Rebuilding Self-Trust After 40: What Women Need to Know

Why do so many women hit midlife and start thinking, what is wrong with me and why can't I do what I used to do? Today I'm joined by Heike Yates to talk about why midlife women can feel stuck in stress, lose trust in themselves, and struggle to stay consistent with exercise and healthy habits, and how to rebuild momentum in a way that feels real. Hello, Heike. Welcome to the show.

Oh, I'm super excited that I'll be chatting with you today. Thank you, Rita.

You know, it's interesting, Heike, that this seems to be the period of women's lives that gives them the most frustration, uh, the most angst. You know, they don't know what to do. So why do so many women hit midlife and start thinking, what is wrong with me? Why can't I do what I used to do?

I think that it is a normal course that we all go through.

Mm.

We start with perimenopause, menopause, our hormones change. We have less energy, we sleep less, we're starting to gain weight. We have all these crazy things, cortisol levels rise, and that's a lot to deal with. But I think also, aside from that, women are going through a transition at this point in life, not just physically, but I believe mentally. When I think of myself, of what's happening with me. And I, every 10 years, I do not reinvent myself, but I retweak of what I want. And I feel especially when you're in that part of life, and let me preface this, Rita, that midlife to me is women 40 to 80. So it's not just like—

Oh.

50 and around 50. And the reason why is because I feel when we're starting in perimenopause, we're starting to deal with changes. We're already set up for something new is coming, some, we have We have to think about different things for ourselves that fit us better. And women, number one, live longer and healthier and are so much more— what's the word— gung-ho. So many women are restarting new businesses, going back to school at their 60s, 70s, and 80s, starting podcasts at 80. And And I feel that this is a good chunk of time until we get past 80, where most of us have more therapeutic needs when it comes to physical health, that we need more attentive, be attentive to those things. And we definitely may be already thinking at this point, I want to definitely retire, I want to go somewhere that I have support, where I feel up to 80, so many of us live independent, and we're so— full of ideas. I just am in awe. That's why I decided midlife is this long. Because before 40, I would say some people are just starting to have kids, they're starting families, they're starting their careers.

Mm-hmm.

They're in a slightly different path. And once everything falls together, I feel we start doubting ourselves about what we want. And, and of course, everybody throws around the midlife crisis. We have a midlife crisis, or we, Today she has her period. That's why she's in the mood. Nobody would ever say this to a guy. Nobody.

So true. That is so true. Yeah, it is so true. So what is it that women are misunderstanding about themselves in this season, then?

That they have a choice. It's not written in stone. What our trajectory is may have been imprinted on us by our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, our own mothers, and our society. But We must understand that we have a choice in all the things that are happening for us and to us, and that we don't have to take it as a status quo. But everybody— or many, not everybody— many women feel stuck because they don't see that they have a choice.

I love that about the choice, because that's when you're not a victim to your situation, that you are deciding the way that You will live this season out. And it's kind of called a season, isn't it? Because we've transitioned from— it's almost like the weather seasons. We've transitioned from one and we're now entering into another. And that acceptance around this season seems to be the hardest for so many women. And also that they've had habits that they were okay at, but now they know what they want to do. They know what they need to do to support themselves in this season. So many say that they can't stick to it. So what's really going on?

I would say they know what to do. A lot of us have gone through the diets, the quick fixes, the exercise programs that are supposed to work and nothing ever happens. And that the things that we keep falling back on are the things that worked before. In my mind, if things worked before, they should continue to work. Not like a do-over. Oh, I did this class for 6 weeks or 3 months or whatever. I lost the weight, I built some muscle, I did whatever somebody wants to do, and they reached the goal and then they're done. And it's not transitioning into what's next. Oh, my metabolism has slowed down a little bit. Oh, I need to build more muscle because sarcopenia is robbing me of all my hard-earned muscle. And we don't— connect the dots oftentimes. We have so much knowledge. We're inundated with social—

Yeah.

From social media with all kinds of information. So we have the information, but we don't know how to implement it now that we're in a different stage in life. And that puts us in the in-between phase where we can't find momentum, where we feel stuck in our health and our life's choices and don't really know how to get out of it because we're stuck in these old patterns.

From a fitness expert perspective, is that why in midlife exercise and healthy routines and everything just feels so much harder than they used to? And what is actually happening physically, mentally, and emotionally for them that makes these routines so much harder to execute?

We are battling sleep. I don't know any woman who says, I sleep great. Every night I feel wake up refreshed. Oh my goodness. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Rita, I am 65 next month. I just last night, I woke up at 1 o'clock and I was up. I don't know, I try not to look, but I was up for a long time. And I have my little mind games that I'm practicing to get myself back to sleep. I woke up, but I felt like I was done sleeping. I had, you know, I'd exercised, I'd done all the things that you do. Also done my bed routine, de-stressed. I can't keep my room cool because I'm always cold. So I have a different temperature than most women. I do all my sleep hygiene and still I wake up pretty much every night. You can count on one hand when I sleep through the night. That in itself robs us of energy. So we have to deal with This this lack of sleep. Then when we don't sleep, we're more stressed. We are dragging through the day. Things don't get done or much slower than we think. Then we may skip meals because we're trying to do catch up, or we eat whatever we find because we didn't have time to do meal prep or buy anything healthy that's easily available. And then we may have people around us that drag away our energy too. So our environment—is it a job that's unfulfilled? This is you if you feel. unhappy in that part of life? Is it a partner that keeps nagging that you should lose weight because that way you would be more appealing to him or her? Is it, you know, your best friend who seems to win all the things that you can't seem to put together and you get frustrated because you're not? And then you dive into one of those— so those diets that never work out in the end. And, um, I feel there's A lot of us, a lot of things around us drain our energy, and that makes you don't want to do anything. It's like the, the energy buckets are empty and now you're running on fumes, and that definitely backfires in the long run.

It does. And I, I'm right there with you with the sleep. I'm the 3 o'clock person, you know, like today I'm, I'm, I feel like I'm lucky I can put a sentence together this morning with the amount of sleep that I've had. We look at our discipline and we think we need more discipline. So we put ourselves under more pressure and more stress. Could it actually be that we are stressed out and depleted and thinking we need more discipline is going down the wrong path?

If I push harder, that's what I thought in my younger years. If I push harder, I can push through for sure without repercussions. Maybe when I was in my 30s, I could push through without repercussions. But now, In a way. I mean, the harder we push, the more our body, in my experience, will resist change. And we're not allowing our nervous system to reset, take a break, delegate, or whatever it is we need to do, or just dial everything back and see what we need to change or what we need to approach in a different way. And exercise is a good example. I mean, I used to be a bodybuilder in my 30s. And I was in bodybuilding competition building the biggest muscle possible. And I was learning to do that. And I said, ooh, women want to be big and bulky. Well, I was a young trainer. I had no idea. But down the road, I learned how to understand what we need to do as we get older to build the muscles, quality muscles we need without punishing ourselves.

Without punishing ourselves. So what tends to work better instead?

Number 1, listen to your body. When you haven't slept all night, and when I still was running ultramarathons, we would have to get up at 5 in the morning to run through the fields for hours and hours. I was so wiped out. I told my husband, I just, I can, I cannot move. I feel like lead. Go by yourself. I need more hours of sleep and then I can get myself back up on my feet and do a smaller workout. Look at how your body feels. Pushing harder will backfire either way. Crash and burn, gonna get really angry with yourself. You may even hold on to weight because you're pushing so hard. Take a step back. What do we really need to do in order to be stronger and healthier? We're not here to place podiums and win medals in the Olympics. We just wanna get through life as healthy and as strong as possible. Oftentimes, things, some things have to give. They just have to go away. And, you know, like I said, hard workouts, long runs. Now I walk and I hike, and it's a great workout, and I feel much better afterwards. And I'm not discouraging the woman who's running or saying, you know, this is my thing, I love it, I'm great. But it's individual for everybody.

Mm-hmm.

So we have to really look at what works for me and also allow recovery time.

There's a big push on social media, or everywhere really, for women in this stage to do weights, the importance of weights. How would you advise them to do weights? Some— sometimes I think the advice is way too heavy and they're not taking in an account. It's like too general. So I can imagine, like, even myself, I sometimes feel confused, you know? And I think a lot of women who are listening must probably feel confused, like What do I do? How heavy should I do it? What would actually push my body and my hormones out of balance by pumping iron too heavy? We don't know what to do.

This is so true. So many women know so much, but they can't apply it because they hear lift heavy every day, do HIIT workouts, do super duper heavy kettlebell workouts. Or then they hear, no, no, don't lift heavy. Do 30, 50 repetitions of something because you don't wanna get bulky, for God's sake. And it's so much misinformation out there in the fitness industry and the beauty industry with anything that we're being sold to just to make a buck, just to have people run to them and say, you're the magic pill, you can do that.

Yeah.

When it comes to weights, I'm a huge believer in weight training and/or resistance training. I, as you may probably know, I love Pilates. I've been teaching Pilates for 20 years and I've been a fitness and strength coach for 40 years, almost 40 years at this point. And when I discovered Pilates, it was like the holy grail. It gave me permission to step back, still get a good strength workout without beating my body up because it's low impact and you still work hard. But very different than with weights. And I want to encourage people to do all of it, whether it's yoga, but think of resistance training is important not only for bone density. So think osteoporosis. So we need to keep that in mind. If I don't— and we want to strengthen our muscles and we will not get bulky. Most women will never go into this Super mode that I was as a bodybuilder. And even then I was struggling to put on these big muscles. I mean, I really struggled. Think about the health benefits of it. And lifting heavy is relative. So for somebody who says, Heike, I'm still confused, think about strength training as picking up weights, pushing a machine, taking a stretchy band, or doing pushups, bodyweight exercises, and squats. We need squats to get on and off the toilet. So super important for that. So think about, these are all strength exercises, but also if you're going outside the gym, you like to row, rowing is a strength workout. Gardening is a strength workout. So you're just changing the environment of what you do. So it comes down to what do you love doing? Do you love to be outside?

Oh yeah.

You maybe garden or do rowing or biking or other things, but Bring it down to the idea of you have to push something heavy. And that's relative, of course. Heavy to me means something completely different than to you, Rita, or the listener. But it has to be heavy enough that you struggle a little bit. You're like, ooh, I kind of, I have to like actually push harder to get this thing moving. That in its essence is strength training.

We don't have to go crazy. Sometimes it's those incidental things that actually have that accumulative effect. Over time. But, you know, you know, I know in your work you talk a lot about trust and that in this period a lot of women lose trust in themselves. So what does that actually look like? What patterns do you see most often in women where you think, yeah, they no longer trust that they will do the routine, or they don't have trust in their body anymore?

That's a combination of those, is when you're looking in— and you mentioned that earlier— our bodies are changing. Our hormones are changing. We're losing estrogen. Our testosterone, which produces muscles, is lowering. Cortisol levels will rise because of all everything that's going on. So your body will change and you're thinking, heck, I'm doing everything I used to do and now it's not working. Now my body's not responding. And we oftentimes feel that our body's letting us down despite all the effort we're putting in. And we don't keep in mind that the body may need something different. Just like with nutrition, a lot of women cut back on carbohydrates because they noticed as they eat bread, muffins, baked goods, and things like this, that their body no longer metabolizes that kind of food and they start to gain weight or they feel sluggish because of the extra sugar that comes with all that. So, When we're looking at the changes that we look at, that whatever we have done before, now our body says, I don't like this, then the strategies that you apply are also outdated and they're also not working for where we are now.

Hmm.

We need to change something. And it's sometimes really helpful to have a coach help you with this and look at this and say, you know, What are your goals? And your goal may be not aligned with how your body is responding. So you need to look at what is it that I really want? Do I want some something that I saw on Instagram? And right now, pull-ups are the rage right now. I see so many women doing pull-ups. And Rita, even in my strongest days, I could do 3 of those body pull-ups. And you would have thought, look how strong she is and just all these muscles. I couldn't get my Butt up that thing, that bar. And now I sometimes try and I'm going, I couldn't do it then, I'm definitely not going to do it now. And give yourself grace for the change.

I hear a lot, and I think I've said it myself, you know, I don't feel like myself anymore. You know, once you enter this transition, that the way I used to be, and I, and I think our identity was attached to the way we were younger. And we want to keep that identity going into this phase. And I think that's a really hard thing. So when someone says to you, I don't feel like myself anymore, do you explore what's underneath that statement? What's that statement telling you?

For the longest time, I thought the same thing what you just said. I want to be like my younger self. Until I had this story that I also write about in my book, Pursue Your Spark, that actually started the book. I had been wanting to write a book for a while. And I couldn't think of what I wanted to write about— Pilates, fitness, a combination of this— but nothing really stuck with me. And then one of my clients, and that's why I think probably I say Till 80, one of my clients who just turned 80 was the catalyst for the book. And that will answer the question that you have of how I think about it now, is she was the caregiver, or is still the caregiver, of her husband whose health is deteriorating. Slowly but surely, and it takes way too much time. It takes away from her doing her activities. She always feels guilty when she's not there. God, what is he doing now if nobody's there with him? And she got really burned out. And her daughter said, Mom, why don't you come up and visit me for a weekend? We have somebody take care of Dad, so we have to not worry about it. Another family member came, so they trusted that person. And so she flew up to see her daughter for the weekend. did whatever they did. She comes back, and she is beaming. I was like, what kind of weekend did you girls have? And she's like, Heike, it was the best. I didn't worry about anything. I didn't have to take care of him and cut my time short. We went shopping. We went out for lunch. We had mother-daughter talks. We went to a gallery. I actually sat down and just read a book all day. Relaxing, not having to hustle or read to him. And it was the best weekend that I can remember. And she said, Heike, I feel like myself again. What clicked for me, that it was not that she felt like her 20s and 30s, because it was a whole different time for her, but where she is now, and what she wants from her life now, that was the catalyst of this visiting her daughter. And she says, And it finally dawned on me and I said, I think most women think of how she felt. Everything's being taken away from me. I have less freedom. I have fewer choices that I can make unencumbered from everybody else attached to me. But now I've learned that by stepping away from things, I can actually feel like myself again, how I am now and what I want now. And I looked at her and I said, you just gave me my book. And she's like, really? I was like, yes, you did.

It is just giving yourself permission, isn't it, in this stage to think of yourself and do things for yourself? Women need to think of themselves differently and that they are evolving. They're not going downhill. We're so taught that everything goes downhill. And do you find that Instead of thinking of ourselves as evolving, like I just said, we're trying to get back to the old version of ourselves instead of honoring where we are now. And that keeps them stuck in this cycle.

That's also a good observation. Yes. Because what we, what we know over here, what we've done is familiar. It's not scary. We don't have to, we know how it's, how it's playing out, whether we get results or not. But we are safe over here. If we go to the dark side and say, I'm just gonna shake things up a little bit, it's scary to take that move over here. And because you leave the familiar, now you're in new territory, and you don't know how it will play out, how people will react to it, if you will find the satisfying of what you're doing next will. And and that's definitely where people. get stuck. And I think at this point, we need to really look at curiosity.

Mm-hmm.

Be curious about what's next instead of afraid. What will change? It will make me more afraid. It will make me feel more guilty. It will make me feel like people are judging me for what my choices may be.

Mm-hmm.

But curiosity gives you permission To check things out. If they're okay, you may follow up. And if they're not your thing, you can still be over here. But at least you give yourself, as you said, permission to explore and not fully commit to something. We're not talking about— at least I'm not talking about, here's my goal, I want to run a marathon. We're over here. We're a walker. What's the next step I would want to do? Oh, maybe I can just do a run walk. I could try this out and see how things go without fully committing to something, but just dabbling a little bit.

Yeah, it sounds like what's needed or what's missing for many women who are stuck in that, I want my former body, I want my former energy, whatever it is— acceptance. That we have to accept that our bodies are changing and we need to honor where we are. So what are some of the shifts that you've seen in people when they actually stop fighting who they are now?

They feel so free. They are willing to speak up for themselves. Okay, you guys, sometimes you're really courageous to speak up for yourselves, and other times you're just not, and that is totally okay. I've been there too, and I didn't speak up, and I was like, why didn't I say anything? I just wasn't as courageous that day. And I was like, okay, I pick my battles. But think of it that yes, you can speak up. You can make choices because that's all there is. You choose you.

Mm-hmm.

It's just like you choose, you know, the meals that are right for you. You choose the exercises. You choose you. And what more empowering way is there than choosing you and what you need? Has totally the connotation of selfishness, which is great.

So do you find that having that attitude, what you just said, is really like the first step in rebuilding that trust in yourself?

Yeah, absolutely. You have to, you have to look at what's going on, be clear about the things, and that can come again in slow increments of what you don't or no longer want in your life.

Mm.

And trust that you will make the right decision, no matter the outcome. Let's— 'cause I don't prescribe to the good versus the bad or the failure. I failed. I don't prescribe to all of that. We are exploring, we're experimenting, we're curious, we're checking things out. And if they don't work out, well, there's always something else that we can explore. But that trust that you will make it to what you want it to be. And, you know, a good example, for instance, is when I, back in the days, I was teaching at different studios and I always wanted my own studio. After years of being in the fitness industry, I was so tired of people telling me what to wear and how I should do and what they wanted things to be. And I was like, no, I have my own, my own opinion. And I was looking to, to open up my own studio in Washington, DC. And I asked some realtors to show me some spaces and I was looking at things and the question I got was, well, how much money you got? How much collateral do you have? So how much can you bring to the table in order to lease this space? And, and is there a lot of equipment? And I didn't have a lot. And I didn't have— I had a following of over 35 clients, but I didn't have other teachers and so forth. And I was literally shut down by this one realtor. And he says, Yeah. Number one, women-owned businesses don't get loans right now. We don't give loans to women. And number two, you have no money, so you might as well just keep doing what you're doing. And he literally shut me down with this. And I was like, okay. I was dumbfounded. I was like, okay, I'm bringing a good amount of money in and I have a good sense for business. And I gave up and I said, you know, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing and it will be great. And I just don't have my own studio. Maybe I was too lofty in my thinking, but in the back of my mind that kept lingering. And then my my now husband and I were like, okay, you're you sold your apartment. I'm selling my townhouse. We're moving in together. We were looking house. We were house hunting, and we came upon that house that is in the perfect neighborhood for us. It had the air quotes formerly garage already transformed into a Waiting area, a bathroom, and a small area where I could put all the equipment that I had. It had windows, it was bright, it was light, and it was attached to my house and not inside the house. I didn't want people coming inside my house for training. And my husband looked at this and he says, we're buying this house. It has your studio right there. I tell you, Rita, I had this knot in my stomach that you could say, Could be fear, excitement, or the, oh my God, am I really doing this?

Yeah.

So we bought the house. I painted the walls. I put my equipment in. And I've been now in business with my brick and mortar for 14 years. So sometimes when you have a plan or you— what you want, it can change based on the circumstances. And you don't have to give up on your dreams. Because it just didn't mature for me in this glitzy space that had all the, you know, the shiny things and all that, and a lot of overhead because— and then COVID came and I was like, thank the Lord I do not have the studio.

Exactly, exactly.

That story showcases that it's, it's that you, you can keep going, but don't get too hung up on what the goal might be.

What will be will be, and you'll make it that way as you progress. Progressing and progressing into this stage of life, what would a realistic exercise and wellness routine look like in midlife for women who want, you know, they want results, but you know, they don't want to be burnt out, they don't want to be burning themselves out with it?

There's— let's, let's look at this in 2 camps. You have camp one, the woman who's not exercised anything really other than walking. And you have the other woman Who's been working out and has a pretty decent fitness routine together. So you're looking at number one who is new to all of this, has heard that strength training is great, has decided that she may buy some equipment for at home 'cause she doesn't wanna go to the gym, but just doesn't really know what to do.

Mm-hmm.

I would say find yourself a coach that sets you up with the right exercises And gets you going. 'Cause you can always go from there and take it from there. The more you learn, the more you're curious, the more you can go. But also, I would say for this woman over here, that's the beginner, bodyweight exercises are fabulous. I'm a huge fan of kitchen counter pushups.

Oh yeah.

It's like, you go to the kitchen, you do kitchen counter pushups. You wait for your coffee or tea to brew, you do some squats like you're sitting in the toilet. Or you're walking through the room like you're doing big lunges. There's so many simple things we can do that— I also made a reel at one point where I took a really heavy cooking pot and I did weightlifting with my cooking pot because I was like, oh, this is really good. This is great. This works great if you don't have equipment. For the— so this is somebody who's like, oh, I have no idea. The other person may know already a lot and is in that routine that says, you know, I'm settled, but— Things are not working anymore. Again, I would say get a qualified coach to help you sort this out because we're so individual that you can't give general— I could, but I'm not giving general advice and saying, oh, this is what you need to change. This is the sets and reps and you should switch from this to this because I don't know that woman and I don't know if there are any, you know, age-related things like arthritis going on or other things. Get— if you're stuck over on the, I know a lot and nothing changes, ask for help. Somebody that you can trust, ask a friend that is in this, or go to a gym if you're a gym person, and get good advice of what to do next. And then go from there. But for all of either group of these women, I'd say strength training, You know, think of, think of weights and bands and the machines that you sometimes see at the gym or bodyweight exercises as a must. If you're not pushing any resistance, you won't wither away, but you won't be as strong as you're hoping to. Like, I have 2 grandkids. They're 4 and 1. The best part is hanging out with them and playing with them and racing around and, and doing our own little exercise routine. And I would miss out on all this fun because I didn't invest in my health. No, we don't want that.

That's so true. We've got to look at do things now for tomorrow, you know.

And it's never too late. It is. When you think about, oh, I've never done any weight training at 60, start now because your muscles will respond to that training. And you don't have to lift super heavy or super complicated exercises. that we sometimes admire on social media. We're like, oh, how did they do that? Oh my God, this looks really cool. I could never do this. And we want to do.

What would you say to the woman who's listening right now and wondering if she will ever feel like herself again?

Work on your self-trust. Know that what you need is already within you. Stop dimming your light and pursue your spark.

We need that, and we need to believe it. Thank you so much, Helke, for coming onto the show and sharing your knowledge. And for everybody who's listened to this and loved what she's had to say, all of her details will be in the show notes. So please go there, contact, and, uh, purchase her book. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you.