Science that Makes Exercise Essential for Menopause Health

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What are you waiting for? Good night.

If you don't already know dozens of reasons that make exercise essential for menopause health, you may after this episode. I want to share with you 5 powerful quotes directly from the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, and then I'll tie each of them to the physiology of menopause. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew 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, and it's not just about you but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and 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 scenes and the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

If any pill or surgical procedure had the same positive effects of exercise, it would be the most widely prescribed medicine in the world. And the truth is, What wouldn't it do for you? It puts you in a better mood. It gives you a better libido. It assists with weight loss, although weight loss is not one of the things that exercise is known for. People reach for it, but it helps only indirectly. More on that later. Write in about that one. It helps or aids with belly fat. Specific kinds of exercise help most. It helps decrease the risk of disease. It helps decrease cortisol levels when you're using the right dose at the right time. Cortisol, or stress, is associated not indirectly but directly with over 80 diseases. So if we can mitigate the effects, the negative effects of stress and cortisol on our bodies, we can decrease or disease-proof ourselves. Quote number 2: In fact, it would be malpractice not to prescribe it—

exercise—

to every patient, every visit, regardless of medical specialty. Malpractice, right? If it were a pill, It would be malpractice not to prescribe it. And look what's happening now. And no offense to any of you who are using Ozempic or GLP-1 drugs, but look what's happening now and maybe how it might be getting in the hands of those who don't necessarily need it for medical reasons but are just choosing it as a way to avoid exercise and lifestyle changes that might help them to get it a little bit more healthfully. And without any negative risks. Number 3, it's recommended that physical activity be recorded as a vital sign, just as other modifiable risk factors are routinely assessed, like blood pressure, weight, smoking. Now this one, if you've tuned in recently to the What, When, and Why to Exercise for Women 40 Plus, the online event that I hosted in of this year. And by the way, if you missed it, I'll put a link in the show notes. You can still get your hands on the bundle and the recordings if you'd like to access that. You may have heard Dr. Felice Gersh. Her quote was, fitness is a vital sign. And as a physician and being a woman herself who's 60 I've never heard a physician, another physician, say that. I have never been to a doctor and asked what I do for exercise. I don't think most of the doctors that have ever seen me have ever asked what it is that I do or understood it. And I know that for a fact because very recently in an OB-GYN appointment, actually, I was asked— and somehow in the intake you put your profession, you put your employer. I know that, and I'm my own employer. But she was asking me about something that I could tell she didn't know enough about exercise to actually be asking that question and get any meaning from it, and yet had no idea that I most likely knew that answer better than she did. It was an interesting position to be in, and I just let it be a curious thing. I didn't make a point of it, but for most physician patient meetings? I'd love to know. How many times has your doctor asked you what you're doing for exercise? That's the question. Number 4, quote number 4 is, while other determinants of health like genetics, environment, and medical care influence health outcomes, by far the most important factor contributing to health outcomes is individual lifestyle and behavior. And none of these is more powerful than exercise. It's free, it's convenient, and yes, you can join a gym and pay for a fee, but you can also go for a walk. You can lift things around your home, bags of books, suitcases, and other ways to create quote unquote, wait. There are so many ways for you to exercise that are free and open to the public for either free or very, very nominal fee. Whereas you will find that all drugs have a negative side effect and in most cases are not free, exercise has only positive side effects outside of the additional laundry. That you may find that you have to do. And number 5, a 2015 article from JAMA— that's the Journal of the American Medical Association— Internal Medicine states there are no medication treatment that can influence as many organ systems in a positive manner as can physical activity. Pretty powerful, right? So it is at our fingertips, at our toes. It's our ability, it's our human right. And we all, no matter our economic status, where we live in the world, our geography, our education, we all have access to movement every single day. Now, this science, none of this was written based on menopause.

It was based on the obesity and physical inactivity, quote unquote, pandemic.

And I'm not talking about the one in 2020, but the one that began about the same time that SnackWell's came out with low-fat cookies and experienced its birth. Yet everything in this and other research studies applies to menopause. This is a point in time. If you're in midlife, in menopause or post-menopause, you're either going to choose to get and to stay healthier, or by not exercising properly, you're at risk of accelerating the rate of aging and disease. So you're either kind of getting on this train and it's going in this direction of aging muscle loss and bone loss, or you're slowing the brake, you're slowing it down or stopping it and saying, oh no, no, no, we're going to go in the opposite direction. You're doing one or the other consciously. It's a choice. In 2024, we know this is true, that you are in charge of what it is happens. The right exercise is essential. And this is key right here. These are all quotes directly from the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, and that was from a 2020 article, and it cited numerous papers within it published from between 2007 and 2009 related to this exercise is medicine trademarked term. That joint project between two prestigious organizations. That was the American Medical Association and the American College of Sports Medicine. Now, for those of you not familiar, I know we all are familiar with American Medical Association, okay, but American College of Sports Medicine may be less familiar to you, but for me, as a, since 1982, an exercise physiologist, kinesiologist. It writes the Bible for position statements that the fitness industry has used for years on the quota, the amount, the frequency, the dosing of exercise for all people. So how much should you exercise? You're often asked that or are asking that. And I would say today, that's the wrong question. Although I was taught and I taught that there's a frequency, there is a duration, there is an intensity level that should be selected for optimal health and fitness.

It's a lie.

And I spoke about this in my TEDx talk, and I'll put that in the resources.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there is one thing you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk that the sugar and the extras that you don't want, that I don't want, hiding in most protein powders. That's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree, real food first, but it's just not convenient to to carry a turkey sandwich. Sometimes the protein, and don't forget the fiber, they kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've gotta make it easy to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at flipping50.com today.

It's not the same for everybody. What we need to be doing is measuring how much lean muscle mass do we have, how much bone density do we have, how much body fat do we have, how much inflammation do we have. A little harder when you get to that. How much cortisol do we have? How well is our thyroid and our adrenals functioning? How well is our liver functioning? Those things will tell us Are we on the right track with our lifestyle habits? We should be measuring instead of a quota somebody gave us. We should be looking at, well, what are we doing right now? How well is that working? And be gradually pulling away or adding to depending on where that is. A framework is important. A position statement that doesn't apply to everyone maybe a broad framework to say, okay, here's what I'm doing now. Now, according to this, maybe it's a little too much or too little based on how I feel. If you're not sleeping and you're not doing anything, probably yes, I'd start you doing something. But if you're not sleeping and you're doing a lot, I would stop you from doing all of it. So there's a big difference in in just a broad blanket, you should be doing 5 days a week or so of cardio exercise. Not everyone should, not right now. It may not make the most sense to you in order for you to feel good, hold on to muscle, decrease the belly fat. So we've got to look at it as let's talk about you based on the framework. If This Then That makes far more sense. In the first 5 years since that Exercise is Medicine project was coined, that term, the platforms were built, you know, and, and all of that was behind the scenes and online, and there were prescription pads made up, and likely millions of dollars were spent But still not much has happened. Here we are with less than 20% of all women— that's all ages— lifting weights at least twice weekly, something that we absolutely know will increase lean muscle tissue, therefore decreasing body fat, improving overall body composition, decreases risk for disease including dementia, Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease. But we're not doing it. For women in menopause, strength training properly could significantly impact at least 7 of the most common symptoms experienced by midlife women. For the right now, the immediate gratification that we all want— decreasing hot flashes. Did you know that by lifting weights intensely enough, if you're picking up pink dumbbells and you're not reaching muscular fatigue there's a reason why it's not working. All of the researchers who are parts of the studies who say yes, this can decrease symptoms in menopause, say if the exercise is intense enough. Never before have you needed intense exercise at another time more than you do right now. It's not a time to slow down unless you're feeling exhausted. Then yes, but otherwise it's a time to put your foot on the accelerator, go a little faster, go a little harder against more resistance, and then take adequate recovery in order to be ready to do it again next time. So knowing that we can improve the symptoms not only during menopause— muscle is an endocrine organ. So if you're wondering about hormone replacement therapy and wondering if you do or you don't because of negative side effects, You know, you've got to realize, hopefully, and you know, you've got to love or hate social media, but one of the good things is it's coming to the forefront that, you know, it's all been dispelled. The studies that you've learned that have been in your head for too long, that it was false. It's not true, right? So you've got to erase what's been there for a long time. That's hard, but there are no negative side effects to exercise. And it can act like an endocrine organ. In other words, as a hormone. Only 32% of patients received advice from their physicians or other healthcare professionals to exercise or continue being physically active during a visit with their physician. 32%. So that's about a third of us gets that kind of advice. Only 12% of all medical doctors were required to take any course related to exercise during their medical education. 12%. The answers are there, but no one is coming. So here's what you have to understand. No one is coming to help a doctor have more time in their schedule, more time in an appointment, to help a fitness trainer to develop a relationship with a doctor. So that they can be trusted and used as a referral for a doctor who doesn't know the exercise prescription, who can't advise beyond that 13 or 14 minutes they have in an average appointment. It's up to you and to me and to us. We've done much harder things. We have to advocate for ourselves. It's right there. You have to demand and ask, have you been trained in exercise science based on women just like me in menopause? We have to know to ask that. We have to know, is there somebody that you trust as a physician? Do you know somebody who's trained as a medical— a menopause exercise specialist? And the other alternative is a medical exercise specialist. Who does know a little bit more about special populations, and at the very least, more about osteoporosis, and not just osteoporosis in a textbook that was written 3 to 4 years ago before it was published and then in your hands and is already outdated. Please know that some of the more recent studies pertaining to menopause and pertaining to things like osteoporosis, a chief concern among women, are outdated and not up to date in what is being studied. Many women with osteoporosis, osteopenia, still believe they should not do a rotational stretch in a yoga class. And what we've seen from many of the studies like those done by Dr. Lauren Fishman is a rotated triangle is a part of the 12 poses done on a daily basis that increased bone density with almost zero injury rates and dropout rates and consistently increased bone density by 1 to 2% on average, not just one year but over 7 years. So these things are crucial. We've— I've shown a stretch before in our community And women say, well, I don't do that because it's not good for someone with osteopenia. And I'm not sure where they're getting that information, but outdated information lives on, on the internet once it's published. Textbooks that sit on someone's shelves for years that once taught them what was the most up-to-date information, at least at time of writing, not even at publication, you know, are potentially more harmful than beneficial because it stops people if they think they know, it stops them from asking the answer. So I'm going to leave you with this call to action and it's soft, but it's what if we assumed we didn't know? That the jury is still out so that we stayed curious and we kept asking questions, not expecting that somebody might be wrong, but really driving for, is that the most up-to-date answer? Have you heard anything new recently about that? Could keep us curious and keep us protecting ourselves for the long duration. About what's truly possible for our own health, for our muscle, for our bone, and our brain health. I hope that's been helpful. It is up to us. We have done so many harder things in our lives. Just look behind you at all you've done. You've got to advocate for yourself. Don't follow blindly an exercise program because you've always followed it, or an instructor because you love her or always have loved him. If they know, they'll share. If they don't know, ask, and you may make them aware that there's more that they could learn. You're just one workout away, as long as it's the right workout, the right time, the right timing for you, from feeling better and from reversing the effects of aging. What are you waiting for? Let's do this.

Thank you for listening. To listen to a decade of episodes and to get the show notes, visit flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all the previous episodes. And I made it super easy to make the most of your listening time and get exactly what you want to listen to as top priority by getting the top 10 episodes in the areas you most care about, like how much protein do you need, weight loss, and other 3 ultra important topics we've identified as our community's top 5. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife women. So go and listen right now. Do you have a question for a podcast? A question you'd love to ask, or maybe a story you want to tell? Did you know we have a special group just for podcast question roundups and the answers? My community coaches and I provide answers daily inside of this group, but it's also where I go when I occasionally say, okay, open call for podcast questions or tell your story. Would you like to be a guest. So if you're looking for a community of women who are also interested in optimizing their health, strengthening their mindset, and looking forward to every new year, join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50 Insiders on Facebook.