What I Would Do to Boost Fat Burning Over 40, 50 or 60 (I’m 62)

Quick heads up before we dive in. Enrollment for the Flipping 50: The Stronger Way is open all month long, and you can still save $100 on annual membership. That's a total savings of $379 compared to paying monthly. Inside, you'll find 12-week strength training programs, plus dozens of yoga, Pilates, mobility, balance, stability, core, corrective exercise, agility, power, and recovery all designed specifically for women in midlife and beyond, all evidence-based and waiting for you no matter what life is throwing at you in this moment. This isn't just about longevity for someday later. It's about feeling stronger, moving better, and having more energy today. The link is waiting for you in the show notes. I'd love to welcome you inside. Hey, in case you're interested in fat burning, this is your episode. This is my episode. This is every woman's episode. And I would hesitate— well, very, very little would I hesitate to say this is everybody's episode because I think we are obsessed about fat loss and fat burning, even if we're at a healthy fat, which is an interesting concept. I'm not going to get into that, but we are going to talk all about fat burning. And if you are here and you have some adrenal fatigue, I'm going to address you at the very beginning and do an entire episode just for you. Here we go. 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. Hey, welcome or welcome back, depending on if this is your first or one of your first podcast episodes here at Flipping 50 the Stronger Way, and welcome anybody. I have a favor right off the bat to ask. One of the ways that we grow, that you support us in being here every week, twice a week, for almost 12 years now, is by sharing. If you get value out of the podcast, if you are first time or a regular listener, and this is supportive of information you want and need, with a twist. So it's always a twist on the host's experience, education, skill level that comes through my lens and hopefully lands correctly. Would you please share it with one or two friends that would benefit from hearing it? And in some cases, that might be a health coach or a trainer, even if just for a healthy conversation with them about what you're hearing, how they think about that? What do they have to say? Because it is valuable to have conversations with someone about thoughts that maybe challenge the way that you have been thinking, things that you've always believed. And I believe that's my responsibility here too. So when the science changes, I can't be attached to something that I learned in 1984. And that can be really hard. We get it lodged between these two ears those 6 inches. Sometimes we can really defend something that's not working. The problem with that is we get to own it, and unfortunately we have to live in the consequences of doing that. So here's what we're going over today. Literally, this is what I would do if I wanted to burn fat over 60, which is where I'm at. And, and of course I do. So just like you, there are probably those little places where we store fat, and no matter how 'Look how good you look in that little outfit.' We tend to go to the place, the zones that we don't love about ourselves. So just don't forget, it's always beneficial to take the big picture. Just for instance, go back and look at those pictures where, you know, at a moment in time where you were constantly wishing you could lose a few pounds, where you were a little less this or a little more that. And then you look at those pictures now and you think, Damn, I looked pretty good. But I think we forget unless we make ourselves get in that moment. What were you thinking? Like when you went to exercise, what was it about? Was it about getting rid of something, shifting it, changing it, or was it really about loving and nurturing our bodies? Interesting, right? Okay, so I'm gonna go through some studies. I'm sharing them superficially a little bit with you. So oftentimes I will say all the resources or references are in the show notes. Today I'm, what I would say, winging it a little bit. So I'm referring to studies that I have used most recently in different presentations on different stages and other platforms. Sometimes behind the scenes with our Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialists. So I am not actually quoting to you that the study was done in 2024 and it was from this article. So trust me, we don't make things up here. You cannot do that and teach in kinesiology or present internationally. It's pretty rigorous what you have to go through with the hoops you have to jump. I absolutely despise it. When someone's first comment is, "Oh, there's no science behind that. She's just a grifter." I find it humorous. And, you know, I think you're always going to find those people who don't have something positive to contribute to the conversation are the first people to tear someone down for no good reason. And I remind myself, and I hope that you do too, is that it's probably really hard to be in there. So we'll leave that one alone. But I, I want to give you this disclaimer. I'm not making up science here, but I'm not also giving you the resources or references. At some point, sometimes doing things and reading so much literature, it's, it's difficult. I can't tap in. I wish, you know, my memory was that good. And that's not blueberries or walnuts, by the way. There's just too much. And there's more coming out, but there's 42 years of backlog and what's new as well. So I can't, I can't quote, and I wish that I could, but I can quote the protocols for you. And that's what I'm doing here. So just to give you an idea, if you're a science girl, you're a prove it to me girl, it's in here. This is just about literally what I would do if I wanted to boost my fat burning over 60. Or for you if you're over 40, 50, or with me in this decade. But first of all, if you are suffering from adrenal insufficiency, meaning you have a lower cortisol production during some points in the day, especially in the morning when it should be higher, but also it's very common in the afternoon, what I'm about to say does not apply to you. Because the rules of fat burning would be as they apply to somebody who's apparently healthy, who's got good energy, who's sleeping fairly well, who's, you know, somewhat cognitive and firing on 4 cylinders, if not 6. But if you've got adrenal insufficiency, it can actually result in weight loss at some times. But first, for more midlife women, they're gaining weight and they have common belly fat, less muscle tone from driving themselves often too hard. And look, too hard is relative. So I know the next question I will get from some is, well, how hard is too hard? Or how much exercise is too much? I can't answer that. Your body is giving you the answer. Your body is giving you the feedback. This is the result I'm going to give you if you give me this amount of food and sleep and exercise. So if you want different results, you're going to have to decide which one of those might I want to change. And that's a great opportunity to sit down with a coach and say, give me a 30-minute session, give me your best take on this. What would you do? What do you recommend I would change? And then potentially not turn your world upside down, but begin changes sequentially and testing them and what actually works for you. But if you again have adrenal insufficiency or you think it's true, you're tired all the time, you wake up in the morning not actually ready to go, not looking forward to it, it's like, oh, can I just hit snooze again? And/or you're reaching for coffee to get you going in the morning and to keep you going all day. You tend to come back to it or you get cravings. For sugar and you're trying to lose the weight that you've gained because of the adrenal issues slowing down your metabolism. And so you're doing the exact opposite of maybe what you need to do in that you're eating less, you're trying to diet, you're skimming or you're skimping and not getting enough rest. And it's kind of around the clock. So if this is you, here's what she looks like. You live by jobs and family and a schedule that has you maybe leaving home early, getting home late, working some more at home, drinking coffee to wake up, and then caffeine hits all day to keep you going. You told to reduce or avoid caffeine, you kind of panic, uh, wondering if you'll ever get yourself going or get through the day if you don't. If that's you, even a little bit, then what I'm about to say in this episode about fat burning will probably not apply. This part, the energy challenge, the adrenal insufficiency, needs to get fixed first because going directly to the exercise that is fat burning will not work the same way for you. Yes, unfair rules of life, but this is true. So in the next episode, I'm going to share what it looks like when I have a woman with some adrenal insufficiency, how I reprogram and reset for her. So I want to talk about this. What would I do? Number one, if I wanted to, to look at my own increase in fat burning, I would increase my weight training volume. Now you might say, how is that helping with fat burning? I'm going to get there. Okay, so number one, fat oxidation actually occurs in fat— fat burning kind of in a post-oxidative state. So it's called excess post-oxygen consumption, EPOC. I really hesitated there and I know, awkward pregnant pause, but because wondering how deep to go. But what that EPOC is, the excess post-oxygen consumption, is the highest after resistance training. After weight training, we burn more fat, not necessarily during the weight training workout. We're not trying to necessarily burn fat during it because you don't burn all that many calories, so you don't burn all that much fat. But what you are doing is creating more lean muscle tissue. And we do that. By creating muscle damage. Actually, we're creating it ourselves. And the repair work that your body comes in and says, whoa, we gotta repair the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, the circulatory system, and the muscle damage that you just created. And so it will, but it doesn't just bring you back up to let's fix that. It says, let's supercompensate so that now if you lift that heavy weight again, it it's not gonna be as big a deal. And so that's how we get stronger over time. It's how we increase the quality of our muscle fibers. Even as we age, we may not be able to gain mass as easily. I mean, I think we can all agree on that. We can't necessarily change our body composition, therefore, as easily. But that is why we need increased weight training volume. What does that mean? It's not just adding more days per week. And I know you are hearing or watching or seeing influencers say, I go to the gym 6 days a week. I, I was at the gym today, by the way. So yes, sometimes I create at-home videos, but at the gym I get out of my own house. Moses is not the only person I see, and Moses doesn't qualify as a person, so this is good. People who talk to their dogs like people though are supposedly more intelligent. I'm banking on that one. But a guy comes up to me and he said, "I watched you walk in here, like really light in your step. And then you're making this look really easy, picking up these heavy weights." And I smiled back and honestly, I think it was a pickup line, but I just smiled back cause I had both earbuds in. Head down, doing my thing, not making aitanta. I was not looking for social engagement. I was like, I need to get in and get out because I have a meeting and I got to be back at my desk by 2. And so I'm like, well, thank you. I said, if it looks too easy, maybe it's too light. And it was just kind of a quick, I'm not taking my earbuds out message to this guy. And he's like, oh, no, it's not too light. I'm like, you don't get to decide that because you don't know me. I'm thinking that, that one I didn't say. So talk about socially awkward, right? But it's really important that you realize he said to me next, he said, you must come every day. And I said, oh no. And I'm thinking, you don't know who you're talking to because I could give you an hour lecture right now. I didn't. And And I said, well, you don't want to do that. The recovery is more important than actually the work. So no, I don't come every day. He said, I do. I feel like I need to come every day. I said, well, surely you don't lift weights every day. And because of course I thought this was a soul I needed to save, if that's what he was doing. And he's like, no, I walk on the other days. And so I'm like, okay, well, that's, that's great recovery. Anyway, the point is, you know, a lot of people don't know what they don't know. I want to share something with you. You can potentially help a lot of people based on what you know already. Don't be afraid to share, not in the way that you're the creepy relative or friend who is always imposing what you know on them. But be willing to speak up when you say, are you sure that's right? Or you hear something that really resonates as I don't think that's what is true anymore. Or you can say something in this way. You can say, I used to think that too, but then I learned X, Y, and Z, and that That makes it a little more friendly because you're getting in the boat with them saying, gosh, until I learned what I now know, and maybe opening the door so it's a little less condescending to the listener who might get curious about what it is you do know. So just saying that, but increasing volume is not about increasing days, and that's where my gym buddy story comes back to. Working out every day is not the answer to getting strong or burning more fat, but increasing weight training volume is. So today was one of those days I had— I did have an hour. That means warm up and cool down included. And I don't always— sometimes I, I have to get it in like you in 30 minutes, 35 minutes, and I kind of like time pressure. Because if I'm procrastinating and thinking I'm going to work one more thing, I'm going to do one more thing. If I know I have got— no, I have to be done or I have to be in the shower at this point, I will get a really quality workout in because it's under the gun. So if anybody procrastinated on their homework in school, you know what I mean. Probably that's how you function best and you, you just did it. But increasing weight volume means. I did 5 sets of 5 key exercises, and then in between that I did some smaller muscle groups, a little core, a little stability and balance, because those are more recovery nature of still movement, still getting good quality time. But I wasn't, you know, scrolling through my phone and doing that. But another set of an exercise you're already doing, or another exercise for a major muscle group, ideally compound exercises— that is how we increase Increase volume wisely. So that set, that session today might have taken 5 minutes, 10 minutes more than a shorter set does, but the value of that is so much greater. And I didn't have to add another day, which is going to interrupt high-quality recovery time. The second thing I'll do is walk more. So I, I'm suffering right now. So it's about 87 degrees, happens to be about 80% humidity. I don't know what you know about humidity and heat together, but that means that the heat index that I thought I left in Arizona followed me. And I'm no stranger to the Midwest summer, so I knew this was coming, but I kind of was in denial until it actually got here. And sadly, I thought I've walked in 110-degree heat before. I can do this. And I went for like 30 minutes last night thinking I'm going to go for an hour. Moses didn't go. I mean, he does overheat quickly. And then, you know, I'm walking by my house to go to the next 30 and I'm like, no, no, I think I'm done here. And I finished inside doing, doing some cardio indoors for about 15 more minutes and called it a day because I was kind of toast. So I do walk more though. I make it a point to get in more total steps on average, and I've got longer days and shorter days just like any human does. But I walk on purpose. I walk after meals or move after them. I get up frequently from my chair when I can, and I will go from one end of the house to the other. I don't go up and down stairs. I don't have that option too much in this house. But I will go to the mailbox. I will take Moses out an extra time because we do a lap around the house if nothing else. And those little things all matter. So I want you to think about, am I doing that? And I will tell you, just like you, I'm busy and it feels like a thing to go and do this, but I've never regretted, ever, never regretted going for a walk. Can't think of one instance where I have. Then I will do— so increase my weight training volume. That's another set or another exercise during the sessions I'm already doing, not another session. It's walking more, total steps, walking on purpose, walking after meals. And number 3 is doing HIIT regularly. This episode is sponsored by the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. It is the framework that we 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 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 want to head on over to fitnessmarketingacademy.com, it's where we have all of the content dedicated to you health and fitness pros. So if you are in your 40s, I would say on average, if I could safely estimate, and this is not true for all of you, You're perimenopausal, I would say 1 to 2 times a week if you're doing that. If you're in your 50s, I would say twice weekly. And if you're in your 60s, postmenopausal and not suffering from adrenal fatigue, by the way, 2 to 4 times a week. We need to get that fast-twitch interval kind of fiber, fast-twitch muscle fiber interval training, fast reaction skills, getting the power we need it for everything— agility, reaction skills so we don't fall. For power, getting up and out of a chair, explosiveness, super important in fast-twitch muscle fiber, by the way, really tied to metabolism. So you absolutely do want it. And as our hormones even out, even though they're lower, they're even. And so energy is more stable. So post-menopause, you will probably feel better doing that, and you might find that And when you hear me talk about the how to do that, you're going to say, oh, what was I resisting? Because a lot of people who have resistance to exercise— no time— actually love the idea of what I'm going to tell you about protocols for doing high-intensity interval training because of the time commitment. It's, it's minimal. So here we go. There was a study that I've shared with you previously, and this was probably since 2013. I've shared this study that was postmenopausal— were the subjects. They were divided into 3 different groups, okay? And the first group did 1 time a week strength training, and 1 time a week they were doing cardio. The second group did 2. So 2 times a week they strength trained, 2 times a week they did cardio. Now you know where I'm going. The third group did 3 times a week strength training and 3 times a week cardio. Which group, if I'm quizzing you, and I am, would you say that you were using the most energy expenditure. Which one actually was doing the greatest, uh, in terms of energy expenditure, which is not necessarily fat burning, but the greatest caloric expenditure? And if we said, well, let's do math. If we have the greatest caloric expenditure, potentially we are also going to have some significant fat burning. Even if it's low or moderate or high intensity exercise, doesn't really matter. But when they were cardio, this was not high intensity interval training, so it was more of a moderate. The group with 2, 2 times a week strength training, 2 times a week cardio, had the most energy expenditure of all, meaning the total for all days of the week So why, why would that be true? So let's review this one. I've talked about this before, and if you're an OG, an old goat— that means greatest of all time, by the way, it's not an insult, it's a compliment— you know the answer to this. So can you remember? So the reason this is true is that the one time a week strength, one time a week cardio, they didn't gain enough strength or enough endurance to really benefit So they didn't expend any more energy from the exercise or from lifestyle. The 3 times a week, let's go there. They did so much exercise that— I want to tell you that exercise is really not a way to create a caloric deficit. I mean, it helps, but it's not really contributing a ton. You've, you, you've experienced this. You've been on the treadmill and you did your walking and you trotted away for 30 minutes, and then you look down at how many calories did I burn? And it was like the exchange of 6 M&Ms, right? It's not very high. So it's not that, but I wanna take you for a second into that. Don't discount the exercise and don't discount calories coming from food or what calories do. But it is what calories, whether the ones you eat or the ones you're burning from exercise, it's what that activity or the food is doing to your hormones that matters. If we're stressing you out, we're not going to help you with fat burning. But also if we're— that can apply to if we're doing high-intensity interval training or if we're doing long endurance That can be stressing you out. Both of them can be stressing you out. Even, even Moses and Grace, you hear him? So the 2 times a week was a sweet spot, meaning they gained enough strength in the twice weekly strength training and they gained enough stamina and endurance with cardio that they actually had great energy. So spontaneously, their energy expenditure outside of exercise was so much greater that they burned more calories. So they probably voluntarily played more golf. They went for more or longer walks. They got up and down more frequently from their chair. They went up and down the stairs more often. They were just overall more active. That's what really matters. You're looking for your sweet spot. Yours might not be 2 and 2. Yours might be something different. But what you do want to do is experiment with, you know, am I using the excuse that I worked out today so I don't want to go do X, Y, and Z? Like the living stuff. We should be getting better at lifing. Don't you think? Than working outing. The whole idea is— oh, wait a minute, this is like those social media memes. There's like, oh, I forgot, this is the whole point, right? It's not a selfie in a gym, it's, uh, so that you can— and you fill in the blank. What is it that you want to be doing more of? What is it that at the end of your life, or at the end of a day, or at the end of a week, or the end of the summer, you will you regret having not done. Those are the things— that's the reason we work out. And if your workout is getting in the way of you doing those things, something is wrong. And if your workout is not as significant as it needs to be to make you feel strong enough or energetic enough to do those things, something is also wrong. So you're looking for that Goldilocks of your personal So the study is great. It gives a great deal of information, but it's also— you are a study of one. So keep that in mind. All right. There's a 12-week study done much more recently. This one was published in December of 2024. So it was done with 10 to 13-year-old males and females. So of course, their hormone profile is not like yours. But they were divided into 4 groups. And one was a control group, so they didn't do anything. So they were only subject, that group, to the required exercise for physical education, but no other exercise. And first of all, that school, way ahead of the curve if they still require physical education, because not all do. So once again, the other 3 groups did the same, kind of the same protocol, but it was HIIT. They did the HIIT protocol 1, 2, or 3 times a week. So here's the HIIT protocol: 15 seconds all-out sprinting. Now these kids might actually have to do sprinting. So imagine the school probably doesn't have a treadmill or elliptical or bike and choices for them. But then they did 15 seconds of jogging. So don't get distracted if you, if we say, okay, maybe you were sprinting by swimming really fast in the pool and then really slowing down for a jog pace, or you were on your elliptical or on a recumbent bike or something else. Any mode of exercise could be sprinting versus jogging slower. So these kids did this 15-second all-out sprint, 15-second jog, and then they did 3 minutes of recovery. And I want you to think about 3 minutes of recovery. And if I just asked you right now, do an interval for 30 seconds and then recover and take as long as you need, most of you listening would be fully recovered within 2 minutes. I would almost bet on it. And you would be going, I'm ready to go again. Can we just go? 3 minutes is really quite a long time, but that is the whole point. So this protocol, they did 8 cycles of this. Now do math with me. I was the child least likely to succeed in math. And just so that you know, I sat at the dining room table for hours with my stepfather, at least until we got to algebra, and then he was like, call your older brother, I'm out. But I— if I can do this, you can do this. So 15 seconds all out, 15 seconds jog, 3 minutes of recovery. So the workout needed to be, uh, probably around 40 minutes at least to include a warmup and a cool down. But think about how much of that time during the workout of a 40-minute duration was actually heart, high intensity. 2 minutes. Right? 8 times 15 seconds. 2 minutes. 2 minutes. Okay. All right. Just going to say that again because most of us are reluctant to— I don't want to work that hard. I don't want to feel that much effort. I don't want to— most of the time is spent in recovery, barely moving. You can stand still if you need to. And then 15 seconds of jogging. Now, I will say that if you really sprinted for 15 seconds and then you try to jog 15, that jogging feels pretty hard too if you've truly gone all out. So I think we've got to give you, you know, that— know, know that it probably felt hard for 30 seconds, but still in all, that's not a lot of work in any session. The group that had the best benefits was the 3-time-a-week group. But the 2-time-a-week group and the 3-time-a-week group both had significant change in all things that were measured. We measured total body fat, fat-free mass, visceral belly fat, blood pressure, BMI— that's body mass index, that's just your height and your weight. Remember that that's still what a lot of physicians use, but it's not very informative about what does that weight count as and how much risk are you at if we don't know fat to muscle. And lastly, waist circumference. So the, the group that improved the most in each and every one of those was the 3-time-a-week group. So important to look at that. Much better results than the control group who just with regular physical education or the one time a week group. So something to note about that protocol was not only the subjects— they were adolescents, 10 to 13-year-old males and females— but I think now we know in terms of fat burning what would be true of us if we were kind of optimized for our rest and recovery, we were feeling good and apparently healthy. Would that also work for us? Potentially worth trying, but again, only if your energy level is good to begin with. Also, you need to note about this protocol, they allowed complete recovery in between. I've addressed this in previous episodes, so not being on the clock in terms of Here's the interval time and here's your recovery. Get ready to go again. You're going again, even when you're not ready. Being on the clock for your— you're only allowed X recovery time can be a huge mistake. When your interval times are based on you at complete recovery, you are far better to reach your capacity for the workload. And the workload is your measurability of the speed you can attain, the distance you reach in a certain time period, the resistance that you're able to do. If you are measuring on an ergometer, a cycle ergometer, then measuring your watts and your power output are easier. You may not have experience doing that, but someone measuring you could. The harder you work, that should really be addressed more than, or not instead of it feeling hard. So the question is, did you go as fast as you're capable of going? Did you go as far as you're capable of going in the same amount of time? And I will say, by the way, I, I will do this and apply this with my clients. If we are going to do interval training workouts, for instance, within a no equipment um, environment. So somebody's doing the workout from home, we will have them go outside and find a hill, a steep hill. And then for the interval, after a good warmup, they're gonna sprint up. And that might be power walking for you if you don't actually run, but you're going up as hard and fast as you possibly can to breathlessness in 30 seconds or less. And I will have a client note on that sidewalk, on that hill, How high do you get? So I will have them mark it by a crack in the sidewalk or put a twig next to that, or, you know, look at the weed or the sign that you got to and note that. And after the first 2, because you're then good and warmed up and you're probably achieving on that first 1 and/or 2, your highest point, And when consecutive intervals after full recovery, if you don't get as high on the hill as the previously marked place, we're, we're done. I ask them to stop because we only wanna train the good ones. And when you're just getting tired, you start also getting sloppy. None of us needs to get just tired and not be making progress, so we're not working at full speed anymore. We're not able to go full resistance anymore. So we no longer— if we're not training the good ones, we don't just keep going. We stop that. And that can be hard to justify if you're, say, you're doing burpees. And I promise you, if you're doing one of our programs, you're never doing burpees. I hate them. And I don't mean I just hate them personally, but I really dislike them for safety. There's, you know, 6 to a dozen things that could go wrong in any one burpee. And poor form that impacts your wrist, your elbow, your shoulder, your lower back. I'm just not for it. I'm not on the way down and not on the way up. So I think there's better ways to do it, but it gets hard if you're doing jump squats. I mean, how do we know? Maybe it's the number of jump squats you're able to do in 30 seconds to fatigue, but it's a little harder to measure than if you're actually going a certain speed on a treadmill. You can see that, or you're going a certain distance up a hill. It's nice to have that measurability every once in a while just to keep yourself in check. There are a lot of women I, I've worked with, kind of communicated with, I should say, that say, I work I work pretty hard when I do it. And, you know, I don't challenge them directly, but I'll challenge you with what I'm thinking when I'm speaking to them. And it is, are you really working hard, like at your capacity, or does it just feel hard? There's a huge difference. Women often who are fasting and exercising will say something like that. I work extremely hard, and I don't doubt that it feels hard, but often anything will. I've watched bodybuilders, figure competitors, be in the last few weeks of their training, and they're not working at high-intensity exercise at all, but they're doing it underfed. They're doing the cut, barely eating, very low calories, not too much carbohydrate at all. And they're exhausted. And so it feels hard for them to walk at a really slow pace in the morning, first thing. And you watch that happen and the mentality is, well, I must be really burning fat then because it's hard. That's not necessarily true. The harder you are able to work according to your capacity, the better fitness level you're actually going to get. Now, somebody prepping to be on stage will, for a very short window in time, like a moment, potentially look really good, but they also may have done some damage to adrenals. So just want you to distinguish between totally recovered your ability to reach your capacity versus it feeling hard. Was it really hard? Was it really your heart and what you're capable of? That is is really much more important. So important distinction here: if you want to burn fat, you have to fully recover, not just between your intervals but between your interval sessions and your workout weight training sessions. So when you work out, we want to consider whether you're getting that, and we as midlife and beyond women struggle with that a little bit. Because estrogen really helped us repair and recover. And so we tend to have a little bit more inflammation because estrogen also protected us from inflammation. We get inflammaging now, the big, big new term. So if you're not recovering as well in between yourself, we may, you and I look outside ourselves and say, what else can I do to improve my recovery? So So trying to set a better sleep routine will be helpful. If you have available to you sauna, although sauna is a stressor, it also can be supportive of a recovery process. But another opportunity here for supplementation comes in. So eating adequately is just the basics. If you're doing all the basics, time between tough workouts, meaning in terms of days, Monday to Thursday, and time between intervals within a session, that's, you know, doing your part, but also eating, getting enough sleep. You've covered those bases. This is where creatine as a supplement may come in and be something that you want to look at next. If you're not doing those basics, you're not doing those things for yourself. I would say to anyone listening, it's really none of your business what creatine does. You have to do the basics first and then support yourself with supplements where it makes sense for you. So creatine helps make more ATP. ATP is the, like, little synapses that makes your muscle contractions actually work. So it's the cells energy currency, makes it available. So you can go and have that. You can go buy that. You can buy that contraction and that one and that sprint up the hill. It helps ATP restock. So let's say you do the intervals and you sprint uphill and you do that, you know, 25-second sprint. Well, you just depleted all the ATP. It's like, just fired Boom, done. Not going again. It's like a bottle rocket. It goes up once unless you restock it. And so what happens is your creatine in the bloodstream on a regular basis— you can't just take it one day because, oh, I'm working out today. But if you take it over time, it stays in your blood. You now have that. You can recover that. Faster. You walk slowly back down the hill and you will be ready to rock it again. Means you can work your muscles at a higher capacity for longer. So if I ask you to do 8 repeats of that high-intensity interval training, you can do it. If I don't give you creatine and you say, I'll do 8, I'll do 8, at 5 or 6, you're thinking, I might be good here. I might be good because it's not really happening at capacity for you. Creatine is an essential for athletes aiming to gain muscle because it supports energy and energy production, which means they can keep up their exercise intensity. So creatine is essential for I would say you and I who are athletic, we're exercising on purpose with the intention of gaining more fitness. Think of yourself as an athlete because we have a goal, the game, the endgame, kind of life basically, but we want to win it, don't we? I mean, let's, let's be natural. So creatine is a naturally occurring substance in muscle cells, helps your body produce the energy during high-intensity intensity exercise by replenishing adenosine triphosphate. That's the ATP. It's the primary energy source for muscles. When taken as a supplement, it can significantly increase muscle creatine stores, allowing for faster ATP regeneration between bursts of intense activity. And that can be either— strength training is also an intense burst If you think of it, it's generally a set lasts between roughly some shorter and some go longer, but 30 and 60 seconds, you know, is an exercise set. That's kind of a sprint. It's a burst of, of high intensity, and you've got to recover because if you truly reach fatigue by that time, which I hope you do, you have to put them down and then within a minute should be kind of ready to go. So that short, high-powered exercise like weightlifting or sprinting, the rate of creatine replenishment between bouts of high-intensity exercise depends on factors like the intensity of the exercise, the amount of creatine stored in your muscle, and the individual recovery ability, with complete replenishment typically taking several minutes to an hour depending on the circumstance. Now, that's not convenient if you're doing interval training. I don't want you to do an interval and then wait an hour to do another one. Hello? I don't think so, right? So we want you to get on with your day and we want you to be able to recover. And it doesn't take many. Actually, 8 intervals I think is a lot. My sweet spot is anywhere between 4 and 6. So 5, right, is a magic number. But I'm kind of an overachiever like you. If somebody says 4 to 6, but for— to me, I'm gonna say 6. I'm doing 6, right? Because I want all the results. But if I really am doing badly, it's not going well, you know, I will call it a day at 4. It's like, you know, I'm maybe not reaching my speed or capacity, or it feels incredibly hard. Something is off. I probably didn't get enough sleep. I didn't get enough fuel. Uh, my muscles are just tired from maybe life circumstances and I didn't count that. So I realized that with high intensity interval training and with resistance training is both the short elevation of cortisol and blood sugar release. Is followed by complete recovery. Because if you're doing your strength training, for the most part— now, there are some protocols that I will give people who I know are advanced to save time, reach total muscle fatigue without a lot of time commitment. But ordinarily, we're going to do a set, work really hard, and then we're going to recover completely before we do another one. The short elevation of cortisol, the burst that is necessarily to release blood sugar for the fuel we're going to use is followed by complete recovery. Both during the workout and between the workout means not as much insulin is released. And when insulin is released, you're kind of put into fat storage, right? So if we want to burn fat, we don't really want to be in fat storage. As well, because that's kind of defeating the purpose, right? So it's kind of like you get to sneak it in there. When you're doing moderate-intensity exercise, you know, we have the least amount of good happening. There's not a lot of great benefits that are occurring there. We want really high intensities and we want low foundation base building, like the going for the walks kinds of things. That doesn't stress you. In fact, It doesn't increase circulating cortisol. You just use the circulating cortisol you have because it's not enough stress on your body to cause that need for more cortisol. So you use circulating cortisol. So after walking, your cortisol level decreases. This is a good thing, friends. Okay, so realize that sometimes it's not more, more, more that you need. It's actually do less or lower intensity, maybe more of those kinds of steps. Would be beneficial. And it doesn't have to be endurance. Shorter durations of that kind of activity are very beneficial. So again, we kind of sneak in the door. We don't have the release of cortisol, and so therefore we don't get that surge of insulin, and we kind of sneak the fat burning in without the cortisol and the blood sugar and the insulin So we stay out of fat storage and we just help ourselves burn and regulate. And remember that I've always said we open the door to fat burning by decreasing our cortisol levels. So it is very true that walking is going to be super supportive for that. So if you happen to live in a northern climate and it's not 87 degrees and 80% humidity, go for a walk. Okay. All right. I'm gonna end this episode, but I've got a special bonus list. So I wanna give you some non-exercise things that will support fat burning over 40, 50, and 60. Number 1, protein intake increase. Not necessarily your total calories, but increase your protein intake. By keeping calories the same but increasing the amount of those calories that comes from protein, there has been seen an increase in fat burning. Not from more exercise, not from a caloric deficit, just from changing what the food you're eating is. Yes, please. No hunger, no deprivation, just change that. Number 2, fasting a little bit longer on the days that I'm not doing high-intensity exercise. Or I'm in direct recovery. And what I mean by that is, let's say I work really hard today, you know, or I've just come off of a Flipping 50 retreat and we hiked 8 miles and then we hiked 6, and then we did stand-up paddleboarding and yoga and intervals and agility. And day after day after day, you know, a picnic and fun, but still a lot of work. Then And the next day I would not choose to do, um, an, a longer fast. I'm still in recovery. I need to continue to pay myself back, increase my protein intake so that I'm totally recovering. So choose the day wisely. You know, if you just had a moderate day today of movement and exercise, tomorrow might be a longer fast. Fasting day that makes sense for you. By longer, I'll define that for myself, and you should do that for yourself as well. I can go about 14 hours and then my body actually gets stressed from it, so I don't start burning fat like some of you might. My body actually will continue to burn carbs because my body's releasing cortisol, increasing my blood sugar levels, and backfiring on me. It just doesn't like that. Now, that might be a period of time that I'm going through, period of hormonal phase I'm going through, that if I were in more of a recovery process, not high peak cortisol, I might be able to do better with longer fasting. But you need to know and experiment with yourself. So what I found is the longer I fasted, the worse it got, actually. So I was just chasing my tail, so to speak. So I fast a little bit longer. Instead of just the 12-hour fast I typically get overnight, I will go 14 hours, maybe 15, and that's it. Sometimes I will supplement with an essential amino acid, my product called Burn Boost. So it contains, um, essential amino acids, specifically leucine in high doses. So I'm still fasting, bumping up my ketogenesis, but I'm also not losing muscle mass. Important to me. So a lot of times you go too long into fasting, you're in this catabolic period for a longer time, you're breaking down muscle. So again, those of you who are saying, well, I want it for the autophagy. I want you to be really honest with yourself. Do you really, or do you just want it for— you think it's going to help you get smaller, lose weight, burn fat? Chances are you are also burning through muscle, and that will come back as a metabolic ouch. Okay, so just gently said, consider that. I will have caffeine right before high-intensity workouts. Now sometimes I have to do a high-intensity workout because I like my caffeine. Just saying. But what I mean by that is caffeine has always been an ergogenic aid, meaning it helps to release free fatty acids for burning and generally will help the people who this works for. And it doesn't work for everybody. If you get jitters, you get anxious, you know, this is not you. But for me, it actually is a a real boost to— I have more energy, I can go harder, I can go longer without it feeling longer and harder when I've had a little caffeine on board. Now, I don't only do caffeine, so I've had a little food and a little caffeine, and then I'll go. So it's got to be quickly together. You don't have your caffeine at 8 and go work out at 10. You've already had the diuretic effect, actually, so you're probably a little more dehydrated. You want to have that caffeine and then you want to make your way to go and do it right now. I reduce my fat intake significantly, temporarily. So I might do that for 5 days or a week, literally really low fat. So instead of stir frying anything with olive oil, I will use bone broth or water and stir fry vegetables and then use coconut aminos for flavor. But really low fat. I will not have the salmon that typically I love and could eat. I think I could eat it every day. And I will opt for lean things like, and generally I will go wild rather than buy like 93% fat through fat-free beef. I will do bison and venison and elk. They're a little bit leaner, and higher quality, I will do shrimp. Um, and that's really probably about it, but those are my biggest protein sources during this period of time. So I will avoid my alternative yogurts because coconut yogurt, almond yogurt, goat and or sheep, higher in fat. So I don't have those. So I have to really be prepared to do this mentally and physically both. I don't typically eat eggs on a daily basis, but during this I will have egg whites a little bit more frequently, kind of good breakfast, but no additional fat with it, like egg whites and salsa. Um, so keeping fat really, really low and helping to decrease my inflammation when I do that really works very effectively for me. I am a woman who or a human actually who genetically I do better with a slightly higher carbohydrate intake than someone else. I, I look at that and almost always I default to that. But mentally, because of what culture and media has done to us, even, even educated, articulate women who know better, it's really easy to kind of mentally get lower carb, lower carb. But inevitably I will notice that when I elevate my carbs, I actually feel better, more energetic, and weight almost always is better and composition better as well. I will also rotate 1 or 2 days of low calorie but really high protein, and this is called a protein modified fasting diet. So on these days I can combine that with a reduced fat intake. Elevate the protein and basically dropping calories pretty significantly because you, you do, you have to, you're not eating the high fat, just even fat at all. You're minimizing it. Now, I don't want to give anybody fat phobe because I think we can go there too easily. Anyway, we need fat. Healthy fat actually makes you skinny. Uh, that's so the saying goes. We're not promoting skinny either.. But it actually, you need it for hormone production. You need it for skin. You, you want it for skin at this point, right? But you just occasionally rotating things can really help and you get to experience, okay, the benefit of this without any negative harmful effects. So I will rotate 1 to 2 days a week in regularly of, uh, really fairly low-calorie diet, but it's really high in protein. So I'm not sacrificing muscle by not getting enough protein, which is sacrificing your muscle protein synthesis. Two ways you can have that high enough protein, usually for women over 60, postmenopausal, it's closer to 40 grams of protein minimum, minimum, not maximum, per meal. It takes more than when we were 20 or 30 or 40. So realize you gotta get that. So there's this window of fat burning that there's no, you know, inhibition by insulin release that puts you in fat storage. I wanna take you back to that comment about interval training and about resistance training and why they're so much more beneficial to you now than this moderate training zone that we used to have in the '70s and the '80s, maybe even the '90s. We hung around there too much. So try to give that up if it's not working and that's what you've been trying. I want you to kind of give that up and come back to these few things. I hope that's been helpful. Just a recap for you, you know, things I would do if I were fat burning. Definitely find your own sweet spot for the number of times you do resistance training and/or cardiovascular exercise during the week. And it may be that you take from that study where 2 times each was the sweet spot, but start with that framework and then look at, is more make a difference for you? Does less make a difference for you? Or is that your sweet spot as well? Consider HIIT if you're not doing it and you're apparently healthy, you're already feeling good and energetic. Because if you add HIIT and you're feeling under, subpar for energy, potentially you might make that worse. So let's fix that problem first. Don't experience this or allow yourself to say, well, that's just getting older. That's just post-menopause. That's just— no, it's just not. Okay, so I just had a consultant appointment with my physician yesterday, and she said, well, any other symptoms, anything you want to talk about? I said, well, the number one thing is, you know, I've been feeling tired lately and I can't explain it. So I'm certainly not over-exercising, but also not under-exercising. I am eating well, I'm sleeping well, I don't have any signs and symptoms that are like rocking the bus, but why am I tired? Like, I don't deserve to feel tired. So we get my labs back and I'm like, this is not what I expected. So none of the things that I would have typically gone to were reflected as, oh, well, that explains it, because I thought, oh, my ferritin might be low, my vitamin D, better check that. And, uh, one thing that I had overlooked was my B vitamins. So needed that B complex, um, and so I need to get on that. But there was nothing there that really explained you know, why I was tired, except wasn't taking that B complex. That can, by the way, affect your thyroid. Mine wasn't. It's functioning just fine. However, you sometimes may have clearing that needs to happen if you have the methylation issue that I do, and many of us do, just genetically. Nothing you did wrong, by the way. But we need a little bit of help. So I need you to look at, you know, if you're tired all the time, if you haven't worked with somebody to go over your labs, work with a functional medicine doctor who can be a prescribing doctor for hormones for your thyroid, who knows the right test to do to get to the underlying root cause, is not going to compare you to norms, other people in your area on average who also don't feel good. We're looking for you and norms and also looking ideally for you normal with high energy compared to somebody else. I know I used to look at my cortisol labs and it would come back and I would be always kind of higher in the range. And people would ask me about that when I reviewed with them, and I'd say, I feel great, I don't crash, I sleep really well at night. And we would be in agreement that don't touch that, don't give me something for that, because I feel really good, I function really well, I don't think we need to address that. And, um, so you've got to find your own optimal within optimal range as well. You, you don't want to accept, oh, you're in the norms if you don't feel good, but the opposite is also true. Find your own sweet spot in optimal. So I hope that has been helpful. Fat burning and just what are fat burning solutions are not the only question to ask. What could be in the way of you fat burning? You need to ask that. The next episode I'm gonna do is how I change exercise prescriptions for women with adrenal fatigue. Tune into that one next. And if not for you, for a friend or a daughter or daughter-in-law, because it often isn't maybe happening today, but it maybe has happened or will happen, and you will be ready and see it coming. I hope that's been helpful. Let's start Flipping 50 together. 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 changes to your diet or adjusting any medications or supplements. Individual results may vary. Debra Atkinson and Flipping 50 are not responsible for any injury or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast. If today's episode reminded you that it's time to put yourself back on your own priority list, don't wait. Join me inside Flipping 50: The Stronger Way and save $100 on your annual membership. You'll get year-round access to progressive strength training programs, mobility, yoga, Pilates, balance, corrective exercise, and so much more, all created specifically for women who want to stay strong, active, and independent for decades to come. You can join monthly if you prefer, but the annual membership gives you the biggest savings, $379 savings compared to paying month by month. The link is in the show notes. Come train with me. Your strongest years don't have to be behind you. They can absolutely be the ones you're living right now.