewise, women in their 50s and 60s don't tend to eat a lot of protein, and they tend to take the smaller piece and think, if I have smaller portions, this will be better. Smaller portions of everything except for protein. Don't give that one up because that could backfire on you. All right, so we need resistance training, we need high-quality protein and an adequate amount of it. And this is a good place to drop in— leucine-rich especially is very beneficial. So of all the essential amino acids, those are the ones we have to take in on a daily basis, because our body can generate 11 of them, but the other 9 we have to get in food every single day. And one of them in particular stands out, and that one is leucine when it comes to older adults maintaining their lean muscle mass. So we need between 2.5 and 3, um, grams of leucine daily. Now, if you eat animal protein, you're probably getting that really easily. However, if you don't, it's a bit more of a struggle. And if you're eating, um, like me, for instance, I eat animal protein, but I generally don't have a lot of animal protein in the morning. I'm not totally against bacon or sausage, but I tend not to have them in the morning because I'm so used to eating a little bit lighter for my start. Feeling lighter when I'm working out or exercising, even if it's walking, not necessarily high intensity, feels better to me and in my digestive system. And you get used to— your body gets used to doing the same thing that you've done. We need diversity, but we also need some consistency. Appreciates both. So I prefer leucine-rich foods, but yet at breakfast I use pea protein. Pea protein is not as high in leucine as, say, a whey protein. But many of us, self-included, don't tolerate dairy really well anymore. So realize that anything that's causing you to feel gassy, bloated, constipated, or have diarrhea, or a combination of those, is not really getting digested and broken down by you, and it may have other negative side effects. So the reason I stopped doing dairy when I was 30 is, um, training. So I was exercising as a fitness professional in a leadership role, but also training for my first marathon that year, and I realized that the phlegm— and I know that sounds gross to talk about, but I don't mean it was a real problem where I was choking on it or couldn't breathe— but you notice it. You notice small things like clearing your throat or, you know, coughing or sneezing. Uh, and when you remove dairy, it suddenly clears up, and it's just so— it's so vastly different. So I encourage you, if you don't know what I'm talking about, out, especially if you're an exerciser, because it will show up more prominently for you, just to test it for yourself. So there's that. And, and I highly recommend you test all of these things, whether lab test or your own. Eliminate this for a short period of time and then reintroduce it so that you can really test. When it's there and you say, well, that doesn't bother me, because you're saying I don't get constipated or gassy or bloated or diarrhea, you may not realize how good you could feel feel, because we're all just kind of settling without knowing we're settling for the feeling we've always had. So realize this. So I digress. I know this is a real sidetrack, but little pieces like this are so very important because if you're experiencing any of that gas, constipation, bloating, diarrhea, you're not breaking down the foods that you are consuming. So even if you were taking that whey protein because it's leucine-rich, you may not be absorbing it, and it's potentially getting in the way of great digestion and great absorption of the vitamins and minerals that you do also take in. So it's important to look at— so next, muscle protein synthesis declines with age, so keep this in mind, and even more so without estrogen, right? So muscle protein synthesis declines starting at about age 30. We peak at 25, we kind of coast for a bit. So from 30 on, we lose between 3 and 8% a decade of our muscle if we're not doing something to fight it. And I hope that you know by now that we need to finish that sentence always. So it's not just we are going to lose 3 to 8%. No, only if we're not paying attention, we're not lifting weights, we're not getting adequate stimulus for the muscle, and then we're not feeding that muscle. Then yes, we will. If we're very sedentary, we don't get up frequently, and we don't resistance train, and we don't eat protein, we will be losing muscle. And you will be coming to me and saying, help me lose weight. And I will have to say to you, I'm not a weight loss coach. I'll help you get strong, I'll help you get fit, I'll help you avoid obsession with calories and counting, but I won't necessarily lead with fat or weight loss. We're going to gain lean muscle, and that will result in the side effects that you actually want. But we can't necessarily target those. It's not as easy as that, but we can control gaining muscle much easier. And definitely gaining strength. So realize that the RD level is not sufficient in midlife or even for younger adults, and that's pretty much agreed on by registered dietitians, by longevity and geriatric experts alike, knowing that that is an outdated recommendation. It the minimum to avoid death. Do you want to start shooting for that target? It sounds kind of depressing. So I would think about instead what's on your bucket list that you want to do. You know, is it skiing in the Swiss Alps? Is it, you know, hiking the Grand Canyon? Is it, you know what? But whatever that is for you, I would focus on how do you need to eat to do that. So experts— and this comes from ISSN, that's the International Sports Nutrition Society— recommends between 1.6 and 2.2 kilograms of— or grams per kilogram of body weight. Let me say that again, sorry. 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So hear that out, as opposed to the 0.8— that's less than 1 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So we want to make sure we're getting a little bit more adequate protein. And what the equivalent is of that, if you do the math, much more simple, it's about 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. Weight. That math is the same. So if you did it, you said, okay, what is my weight in pounds? What is that in kilograms? How many grams per kilogram? It would come out practically to the same— 1 gram protein per pound of ideal body weight. That's about where you need to be for eating for active midlife women to maintain muscle metabolism, hormonal resilience. But you also might understand that your nails, your skin, your hair are going to be in better shape. You're going to have more energy. All things are so much better off. So this episode, by the way, is brought to you by Flipping 50 Longevity Pro Protein and Fiber. It's the simplest of ingredients, cleanest third-party tested protein powder formulated specifically for midlife metabolism There's no bloat, no fillers, just functional fuel. My recommendation isn't that you substitute protein and water, for instance, for a meal, but that you're using protein powder in conjunction with— it's supplemental to— so it's supplemental to you choosing healthy other proteins, particularly necessary if you're on a plant-based diet. It's very hard to get the adequate essential amino that you need. No offense to our vegans or vegetarians that are here, but it makes it hard for you to balance hormones or support your own natural hormone balance, whether you're on HRT or you're not, with what you're doing because there's such a high carbohydrate count. I realize there's also a higher fiber count. There's pros and cons to everything, but what if we could pick the pros and eat a lot of plant-based foods foods in addition to eating animal proteins that kept you thriving. And I think the biggest thing for all of us is look at the results you're getting. Are you happy with them? Is that where you want to be? And if not, you know, then look at what if you let your body decide if this is the best plan for you or not. Not just for today and your skinny jeans or the size 2s, but for your tomorrow. And what might happen if you remained that thin or skinny without much muscle mass. What will happen in 20 years? So if you want to try this, just for being a podcast, um, participant listener, use code PODCAST10 for 10% off at checkout. You can go to flipping50.com/protein. Just for being here, that's for you. Let's talk about this framework of the anabolic and catabolic hormones again. So just to paint the picture on who's on what side of the fence, right? Because can't really be on the fence. The anabolic hormones, they build and they repair. And what are they? Testosterone, growth hormone, estrogen, and surprisingly insulin. And insulin swings both ways. So So at times it can help to build muscle, but other times it actually increases fat and fat storage and is not ideal. But during midlife menopause, our testosterone, our growth hormone, and our estrogen production all decline. And so not good for our anabolic ability just to maintain our muscle mass all by ourselves. We have to do things. We have to exercise correctly not to kill what testosterone we might be able to create. We can still produce a decent amount of it. Some of us can in our older age. Growth hormone, we can still do it. It's lessened, but we have to be exercising correctly or we won't. And there are other episodes, and I'll tease a little something we have coming out talking about interval training. There's a brand new guide that'll help you understand what is and isn't high-intensity interval training and why if you're doing long sessions it could backfire on you instead of doing what you really want it to do. Maybe increasing your fat stores, maybe increasing hormones that are catabolic and not anabolic. But testosterone and growth hormone can really be kicked in when you exercise intensely correctly. Whether that's lifting weights or doing HIIT. So very, very important with insulin. We're not going to change that dramatically in terms of its benefit or not for looking at your, uh, catabolism or anabolism for muscle, but it's going to be there in part in response to your blood sugar levels. And by increasing your lean muscle mass and eating more protein, which is also very helpful, you're going to improve your insulin sensitivity. All good things. Protein intake supports all of these by providing the essential amino acid building blocks that are needed for that build of the muscle. Let's talk catabolic hormones, the downers of the day. These are ones that break down muscle, so literally they're kind of in there being evil villains of muscle tissues, energy stores. Cortisol, number one. So no more stress. And I know that's— I mean, that one's impossible. But what you're looking for truly is your sweet spot of stress. Cause your own stress. Go get exercise, because that also, if you use it correctly, will decrease your stress. Now, some of you love endurance exercise, and you are at risk. And I can tell you that because I am you. I'd love to go out for a 4-hour hike as opposed to a 2-hour hike. I would love to go for a 4, 4.5-hour bike ride instead of just, you know, an hour or hour and a half even. But those things are not really my best friend for my hormones right now. My head thinks I still want to do them, but my body has actually said, you know, I really don't think those is what I want to do anymore. And it's given me lots of signs, not like breaking down necessarily, but it's just like, this doesn't feel as good as it used to. And it's, it's just nothing is clicking. It doesn't get into a flow. So listen to those keys, those clues, those— how do you feel afterward, not just during it, but all of those things. If you're trying trying to get back to somebody that you were or somewhere that you were, probably it's not going to work as well as going forward. Besides cortisol, you want epinephrine and norepinephrine to be on your pattern of, okay, recognition right here. They mobilize energy in terms of you get into a fight-or-flight spot where you have to have that superpower going on because all of a sudden it's like, oh my gosh, I just forgot that. It's like you're You're almost in an accident and you slam on the brakes and you just screech to a halt and you just barely miss hitting the guy in front of you with your bumper. And it's like, where'd that come from out of the blue? Where are they? What's going on here? Those little instances and moments, all of a sudden it's like, you did that. That reaction skill came from epinephrine, norepinephrine. Likewise, your dog is taking off and running. It's like, you never knew that you could run that fast until you saw them, you know, at risk for getting run over. Those little things, those release that burst of energy that you need, but there is harm in the wake. And the problem is we're not actually having the release of epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol in bursts like that where it then goes away. Unfortunately, we're more chronically on and alarmed all the time, and so we're struggling with constantly breaking down and then trying to rebuild it. So we've got to be aware that strength training, protein, and yes, getting adequate recovery is very important. I would tell you that out of 1,000 members And now almost all have been injured at some point in their probably recent 5 to 10 years. And these are all midlife women between 45 and 77. So we go all the way up. But what's important to remember is some of those injuries may have been unnecessary. They may not have just been from overtraining or getting sloppy, but maybe because of inadequate protein intake. Inadequate micronutrient density in the diet, and maybe from inadequate preparation for exercise. But all of those pieces come into play. Chronically elevated catabolic hormones and low protein levels cause muscle loss, cause cravings, and cause fatigue. And that right there just described a lot of women in midlife. And what, what we collectively complain about. I don't see any muscle tone. I— where did it go? I'm constantly hungry.

I even—

after meals I'm hungry, and I am tired all the time. I've heard each of those many, many times, and it's why we structure our programs the way we do, based on science that is optimally respecting the muscle needs, the bone needs, the brain health needs, but also the endocrine needs, not ignoring cortisol while not ignoring adrenals and the domino effect that they all have on thyroid. One more thing we need to mention is fat storage here. Insulin— so it's context-dependent. Insulin isn't actually a catabolic hormone, but it does increase fat storage. So it can be anabolic, right, just for a brief moment. You can't be burning fat when insulin is high. You're in fat storage. And that is true for many women because they're insulin resistant, because there's not enough muscle, they're not moving enough to move what muscle they do have. And so we are constantly like beating ourselves up, like we're too tired, and then we get cravings for carbs when we're tired, and comfort food. And so we're spiking our blood sugar again, putting us deeper into insulin resistance and fat storage, and it's a vicious cycle. We're not ever going to feel better until we start or stop that train. We've got to say, okay, I'm going to have higher protein meals, more water, and not no carbs, just carbs at the right time and of the right type. So, you know, we're not talking chips, Right. Okay. Enough said. So these things— estrogen used to do a lot of heavy lifting for us. It buffered insulin. Actually, it escorted insulin into our cells and it helped with our muscle protein synthesis, keeping the metabolism humming, and now is on vacation in Tahiti without us. How rude. We have to work a little bit harder to get the same results. And protein is one of the most valuable and powerful tools in how How delicious is that, right? I mean, we're not even saying go on a diet, start counting points. We're just saying sit down to a healthy serving of protein and watch yourself get full and satisfied with fewer calories. It's how easy it is. Protein is not just something for bodybuilders or teenage boys growing at alarming fast rates. It's medicine in midlife. It's the only way, along with heavy lifting things, that we can get the muscle back that estrogen used to protect. If you're still eating like you did at 25, which might have been light on your protein, lots of snacking, lots of carbohydrates, and you could get away with it, you're unintentionally fueling the catabolism storm that midlife creates, or midlife hormones create for you. Interestingly enough, protein actually helps reduce cortisol. So both reducing muscle breakdown and increasing muscle protein buildup— bonus. Okay, so if you want the studies that I mentioned today, they will be in the show notes, so you can head there at flipping50.com. .com/protein for menopause hormone support. And what are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 today.

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