Why Doing More Exercise Can Backfire After

What if it's your daily workouts making you weaker? If you are in your 40s, 50s, 60s, or beyond, this could absolutely be the truth. Diving in and unpacking it all in this episode. You're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause and you're not slowing down? You're 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. In this episode, I'm gonna share amplified changes that you experience even before you feel them. The enzyme that drops 80% post-menopause and why it shatters the ability to recover. Why your protein turnover is up, but your muscle is still shrinking. How your mitochondria crash, leaving you exhausted, inflamed, and stuck. If you've been doing all the right things and still feel like you're losing ground, this one's for you. Welcome to this eye-opening solo episode, Why Your Daily Workouts Are Making You Weaker After 50. We're diving into the real science on how estrogen directly influences muscle recovery, strength, tendon health and mitochondrial function and what happens when it declines. And if any one of those words or phrases sounded mysterious, stay tuned. We will break it all down for you. If you're frustrated with workouts that used to work but now leave you sore, drained, or injured, I, I actually want to catch you, if I've been fortunate enough to do so, before the New Year's vigorous onslaught of do more, more, more, more. Let's catch before you fall into that trap and get exhausted or injured or ill because we deplete the immune system. If you're not getting results and you're doing all the things, you're not crazy, you're not lazy, and you do not lack willpower. Can we just once and for all say that out loud? Your biology has changed and the, you know, fix is not more effort. It's a smarter strategy rooted Hormone Reality. So first of all, I want to take a little break here, and this is not a sponsor, but this is something that this time of year and right now in particular for our community members, I want to share one of the tools that I use to get an upgrade in my results. And I am fortunate right now, I've had a little stem cell therapy on my knee, but otherwise, knock on wood, I can do most of the things I want to. But I still found myself having osteopenia, that's slightly low bone density, in 3 different areas about 2 years ago. Purchased a Power Plate because there was no way I could lift heavier. I was doing what I needed to do. There was no way I could do more impact because I know the value of recovery. We're going to be talking about it in a minute. What I did, however, was add Power Plate. Now, in addition to getting the right sleep, controlling stress as much as possible, and making sure gut health is helping you absorb the good foods you are eating or supplements you may be taking. I added Power Plate. It's whole body vibration. Power Plate is the brand of choice for me, and the reason I did that is because so much of the research on Power Plate, but also used by third-party researchers who choose to use it are listing it and its value. Every day our community can save 20%, but right now, if you're listening in January, you can get it for 25% off at flipping50.com/powerplate using the code flipping50, flipping 5-0, for 25% off at checkout. If you're seeing this late, you still again can save 20%. And look, please don't do one of those big mistakes, I think, in terms of, well, I'll wait till next time, or I'll wait till you have a sale. Muscle and bone loss do not wait. While you're waiting, they are marching on. All right, let's dive into this episode. There is a double crisis when estrogen goes down, so listen carefully to make this make sense. But during menopause, or perimenopause, shall we say, which is anywhere between 11 and 14 years before you actually hit that moment where it's been 12 months since your last period and now you're in postmenopause. We often don't know it. Not every woman has symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, not even necessarily weight gain that's noticeable or that you would attribute to anything but maybe age or being too busy to work out as much as you'd like to. We often don't know. So you may be listening thinking, I don't even know what I was in perimenopause. I didn't know perimenopause was a thing when I went through it. And that's a legitimate response, but we do know it occurs. Hopefully now our 20 and 30-somethings know that it will be happening late 30s, early 40s. We should be looking for it and planning. For it in advance. So whether that's occurring, your estrogen loss slowly over years or rapidly right during that menopause transition, when you are approaching now 12 months from your last period, we know that is definitely happening. The decline is, is much faster. It's not like a plane coming in for a gentle landing. It's like, no, no, no, you're taking a nosedive. This is an emergency landing, essentially. So one enzyme that we're talking about today also takes a massive hit, and it's called lysyl oxidase. Now, you don't have to remember the name, and there won't be a quiz later, but do remember that this one enzyme hits you hard when it declines. Within just 48 hours of significant estrogen decline, say during a monthly cycle for a woman who's in her reproductive years, this enzyme can drop by 80%. So imagine if we are actually not just in that temporary decline, but we're in it for life unless we replace. So why does this matter? Because this lysyl oxidase is what strengthens and stabilizes your collagen. And when it crashes, your tendons lose elasticity, your connective tissue weakens, and your body becomes more injury-prone, even from workouts that used to feel Easy. So why does this matter? Well, I think you can probably guess. Nobody wants to be injured, but it is the superhero for locking in collagen. Estrogen does this and keeping tendons both strong and flexible. And this lysyl oxidase is kind of the domino effect. So it is critical for collagen cross-linking, the process that strengthens and stabilizes your connective tissues like tendons and ligaments. And those are the things the kind of connect you muscle to bone. And when lysyl oxidase levels crash, your tendons become less elastic, more brittle, more prone to injury under stress. So I want you to think of it this way. You are being told left and right on social media, maybe from stages, you're hearing lectures tell you this, you should do high impact, you want to do high intensity work, you, you want power jumping off the ground or from a chair to the ground and up again. And you wanna lift heavy or you wanna move with power and lift quickly, even though you wanna control it. All those things may be true, but you have to earn your way to them to know they will be safe for you. And if you earn your way to them little by little, saving in that piggy bank, so to speak, then you will also know before you're hurt or sick that you can't handle more without repercussions and the penalties are not worth it. So it's what I call the risk-reward ratio. And it's like, hold your palms out in front of you and you have one of those is, okay, here's the risks of this movement for me. And the other is, here's the reward. And the rewards may be high, but if the risk of you getting injured is as high or higher, that means that as soon as you are, all rewards go away. It's not like there are some, there would be none. You're on the bench or the bed and can't do it. So I think I really think very seriously about, wait a minute, let's focus on starting at the bottom, climbing our way up because we're laying a foundation for better hydrated, more resilient, connective tissue, not just your muscle. The muscle actually is the easy part. The problem is getting around and nurturing the rest of the advisory board, which are your tendons, your ligaments, connective tissue, because they have to allow the muscle to get stronger by doing their job. And that's where we can get locked up. So here's something to remember. When you start noticing fine lines, sagging skin that doesn't bounce back the way it used to, not even after a good night's sleep, that's not just a skin thing. That's your most visible clue that the same collagen loss is happening deeper in your body too. Your tendons, your ligaments, and your joints are losing resilience even if you don't feel it. Yeah. Now let me tell you a little secret. No woman likes to admit this, by the way, but I hit menopause at 56, and there is a— you'll read this over and over— that about 2 to 3 years after, there are dramatic changes in collagen production, in elasticity, because you've had that severe, most severe drop in your life of estrogen. So a lot of people will say the skin will change dramatically. And I, I want to say maybe it was healthy living. I don't do a lot of alcohol. I've always been a good sleeper. I drink tons of water. My diet is pretty good. I like little treats as much as anybody, but I don't do it very much. High protein and exercise is probably one of the best rejuvenators for skin, given circulation, sweating, All of it is great for keeping the skin turning over regularly. However, I'm now 5 years post-menopause, almost approaching 6, and this last year, very significant changes in my skin. So I see it more, I'm whining about it more, not to you, Will, except for now. But I'm talking to the people at the med spa. I'm saying to my functional doc, I'm like, what do we got here in the tool bag that we could— that we can use? Because I don't know a woman who's not a little vain. I mean, we do like to look presentable, right? So when you start not looking like yourself, I think that's the critical mass where most of us are bothered. And You know, when you start, I think, not looking as healthy, as radiant or vibrant as maybe you feel on the inside, and that you feel you deserve. I think that's where potentially for me it bugs me. But coincidentally or not coincidentally, I also had stem cell therapy last June, right? So simultaneously, superficially, I'm seeing it. It's just that much more visible to me than it has ever been before. And under the hood, even if I wasn't feeling it, I should deduce that, okay, I better be doing a longer, more gentle, more gradual warmup, making sure that I don't skip that cooldown. Because by the way, cooldowns help facilitate the benefit of that workout and the recovery from it so that the next workout is better. So yes, the warmup, but also the cool down. Don't skip that one either. As we go forward from this day on, however many years old you are right now, that will be more and more important to you. So think about it. Keeping yourself moving will depend on mobility and the comfort of the movements that we're able to do. This episode of Flipping 50 with Debra Atkinson is brought to you by Alloy Health. Here's something else nobody tells you. The skin changes that start in your 40s are not just aging, they're hormonal, specifically estrogen loss. Estrogen naturally helps maintain collagen, support elasticity, and keep skin hydrated. So as estrogen declines, thin, Skin— drier and more crepey skin is the norm. That means your expensive cleanser, retinol, moisturizer— none of them were designed to solve a hormonal problem. Nobody told us our routines needed to change, and solutions didn't really exist. Now they do. That answer for me is M4 Skincare from Alloy, the first head-to-toe line of estriol-powered skincare. Estriol is a safe, gentle, bioidentical form of estrogen clinically proven to rebuild collagen, restore elasticity, and visibly reduce wrinkles. M4 Face Cream users report 88% improved elasticity. M4 Body Treatment, 95% felt smoother skin. The full line targets face, eyes, body. It's estrogen-powered skincare everywhere you notice changes. Prescription strength without the appointments, pharmacy trips, or insurance hassle. And HSA and FSA eligible, delivered free to your door. What's not to love? Try M4 Skincare from Alloy and see results in as little as 8 weeks. Head to myalloy.com and use the code FLIPPING50 to get $20 off your first order. Your menopause-specialized doctor will tailor your skincare to your needs, plus you get $0 unlimited messaging with your doctor. Head to myalloy.com and use code FLIPPING50 to get $20 off your first order. So the impact post-menopause of these things is we've got 80% lower, lysyl oxidase. So tendons lose their shock-absorbing power when you're doing that high-impact work. Again, if you don't earn your way to it, you could actually lose some ability to recover and result in tearing or damage. Combine that with reduced collagen synthesis within that joint, your connective tissue becomes a major weak link, especially during exercise. And here's the kicker: exercise no longer stimulates collagen incorporation like it does in men or premenopausal women. So let that sink in. There was a time when we exercised and it stimulated collagen production. It was good for it. And I want you to make sure that you're understanding me. Exercise is still excellent for your joint health. It's just, we need to pay a little bit more attention to how often, and regularly and consistently, by the way, is important, and how hard. Did you work your way up to hard? And I'm talking over months. And did you work your way up to hard in the last 10 or 15 minutes during your warmup? Both of those are critical things. You may also need more recovery between exercise because here's the thing, blood flow happens easily to muscle. Oxygen delivery comes in the blood, so you're getting oxygenation. That healing that occurs because of that happens in the muscle much sooner than it happens in your connective tissue. So again, I want you to remember, you're not necessarily going to feel your tendons and ligaments saying, oh, you know, I'm still a little sore, I'm gonna need some more recovery time. But they should be saying that to you. I want you to it without hearing it. You're not even going to see their lips move. It's happening though, because you don't have blood supply, blood flow. No blood flow, no oxygen delivery to the ligaments and the tendons. So they take longer to recover. So let's say we've got you conditioned and you're doing a Flipping 50 program. You're doing it Monday and Thursday for your resistance training, and still may be finding, I'm more injured now, you know, more frequently I'm experiencing that. Well, you may actually need between really hard workouts Monday to Friday. It doesn't mean I don't want you to move and put a functional workout in on Wednesday, but maybe your functional workout is a full body hatha flowing yoga. So you are going through upward and downward facing dog, you're weight bearing on your upper body and your lower body, single or what we call unilaterally. Unilateral work, reaching some temporary muscle fatigue, probably not to the extent, no, that you're doing a strength training workout. However, it is going to take less load when you're on a single leg, and that's why— say you're in Moon Pose on one, on one leg, or you're on a Tree Pose on one leg. I don't know about you, but if I hold that for close to a minute, I'm still fatigued and shaking, and the muscles in my lower, lower leg, not the upper leg, are, are reaching a point fatigue. So all of those things are still high quality and a way for you to exercise as frequently as you want to, but yet as safely. And remember that if you haven't fully recovered, just adding frequency could actually send you backward in result, not forward. I'm gonna say that again for the people in the back who weren't paying attention. So come back to me if You're hiking, you're walking, you're driving, and/or you are trying to get a weight and somebody else was using it. Pay attention right here. Just adding frequency, if those workouts are not quality and you're not recovered from the last one, it could send you backward, not forward. That's not what we want, correct? Okay, so if you're wondering why you're your joints feel stiffer, your recovery is slower, or why you're suddenly more injury-prone doing very similar workouts that you used to breeze through. It's that enzymatic reality behind it. Too little of that lysyl oxidase there to support your tendons and ligaments. So here's what else is happening. Mitochondrial breakdown. Energy production crashes as your functions drop, antioxidants collapse. One that you're probably more familiar with than, than any is glutathione. I in fact have had guests on the show talking about glutathione when, or if I— and I hope you haven't, but if you've ever had problems with oxidation or been exposed to mold, one of the first things they'll do is give you glutathione as a supplement. I think I was probably taking one for about 9 months. Once I was exposed, just immediately all the functional doc friends that I knew said, yep, go get this, here's where it is, here's protocol. And you can get it, you can take it over the counter, there's lots of ways to take it, but it is something that will help you with oxidative stress, so decreasing it. So So what you want to do is look at just preemptive, right? Don't wait until you're exhausted. But if you know that you're, you're a woman, you're 3 to 5 years post-menopause, you're not recovering, you're not finding the muscle, don't wait for an injury to happen to know, oh, I needed this. But glutathione would be a really easy thing to take. Protein turnover paradox. So here's, here's something that is going to take a minute to grasp. You have higher rates of protein synthesis. So oddly enough, we, we tell you over and over that muscle protein synthesis goes down as we age, and that is true. But I want to give you the bigger picture right here. It's actually higher rates of protein synthesis, but because you also have higher even higher rates of muscle protein breakdown, the net is a bigger breakdown. So it is a net loss of muscle much more easily. So realize that when we're talking to you, we're not lying to you. We haven't— I haven't lied to you about muscle protein synthesis being a struggle. We do have high rates, but unfortunately we have even higher rates of breakdown. We have strength losses. Research shows that there's about a 10% drop in just 24 weeks post-menopause. Now, for those of you like me, we're diligent about strength training, we're getting in the protein, we're doing the things for rest and recovery that we need, like sleep, dealing with our stressors, and/or mitigating our workouts when we can't control our stressors. We're probably not the statistic that's losing that 10%. So I want to show you that, you know, 80% of people don't lift the minimum. If you do, you're the anomaly and know it and wear it with a badge of honor, but don't take it for granted. You have to keep doing the thing. So it's also correlated with age 60. It's a big age benchmark for age-related declines of strength and power. Collagen crisis. So our tendons become brittle as lysyl oxidase drop by 80%. No repair response. So exercise again no longer boosts our collagen like it does in men or in younger women. So just to summarize all those things again, Your mitochondria decrease function when estrogen drops. You're literally running on less fuel, trying to do more work. You're literally running on less fuel, trying to do more work. That's what happens when you are turning up the volume. I'm gonna do another workout. I'm gonna go more frequently, or I'm gonna go longer, which is so often our response, like, I'm not getting results. And every bit of conditioning, media messages, even fitness or physicians' messages to you may have been exercise more, just eat a little less. That will backfire. So there are things you can do, by the way, for your mitochondria. Exercise, of course, is one. Resistance training, high-intensity interval training, but also walking can support mitochondria. And it doesn't have the same effect, but targeting the exercise with the most benefits will slow down your slowdown, so to speak. Meaning we're gonna get older, right? And let's just say, you know, at 100, I hope we all feel great. I hope we are all George Burns aging, but— or Dick Van Dyke right now is pretty impressive, I think. But we still are going to be slower then compared to now. And okay, right? Are we okay with that? I want to tell you there are a couple supplements that I use, and I'm going to compare and contrast a couple other things. There are 3 things that I actually do, and sometimes regularly, some, some of these I do intermittently, that support mitochondrial health. Number 1, C60 Purple Power. And we will link to all these in the show notes. C60 Purple Power, basically it's carbon-60, a molecule discovered in the '90s, and it is placed in a carrier oil. It could be avocado oil, and you would sprinkle it on salads if you wanted to use it that way. You'll never taste it. I use mine in coconut oil, and I simply add it to matcha or coffee when I'm drinking it in the morning. Basically, that's habit stacking. I'm always gonna have the caffeine. Yes, hello, my name is Debra. I'm not recovering, I'm just doing it. That's it, period, end of it. I call it genetic. I drink less than my mother did, so there's that. And I also inherited her lead foot, so if you see me on the highway, you'll know. But what I, what I found with C60 is I started taking it for recovery from exercise, and again I was proactive. It was because I knew that it was supportive, and I was— oh gosh, this was almost 4 years ago. So in the— in April of this coming year, it will be 4 years consistently taking this on a daily basis. I don't know that I've ever done anything aside caffeine, right, aside from that, on a daily basis. Not consistently had a habit with a supplement that wasn't interrupted. Now look, I will always go back to omega-3s, I'll always go back to, um, vitamin C during certain seasons, but C60 is something I just have done religiously. And one of the reasons was I immediately had visible evidence. So I started taking it for mitochondria. You know, that's not really rewarding because immediately, am I going to see that I recover? Probably not. But over time, am I going to begin feeling that, you know, I'm doing really hard workouts and I don't have any more downtime? I am recovered. I'm not more injured. I'm not tired. I'm not fatigued. I'm seeing positive changes. That's good evidence. But that takes a few weeks. What I found in 2 to 3 weeks is that I had new hair growth. Go figure. Not even on my radar. Not even, I don't think, in the description of benefits that could happen from taking it on the page about C60. But it's true. It actually has been shown to improve or reverse macular degeneration. It is causing things to happen. New growth, new sales. And it wasn't just me. I was like, what is this? I went and got a haircut. My stylist also noticed this. So if you're here, you've listened for a long time, you've heard me talk about this, but it is pretty amazing. That got me hooked. I'm like, there's something here, definitely. And it's such an easy habit to keep. That was the other thing that I noticed. So what it does, the claimed benefits It's ultra potent as an antioxidant, C60, and many sources say it's hundreds of times stronger than vitamin C. So many of us already know, we buy into the idea of vitamin C. At least I do. If I'm traveling or it's cold and flu season, I'm taking like 2 or 3 times the vitamin C regularly. So I have to travel in January of this year and February of this year, and I'm now in a climate where I'm indoors a whole lot more. And every chance I get, I'm around a baby. They don't let me kiss it, so let alone if I had the sniffles, I'm sure I would be banned. But it's, you know, something that I would do regularly. So if you can say the same about vitamin C, this— you can see the benefit. It protects mitochondria from oxidative stress. So again, do you know that when we exercise We don't want to over-exercise because that is oxidative stress for the body. We're, we're breathing in more, um, deeper, so we're taking in more oxygen. We're also breathing it in more rapidly. But if we do extended periods of endurance training, it's very hard to recover from the oxidative stress. And yes, certain amount of stress for the cardiovascular system and/or musculoskeletal system is good, but it's where's the fine line? Where's the— we just crossed the threshold of benefits, and now we're actually getting into an area where we're getting fewer results, and in fact, we may be actually destroying or damaging some of the benefit. So you also will find extended mitochondrial lifespan. So each one of these little cells, they look like a kidney bean under a microscope. By neutralizing free radicals. We all learned about that in 7th grade science. If we've got a lot of free radicals in the body because we're exposed to more toxins, then we are at risk for greater oxidation and we need support. So Mitochondrial Impact, what does it do? It's indirectly supportive of it. Protects mitochondria from reactive oxygen species damage, helps preserve function but not directly stimulate new mitochondrial growth, and it may— and we're talking C60 again— may reduce inflammation and fatigue, promoting mitochondria efficiency. It's, I would say, best for women who are dealing with high oxidative stressors. If you are, say, exposed to mold toxins in your environment, I definitely would say this is you. Fatigue— you've got post-workout recovery issues, meaning it takes a long time for you to stop feeling sore or tired, exhausted, and that's probably tied to estrogen decline, certainly if, say, 5, 10 years ago you weren't experiencing that. Second on the list is Mitopure. Now, you've probably heard about this, and in the same sentence you hear about uro Urolithin A. So a patented form of Urolithin A is what Mitopure, the brand, is. Urolithin A is a compound naturally produced in your gut— well, if you have a good gut microbiome— and it's— it kind of comes from pomegranates is where it's derived from. The benefits of Urolithin A stimulate mitophagy, that's clearing out damaged mitochondria, and it's kind kind of like Pac-Man, right? And we have to get rid of the, the damaged ones to make room for the new ones. So it promotes mitochondrial growth by getting that junk out of there. Because not only, by the way, are those old cells kind of lingering there, they're zombie cells not doing any good, but they're actually doing harm because they're kind of contagious and kind of the good ones are getting damaged because those older ones are still there. Clinically, it's shown to increase muscle endurance and cellular energy. The mitochondrial impact of using ureth— Urolithin A through Mitopure: direct mitochondrial rejuvenation. That means it triggers the removal of the old ones, the damaged ones, and promotes the new ones. Boosts the cellular energy— that's called ATP, and that's those things that that when you jump, when you do a squat into a jump and you're doing quick bursts of activity, but I'm not just talking about exercise, I'm talking about you're about to step on the cat's tail and you can divert from it really quickly. You slip on a little piece of ice and boom, you can catch yourself. No problem. Little scary, but you're okay. Those quick bursts are just from that. It also improves strength and endurance, especially in older adults. So I would say this one is best for postmenopausal women who want to rebuild energy at the cellular level and improve muscle performance with age. This is probably, um, a really strong one for older women who just are feeling, I've, I've got a decline, I'm struggling with muscle. It might be another thing in your stack. And the last one is Energybits, which is both algae and chlorophyll. It's compressed tablets of spirulina and chlorella, two nutrient-dense algae with high chlorophyll antioxidants and amino acids. So yes, that means protein. Now I think Catherine Arnston, who is the founder of Energybits, will say that algae is one of the most protein-dense nutrients in the world. It's true, but we're not talking that eating a couple tablets of algae is going to replace a steak. I hope we're all clear on that. All right, so spirulina is rich in certain things that support energy endurance. Chlorella supports detoxification and immune function. And chlorophyll— so anything deep and green Supports oxygen transport and cellular health. So it is a mild antioxidant and nutrient support. It's rich in B vitamins, magnesium, and protein that helps support energy metabolism. It's not a mitochondrial builder, but it's a clean energy booster and systemic health supporter. It's great for women who want just a clean, non-jittery energy source with nutritional support for daily performance and recovery. And one great place to use them is if you are trying to fast and struggling with it. Lots of little things work. Some of you probably are using bone broth, but some of you miss texture, right? And I know I hear this frequently from women who are drinking smoothies, and then they, they miss chewing, right? This can be a way to stretch out your fast because it can squelch your hunger, hunger pains and signals, and give you the opportunity to take something in your mouth, chew it. They actually taste good, kind of like nuts. The problem is they will leave your teeth and mouth green. So you want not to do this in public and to have a toothbrush with you. This is an important thing. And I won't get into how I know this because I've done otherwise. So I have a table in today's podcast show notes if you want to look at the comparison between the two and look at, you know, what's the benefits between them in terms of antioxidant protection, mitophagy, meaning helping to clean out the old worn-out mitochondria and create the new ones. Energy boosting, whether there will be any or not, and recovery support from exercise. And based on what, what it is you might need or want it for, you could potentially make a decision on what do I want. By the way, if you are ready to train a little smarter, not a little harder, and need to get started, or you need to restart post-holidays, I'm posting the January masterclass and it is called the Halo Method, the Personalized Fitness Formula for Women Over 40. This is a very new trademarked term that I am sharing. We're rolling it out in a book this spring, teaching it currently to physicians for use with their patients and helping prescribe exercise. But I'm also teaching it to you and showing you what we use behind the scenes inside of the membership and doing it for each individual along the way, because you and I, we don't— oh, I'm gonna use this and figure out where my approach is. But we change, we change next week, next month, based on our hormone changes, based on our situational stressors, and, and changes that way. And so we want to be able to go back and to look at, wait, where is this best place for me? So that masterclass will be at flipping50.com/halomethod. It's free for everyone. You'll be able to attend and choose one of three options. So I want to dive into this— why exercise more fails— because you hear it so often, and it is certainly the intuitive answer even today. Daily workouts, if they're hard— we're talking not movement, moving daily is an absolute yes— but daily challenging workouts increase damage that your body can't repair without estrogen support. Now, if you're taking hormone replacement, will you do better? Potentially, yes. However, that hormone support probably didn't put you back to industry factory standards that you had when you were 30. So we still have to be a little cautious. Recently, a woman said to me, I'm not recovered in 48 hours. And, and then she went on to say something else, and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, I need to back up. I said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, what?" So full stop, if you're listening, nowhere does it ever suggest that you should exercise again in 48 hours. She said, "There's no way I could strength train again in 48 hours." I'm like, "There's no way that you should." That was the minimum recovery time. And ideally, you're putting at least 72 hours in. You are not your 20-year-old self, your 30-year-old self. And yet that's not a fair statement, and I'll call myself out on that, because some of you are more active, strength training in ways that you weren't when you were 20, and you may actually be in better fitness than you were then. So I just want to acknowledge that in saying, you know, that you probably are recovering better than your 20— or you were recovering better at 20 than you are now. That may not be true. If you are more fit now, more conditioned, it's very possible you're doing better now. However, that 48 hours is the minimum recovery time for repeating that same kind of hard workout. So I could also say to you, if you're not recovering well, you potentially wouldn't do a hard strength training workout on Monday and then a hard or high-impact muscle-damaging workout on Tuesday. Now, there are some of you who can. I personally can right now, but I've been doing— and what I use for high-intensity interval training most often is sprinting on a treadmill. It's not always, but most often it is. If I'm not traveling and I've got it right here, that's what I use. Because I used to be a runner and I love running. I love endurance running. It doesn't love me, so I get my little fix of being a runner again by doing interval training, and that does love me, by the way, more than endurance training did. But I've earned my way over decades of my body's conditioned to that. I know in a moment if I'm on that treadmill and it's not a good day for it, it's not feeling good. I won't, I won't do that. But I want you to know that if you're just getting started, 2 days in a row of hard anything— so it's not just hard strength training and, and hard strength training again, but it's hard and hard— you may need an easy day off. In between doing something so that you are maybe doing high-intensity weight training on Monday, you're going for a walk, and maybe it's medium, moderate, or longer, but it's low intensity. Then on Wednesday, maybe you're doing HIIT. On Thursday, you're doing your strength training again. And on Friday, maybe you're going for a walk. Saturday, you're doing HIIT. And now you've got a rhythm of high-intensity you know, lower intensity, higher intensity, and you're fresh to do the high intensity. So most women over 40, definitely as we age, do better with 72 hours between. And I've had many women say to me, I do better with 96, I'm not ready after 72. And putting a functional workout between them where you won't be taxed muscular or ligament, tendon, wise, but you will be holding your muscles accountable and giving them some stimulus in between, which is also going to be good for bone. That still works. Your antioxidant defenses are down, so oxidative stress builds up with every session that you do. It's just layered in. You're not recovered yet, so we're going to do some more damage, and we're going to do some more damage. Remember that oxidative stress accelerates both disease and age. Do we want that? I don't think so. So one support that you might do, benign, no negative side effects, in fact lots of positive, would be supplementing with omega-3s. My brand of choice is Omega-3 by Nordic Naturals, and I— you can find one that comes with vitamin D I'm not necessarily a fan of that because I'd rather test my vitamin D levels, take the vitamin D level that I need to get to sufficient levels again, and then generally I go off of it. I'm not constantly on it because if you've dug yourself in a hole, you don't just need an RDA of the international units on a daily basis, you need a bigger lump to catch yourself up. And then when you're in that normal range, you don't want to go over. There's a sweet spot there. But with omega-3s, I will often, if I'm under a lot of inflammation or stress, or I know I'm causing it, I'm gonna be going 4 or 5 days with really long hikes and causing inflammation because there I am, I'm at the Grand Canyon, I'm at Moab, I'm in Colorado. I know I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna enjoy it, but I can help myself with the inflammation before I go. Up. And while I'm there, and I also will look at when I was training for an Ironman, I knew I was going to put in hours and hours of endurance training, and nothing causes greater inflammation than endurance training. So there's, there's quite a difference between swim, bike, and run every single day, you know, and most, most weeks you're going to take a couple days off, but doing that repeatedly for up to 9 to 12 months versus preparing for, you know, a long weekend of hiking in Boulder, you're gonna be fine much more easily. But the oxidative damage from doing long endurance training is something more significant. But also you've got to think about who are you going in. Are you already behind the 8 ball? You've already got some other situations, conditions present that cause you not to be as good with dealing with oxidative stress. You may need a little bit more help. So saying that, I say that to say I took not just 1,000 milligrams of the DHA and EPA combined, but I took 3 times that when I was causing inflammation. Knowing what I know now about postmenopause and our inability to handle as much oxidative stress, I'm more inclined— also, 2026 is the year I bring in omega-3 more regularly. So I'm committed to do it for the first 6 months of the year and look at just what difference does it make. Does it make in my recovery from exercise, in my labs, in, in any other thing? I don't have any major complaints, don't have a complaint of joints that bother me, but if I did, that would be an easy— so if you're somebody who suffers from arthritis or if you've got significant knee pain, sometimes that that's the limiter, taking a higher dose of omega-3 may be something you wanna look at. Just to be clear, I'm not a physician. I don't prescribe, I don't treat, I'm not playing doctor, but I'm saying what I would do and actually will be doing is this, and you may wanna look into that for yourself. Protein synthesis cannot keep up when you're doing a lot of high-intensity working out. And again, remember, it doesn't mean— so we use that phrase high intensity a lot to precede high-intensity interval training. Heavy weight training work or weight training of any kind to muscular fatigue is also high-intensity work. So any kind, if you're working out hard every single day, you're not giving your body time for muscle protein synthesis. 2 ways after 40 to increase muscle protein synthesis, because we need to, are resistance training and eating adequate protein amount per meal. However, you're not benefiting from that increase in muscle protein synthesis from that strength training workout if you're just doing more of it. You can't keep up, so your muscle fibers are just more inflamed and they're constantly under repair, like Hello, the road construction sign in the summertime, and it's never getting fixed. You can't go off the shoulder, you can't pass, it's no, no good, no bueno. So last but not least, your tendons lose flexibility and increase your risk of injury with repeated stress. Those of you who might be suffering from, my ankle, my ankles, you know, I don't know what it is, just don't feel Right, yep, those little things make my brain say, aha, all right, so we've got some oxidative stress most likely, and/or we're not doing enough range of motion and mobility work, and we need to pay attention to that. So could also be shoulders, it's very common. So a reality for many midlife women, every workout creates damage in your body. But unfortunately, it may not be able to repair it on connective tissue that can't handle the load. You have to let yourself recover and repair. It doesn't have to happen that way. Your body doesn't have to be at this, I can't, can't do it, I can't recover. The body that's fueled, that's rested, that's feeling and is is neurologically balanced can become more resilient at any stage. Let me explain what I mean by neurologically balanced. Basically safe. Your body has to be safe, feeling safe, not vulnerable, not overly tired and stressed. You've got to feel like, okay, I am totally rested and ready to go. You know, it's not compared to 20-something you or 40-something daughter and 62-year-old you working out together, that might mean you aren't recovered by the second workout of the week when she's ready to go. Your recovery needs are different. So it's not that you can't sustain the workout, you probably can, but only if you're 100% recovered. So the recovery revolution that we all need to start for ourselves is more training It will equal more harm unless recovery is prioritized. Recovery isn't passive, and really it should be active movement, but it is also the window where your body adapts and grows stronger. Women who maintain strength post-menopause, they aren't necessarily training more, they're prioritizing it by recovering better. Now I want to qualify this because I have been known— you've heard me say this— Postmenopausal women might do 2 to 4 times HIIT versus perimenopausal women that maybe should do none or up to 2. And similarly, a postmenopausal woman might need or want to add a third day of the week because she's more resilient. She doesn't have that roller coaster of hormones, but it all depends on you. Are you eating enough? Are you sleeping enough? Are you dealing with stress enough? Because if you are a woman who's dealing and you'd love to shut off that monkey mind, but right now you can't, and you worry a lot, a little bit more than you should, you're not sleeping well, and/or you're not eating enough, or it's not as high quality and you know it, that may not be your ticket to exercise more. However, many women who are post-menopause who would say, yeah, I'm doing all those things and and I feel great and I'm getting good results, I'm measuring and I'm getting good results, then yes, you can. So tailoring fitness is also really important. So including recovery as a critical component— you can't necessarily work out with your girlfriend every day. Maybe one day a week you can coordinate, here's when we work out together, or here's when we do a recovery thing together, like go to yoga class. But you may not be able to match match each other. And it doesn't matter who does— who can go more frequently or who can't. It's just both of you getting as fit as possible may look very different. So exercise creates the possibility for fitness. Recovery is when the fitness happens. We're going to put the links in the show notes so that you can connect to— with us. I hope this caught you before the beginning of your New Year, new workout, and really has you reflecting about, "Am I recovering? Am I recovered, or do I need to at least consider I'm not sleeping really well or long enough, or I'm not eating well or enough, or I know I still need a little more variety in my diet?" diet, any of those, you want to look at them and know with wisdom, not just waiting for the feeling of, oh, I feel an injury coming on, or, oh, I feel tired all the time. See it coming. No, it doesn't have to, and that you can pivot and go the other direction. That is where I hope I've got you. And if you've got a friend, you've got a sister or a colleague who is dealing with one or more of these things, have her consider listening. Just take in what I've addressed here. And there is some science here that we've included, and we'll make sure that you have the link to that as well in the references for today's show notes. And by all means, no matter when you're listening to this, have a great New Year. Information shared on Flipping 50 the Stronger Way is for educational and informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider before beginning any exercise program, making changes to your diet, or adjusting any medications or supplements. Individual results may vary. Debra Atkinson and Flipping 50 are not responsible for any injury or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast.