The Muscle Mistake Almost Every Woman Over 40 Makes

Let's be honest, most of us in midlife, we do still care about the number on the scale. We want to feel good in our clothes. We want to look in the mirror and like what we see. This is real, and I'm never going to tell you to stop wanting that. But there's a bigger conversation we are not having loud enough. We're watching our parents struggle to get out of a chair. We're noticing the stiffness in our own hips. We're watching friends our age get injured more doing things that we used to do without thinking about it. So yes, the scale matters, but are we paying enough attention to how we're moving, how we're building, how we're training for old age? How do we want to live in our 70s, 80s, even 90s. We can have both things true at the same time. We can feel good, we can look good, we can also age well. And is the advice we're seeing online just to add more protein, lift heavy— is that the right advice? Is that helping us or is that hurting us? And what does it even mean? Like, what's enough protein and what's that for? And when we say lift heavy, compared to who? For what? What's the goal there? My guest today is one of the smartest, voices in the world with this exact bigger picture. Dr. Stephanie Estima, she's a doctor of chiropractic with 19+ years of clinical experience, specialty in both body mechanics, female metabolism, functional neurology. And she's the woman behind the Estima Method and bestselling book, The Betty Body. She's also the host of the Better Podcast, and she's helped over 10,000 women rebuild the way they move, the train, and the way that they live in midlife. Her messaging is what hooked me. Plus, we both like winged eyeliner. You know, there was something in common there. So I thought, I've got to get to know her.

So we've recently got to know each other a little better being on each other's podcast.

Welcome to the show, Stephanie.

Thank you. I was trying not to laugh through that, but it's like the winged eye— we have like a nerd namaste between the winged eyeliner, and me sees and appreciates the winged eyeliner.

Well, I knew I would like you. Well, I like all your content. I've always liked your content, but I knew I'd really like you when I started following your content. I'm like, ah, She does her eyes like me. We both have the I Dream of Jeannie eye situation going on, and we don't care what others think. We're gonna— we might be doing it at 90, and we're good with it.

So totally good with it. Yeah, I have a trick, by the way. I put tape underneath, and then I'll draw the liner, so then when I pull the tape off, it's like— That's brilliant.

Crisp.

Yeah, maybe I'll do a tutorial on that.

Yeah, by the way, for any of you wondering why we like winged eyeliner, I'm not sure what your exact reason is, but my reason is I feel like it lifts it all up. Because it's like a melting candle as we age. So I feel like things start going down and so I'm not going to cut my hair shorter. So I got to lift up visually.

So it's like, it's— I've often heard like women, they're like, okay, it's either bangs or Botox, right? It's like either one of those things. And same thing with the eyeliner. It's like I got to, you know, make the illusion that everything is lifting. I like eyeliner probably because I am part Middle Eastern and then the clean makeup look. Yeah, just does nothing for me.

No, I got—

you know, I start— I try to put on a little bit of stuff and I'm like, well, maybe a little bit more blush. Well, maybe a little bit of contour and then winged eyeliner. Mascara, eyeshadow, and there you go.

You know, I bought this thing on TikTok Shop. I don't know, it's like a stamp. It's like an eyeliner stamp. It's got the wing and you just stamp it.

That's smart. That's smart.

It's working right now. But, but every now and then I get that, can you show us how to do your eyes? But then I'll get the, can we get out of the '70s? Why are you still wearing winged eyeliner? So, you know, whatever.

We're going to stay in the '70s. And I wear leg warmers to the gym. I just got to say, like, I am still with the leg warmer. I don't care. I will put leg warmers on. And it just finishes the look for me. And my workout is directly proportional to how cute I think I look.

Oh, that's a given. Like, more given. That's a trick, ladies, by the way. If you're like, why aren't I not motivated? You got to get a cuter workout outfit because that always re-motivates, I think. I think. All right, let's—

I want to—

the reason I wanted to have you on the show was not just the winged eyeliner. It's really your brilliance around this conversation. There is so much noise online. There's So much noise about— I'm going to start with sort of the obvious, with just all women need to eat more protein and lift heavier. When you see that or hear that, what comes up for you?

I mean, I think it's— I think everybody's just— there's a lot of people online that just copy each other, right? So somebody starts saying it and they're like, oh, that's really good content, I'll just farm that content and say it without really having a lot of understanding around, you know, maybe somebody needs 30 grams of protein, maybe somebody needs 50, maybe somebody needs to, you know, distribute that protein bolus a little bit, like a little fewer meals over the course of the day or more meals over the course of the day. Same thing with lifting heavy. Like, what does that even mean? Like, how heavy? Like you said, according to whom? Compared to what? How do I know it's heavy? So I think that there's a lot of— it's kind of the same as eat less, move more, right?

Yeah.

It's like, eat less of what? Move more how? It's sort of the same repackaged general garbage that I don't really think helps move the needle for anybody in any way. So I'm happy to get into more specifics around what lifting heavy is. I have a bit of a heuristic that I typically teach on it, which I think will be really useful for your audience for sure.

Yeah. Let's jump right into that. I mean, I'd love to hear that and I want to— and then we'll come back sort of to the protein. But I think those are really important places to start because I'll tell you what happens with my audience especially is some people instantly get it. They're like, okay, progressive overload, I got it. I need to push myself harder. But I'll tell you, for most of my women, it's super intimidating and they're like— and they see somebody online lifting heavy and maybe they're not Really functionally ready for that. And that's how they get injured or they start getting into defeat. And what's the purpose of doing anything if I can't do that?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think the point like around injury risk, that's a real concern for women, especially since most of us in our cohort, let's say, you know, in our 40s and our 50s, we kind of grew up like I did in the cardio section of the gym. So now where we hear a lot of this noise around muscle and building muscle and the importance of it, that motor specificity and language, let's say, hasn't really been developed in those women. So I was saying to you before we got recording, it's kind of like, Like, you would never say to a toddler, write out a paragraph about your day, right? Toddlers speak in 1, 2, 3, maybe 5-word sentences. And over time, there's a sophistication that happens to their acquisition of language. The same thing should be viewed when we're thinking about strength training, resistance training, or any type of movement activity, and even cardiorespiratory, cardiovascular fitness as well. There is a motor skill. Like, I want you to think about it around motor literacy. So, when you start lifting weights, You're a newbie. You don't have that mind-muscle connection yet. Your nervous system has not figured out how to recruit the maximum number of motor units. And that's actually what we like, you know, that's one of the things when we call them like newbie gains, right? Like when someone first starts training, they start to see a rapid increase in their strength, but it's not necessarily that you have hypertrophied the muscle, but it's actually just your brain getting better at recruiting more of the muscle that you're targeting. Right? So this is how I want you to think about lifting heavy. First of all, nobody's going to know what heavy is, um, except you. So you have to be willing to play. Like, even if you're working with a personal trainer, the personal trainer is going to be like, well, let's try these 15s and see how those feel, right? Like, they're still going to be kind of playing around to see how you feel within the certain rep range that you've determined. So how you know you're lifting heavy is whatever repetition that you have determined for that set. So let's just use like Let's say 10 reps. By rep number 7, rep number 8, you're starting to see the velocity with which you can execute the rep slow down. Meaning that rep 1, 2, and 3, you were doing it at like, you know, if you're doing a bicep curl, if you're watching this on video, I'm kind of miming a bicep curl. You know, you're doing it at a certain velocity, a certain speed and acceleration. And then rep 7 and 8, you start to slow down a little bit because the weight is starting to feel heavier. You may start to feel a burning sensation. This is just like— You know, metabolic byproducts accumulating in the muscle. And you may start to not be able to perform the range of motion, like the full range of motion that you were doing rep 1, 2, 3, 4 may no longer be possible at rep 7, 8, 9, and 10. So you may start noticing that you can't quite get the, you know, the curl all the way up, let's say.

Sure.

And then the other thing, I think I mentioned it, but I think it's worth just pulling it out, is the subjective weight starts to feel heavier as well. So even though you, you can see that you're still holding the same 15 pounds, it starts to feel like it's 45, like it's It starts to feel extraordinarily heavy. So those are the things that you know that when you're lifting heavy enough, because now you see a change in velocity over the course of the set. You see a change in your ability to execute range of motion. You see a change in the subjective perception of the weight as well. So those are, those are some ways that you can figure out whether or not you're lifting heavy enough.

If—

Oh, and the other thing I'll say too is Your form, even though I'm such a stickler for form, you will also start to see your form begin to break down a little bit. A little bit of, you know, a little bit of form breakdown is okay. Obviously complete compensations are not, but you will— like rep 1 and rep 10 should look mostly like each other, but rep 10 is gonna look, we'll say, a little uglier.

Yeah.

A little less pretty than rep 1.

So, you know, it's one analogy I've given women before. That don't understand this, the lift heavy thing initially, I say, picture what it would take your body to lift a roll of paper towels. So, there's paper towels on the floor, you're going to bend down, you're going to pick up the paper towels. What does that take? How is your body? What's the stance? How are you engaged? And then, I want you to picture if you were picking up a big 30-pound weight or a cement block, how would you reach for that and how would your body be? I feel that it's an extreme analogy, but It explains the difference of when I see women just grabbing baby weights and going through this motion of 3 sets of 12, which we learned over and over again so many times. They've been doing the same 3 sets of 12. Your body is in that paper towel mode. It's just moving through motions. It's not doing anything. It's not even really maintaining at this point. What do you think about that whole 3 sets of 12? Like where that came from? And can you speak a little into that? Like where that— what that even— and how much rest do you recommend between when you're talking about the heavy that you're talking about where it's 7, it's getting Harder, how much rest should you be doing in between those?

Yeah, great question. I think here's the thing. This is the other, we'll say, ick that I have around lifting heavy is because you have women in their mid-40s and 50s that are now new to the weight room and everyone's like, lift heavy stuff, you have to lift heavy, and that's the only way you're going to build muscle. I also think that's a bit of a fallacy as well. So the science is pretty clear that anything between 5 repetitions and 30 repetitions Is going to build muscle, with the asterisk highlighted and double underlined that at the end of the set, you have had sufficient intensity and effort that you are somewhere between 1 to 3 reps shy of failure, meaning that you can no longer perform. Like, your muscles are like, that's it, I'm out, I need a break. Like, you cannot perform. No, there's no range of motion. The lactate, you know, the metabolic byproducts, like, your muscles are burning and you cannot do anymore. So, and I think that that's useful because you're gonna find Like, for me, for example, when I am doing shoulders, which is a smaller muscle group, it's much harder for me to apply this, like, always add load to the shoulders. Like, yeah, I have been like kind of stuck at 7.5 to like 9 pounds on my shoulders forever. Um, so the way that I progress with, let's say, lateral raises with a dumbbell, let's say, is going to be volume, right? So it's going to be more sets, it's going to be more repetitions. It's not necessarily that I can lift more weight with it.

I love that you That, I, you know, shoulders is my favorite thing to train, and people ask me a lot about shoulders, and I— same thing. Like, I don't think I've ever gone higher than 10 pounds with like those, and then maybe overhead press, I might go more like 17 at the max.

Right, right, right, right, right, right. But for legs, for example, like a hip thrust— and by the way, women have like 58% of our muscle mass in the lower half of our body compared to 51% for men, so we actually have more capacity for leg workouts. And I know we'll talk about glutes because I love them. I like big butts and I cannot lie. But for our legs, for example, when we're doing something like a deadlift or a squat or a hip thrust, you have the capacity there, once your form is established, to add more load as a means of progressing. But when you are, you know, shoulders, for example, you are not going to necessarily— like there's a, I mean, at least I haven't broken through it yet, but I feel like there's almost like a finite amount of weight that you can add before you sort of reach a natty ceiling, let's say, like a natural ceiling where you're not going to be able to progress with only weight as the lever, but you can add other, you know, you can decrease your rest time, like you can increase the density of the workout, you can increase the volume like we were saying. So there's other ways that you can progressively overload the muscle to still drive that adaptation that you're looking for.

I don't want to skip over rest period because, you know, I think we were trained, uh, many years ago, it was more cardio, like our workouts would become more cardio. So there was no rest. Yes. In fact, you would superset all different exercises. There was a whole movement around that. And I fell into that. I used to have teach in DVDs that changing, you know, up between alternating 3 exercises or whatever. But now I've noticed in order to recover fully and to truly progressively overload, I look for, me personally, like a 90-second rest in between. I'm curious your thoughts on that and what you believe and teach.

Great, great, great. Yeah, I think for most people, somewhere between 1 and 3 minutes. So in the 90 seconds, as you were saying, is a great range. I gotta tell you, with legs, I mean, I don't know who I'm gonna make upset here, but I like a 4 or 5 minute rest.

It gives us time to check our phone. It's great.

I mean, I get on Instagram, I go down into— I get sucked into the rabbit hole of the algorithm, and then I come out and I'm like, oh my God, it's been 5 minutes. Yeah, for the next one. So I, I really like— and I actually feel, especially because I am really— there's a lot of intensity and there's a lot of effort with like a hip thrust, let's say. 4 or 5 minutes for me feels really, really good. I don't need that necessarily with shoulders or a smaller muscle group. Chest, for example, I don't need that kind of rest. So that's like a 1 to 3 minute. And that's going to vary. I don't think that there's any— I mean, I know that there's debate in the fitness community around which is better. Is it a minute? Is it 3 minutes? I mean, really, you should be thinking about— you should be ready to go again when the target muscle feels ready to go again. The accessory muscles are also ready to go again. So though, like, for example, in a deadlift, are your Are your lats and your low back muscles sufficiently recovered so that you can do it again? Because those are accessory muscles in that movement pattern.

Yeah.

Is your heart rate— I wear a heart rate monitor when I train, so my heart rate can get up to like 170 when I'm doing hip thrusts or deadlifts or squats. So does my heart rate recover before I'm ready to go again? Is my breath rate, like my respiratory rate, has that come back to normal? These are things that you should be paying attention to. There's no magic, like, 1-minute And then you got to go again and you're a failure. It's like, those are the things that you need to be just observing within yourself. And once those conditions are met, then you can say, okay, now I'm ready to do set number 2.

Got it. Okay. I want to talk about glutes and the importance of that. And the reason this question's even coming up is when I was being interviewed on Stephanie's podcast, I had shared that I had had a disc rupture in my back 9 years ago now, and between L5-S1. And Those of you that have been following me or listening to my show for a while, you know this journey. But last year, I ended up having a disc replacement because it had started to autofuse together and I had horrendous pain and I could not train legs at all. There was not even an option. It was such bad pain and I was losing a ton of muscle in my glutes. And the more you don't have muscle in your glutes, the more your back is hurting because you need a strong core, you need strong glutes to take that pressure off your lower back. You need to almost take your lower back out of the equation by developing those. So, we were talking about the body mechanics there. And, just to sort of fast forward here, and then I'm going to ask Stephanie a bunch of questions here. When you can break through and develop your glutes and your core, you really do alleviate a lot of pain and you stay a lot more functional. However, a lot of us, including me, who had that disc replacement and we're starting over, a lot of you listening are dealing with pain, whether it's knees or hips or lower back, and you're thinking, well, how do I even start to train lower body when I've got these things going on? So, I guess my direct questions for you, Stephanie, is I want to talk in any particular order, like sort of the importance of lower body, like why this is so important, and then sort of advice for most of my women here. They are not— they haven't been training them forever. You know, in fact, we came from the generation of— we used to tie sweatshirts around our waist and hide the butt. That was like a thing.

So, how— Thigh gaps. It was thigh gaps.

Yeah. So, help us with all of that.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's a simple question, but it's a complicated one to answer. So I'll start with low back pain because this, along with knee osteoarthritis, these are sort of the 2 big disabilities that we typically see as a, as a function of aging. So I think that the stat is with low back pain in particular, I think it's 80% of the population at some point will experience acute low back pain. And knee osteoarthritis, or KOA for short, is the number one disability, like number one disability that people live with over a long period of time. And so if you don't have a good low back or you don't have good knees, it is going to be extraordinarily hard for you, as you experienced yourself, to main— to train. Like, you can't squat if you don't have good knees or a good low back. It's going to be extraordinarily difficult for you. So let me just kind of outline maybe some of the common types of low back pain, and then we can get into glutes if that's okay with you.

That's great.

That's great.

Yeah.

So the way, and it's like, this is like, how am I going to summarize 25 years? So back, okay. So when we talk about low back pain, it's typically classified as like acute or chronic. So did it happen recently or is this something that you've been dealing with a long time? And then the other way that we classify low back pain is the type of pain that you're experiencing. The most common low back pain that most people experience is something called mechanical low back pain. So this is the dull, Achy sensation that is coming from the facet joints. So we have like joints in the spine. So as the 2 vertebral bones meet, these are called the facet joints. It could be coming from the surrounding ligaments, the muscles that are attaching into the spine as well. So these are, this is what's called mechanical low back pain, the most common kind of back pain. And I will say that as someone who was in practice for 19 years before I've I stopped my private practice in Toronto, Canada. One of the things that always went along with mechanical low back pain was weak glutes. So there is an orthopedic test that is called the Trendelenburg test. You may have actually seen it in your evaluation, like if physios or chiros were ever evaluating you. Basically, it looks like this. You stand, like, you know, you're standing up, and then your chiropractor or your doctor, whoever, is saying to you, okay, lift one leg. And what they're watching for is to see whether or not the leg that's lifted, to see whether or not that pelvis drops. If it drops, that is an indication that the glutes on the standing leg are not sufficiently strong enough to prevent the pelvis from tipping. And I would say with probably a rate of 85 or 90% of the time, patients presenting with mechanical low back pain had insufficient strength in the glutes. So they would fail that Trendelenburg test when I would do it. In the clinic. There are other types of low back pain. So there's radicular pain. So this is the pain that can come from, you know, as the nerve roots are coming out from the spinal cord, they can be pinched at any point along their path. So patients will often report like burning pain, electric pain, like the sciatic nerve is like the most famous one, right? So like sciatic pain, like shooting, sharp shooting pain down the back of the leg, and it can go into the glute and it can also go all the way down to the foot. And I've seen like patients who've lived with it for a long time develop something called foot drop, which means that the nerve has been so compromised that they can no longer bring their foot up when they're walking.

That's what I had when I ruptured my disc.

You— okay. Yeah, so that's very, very serious. Okay, needs to be addressed immediately.

Yeah, I had emergency surgery to remove the rupture because it was, it was a whole thing. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So disc herniations, that will also do it. And discs can herniate in a variety of ways, but usually— do you know if it was like a central herniation or posterior lateral?

It was, it went off to the It happened during a workout, during a 9-hour filming workout. It was intense.

Jesus.

I'd always had a bulge, but it ruptured out so bad that my whole right leg, foot dropped and it stopped working. And, I didn't even understand how serious that was. I'm just thinking I pulled something. And, when I got the X-ray, it was like the next day I was in surgery just to laser remove the disc. That's what led to it autofusing later and needing a disc replacement. That was— yeah, so I'm very— that foot drop was awful.

Foot— it's so scary as well because you're like, I am looking at my foot and I am willing it to move and it will not do that.

Dragging.

You're dragging it. You're dragging your foot like you're shuffling along. And then the other ones are less common but just worth a mention just for, you know, for completeness. There's like inflammatory pain, so things that come from arthritides like rheumatoid arthritis, more rare conditions like ankylosing spondylitis, which is just like a progressive fusion of the spine. And then the other one I'll say is like referred pain. So probably every woman has experienced when she gets her period Oh yeah. If her low back or her knees ache, this is referred pain from the pelvis, the organs in the pelvis, right? So you're, it's like, you know, that every month your back is going to be achy. It's not because there's something wrong with your back, but it's because your uterus is contracting. And then there's like shared nerves and it's referring to the low back. So there's referred pain as well. So it's, it's just, I share all of these as a way for your listeners to sort of like differentiate, like to be able to say, okay, what is the kind of back pain that I am experiencing? And then as it relates to the glutes, strengthening the glutes are Are going to be something that is not only preventative for mechanical low back pain, which I've mentioned, but radicular pain, which is something that, um, which is something that you, uh, experienced as well. Inflammatory, like if you have an osteoarthritic, or I should say rheumatoid arthritis, like autoimmune kind of condition, it can still help alleviate the pain because what ends up happening is when you are in pain, you tend to, um, develop what's called antalgia or antalgic posture or antalgic mechanics, which is just nerd speak for you try to avoid where the pain is. So when your back is hurting, you start walking and moving in a way that is— you're trying to avoid the, you know, flaring up that area. So you start developing all these different compensatory patterns. So the long and short of this, my little nerd rant here, is develop your glutes because they are the primary stabilizer. So when you are flexing the spine, extending the spine, the glutes are the primary stabilizer of the spine. They are going to help help so that you don't overflex or overextend. They help obviously to abduct, like they bring the leg out to the side. They spin externally and internally the legs, so external and internal rotation, uh, you know, contralateral firing. All— there's so many things that the glutes do. It's just you can't not train them.

Yeah.

And so many times when I have women that are like, oh, I did deadlifts and I really hurt my back, and I actually look at the mechanics in terms of how they're doing it, it's because they Not engaging the glutes properly, and they are allowing for the erector spinae group or the, you know, the quadratus lumborum or whatever the muscle is in question to take over the movement rather than being specific and allowing the glutes and/or the hammies, like the posterior chain, to do the work.

So glad you said that. You know, I used to teach bodyweight. That was all my DVDs were bodyweight for years. And I still believe, and I'm willing to be challenged on this, so if you don't agree, let me know, but I still believe if you have no glute strength at all, like if you're— you don't go right to a deadlift, you shouldn't go right You should start with a glute bridge on the ground with nothing. You should start with some walking. Like, we have to start somewhere. And I think with this whole message around progressive overload and lift heavy, somehow we've lost the plot here with— we still have to build up. So I think like a lot of my women listening, we've got to start with a glute bridge. We've got to start with some basic movements here to even get that strength going. I want to get your thoughts around that.

I mean, it would just be lunacy if I said, hey, you know what, I'm interested in running. And someone's like, you know what you should do? You should do the Boston Marathon. No one would ever say that, right? Or we— or, you know, the toddler example. Like, no one is gonna expect a toddler to write out a paragraph about how they're feeling, right? It's just— it's, it's progression. But for whatever reason— well, I think I have an idea, and maybe you can tell me what you think too— but women are just— we are swimming in this like superhero, like Superwoman syndrome where we always have to be extraordinary at everything at all times, that we don't actually give ourselves the effing— pardon Yeah. You know, like the effing grace to take the time to learn a skill. So yeah, bodyweight is 100% where everybody should start. That's where I started. That's where you start. And you should work like a form of progressive overload is your technique. If you have pristine technique and rep number 10 looks pretty much identical to rep number 1, and you've been working on that technique for weeks, you've won.

So good.

You don't need to put 25, 45, 100. You don't need— who cares? Like, just think about pristine technique, because I promise you, you will be the elite few that have actually taken the time to learn the movement pattern and the specificity of targeting the muscles that you actually want to target. When you're doing a hip thrust, nobody is thinking about growing your waist. But if you are only ever engaging your erectors, guess what happens?

Yeah.

Because your back muscles are growing. So why don't we just work on being specific with the muscles that we want to target? And if you don't have that motor skill yet, give yourself some grace and some time and patience and love. In the same way that you would never yell at a baby for not being able to talk, you should also give yourself that same love, compassion, and, you know—

I'm so glad you said that. And, I'm right there too with you all listening if you're in this because after that disc replacement, I've had to really start over. And, I did not have glutes because of that injury and years of not being able to train it. So, I've started over in the last year and I started with bodyweight. And, you'll see me hip thrusting with a small amount of weight and my leg press, everything is lighter. It's progressive overload for me. It's challenging for me, but it is not what you see. And, my glutes are still growing. I am growing muscle.

Yeah.

So, I think we have to not compare to something we see online about this go heavy, go heavy, because that's how we are going to get injured and that's how we're going to create, create bigger problems here. For the women that are listening that are like, well, I don't— I just don't want to train legs, or I don't want to get bulky, can you— oh my God, help here. And then, and I want a little tough love of what goes wrong if we really ignore this and don't train lower body.

Well, if you don't like training legs, too bad, you have to train legs. That's my tough love. It's like the other, like this sort of, this gives me like a bit of an angry tick. It's like, just do what you love. It's like, no, we're not just gonna do what we love. We are gonna do what we love, and we're also gonna do hard things.

Yeah.

That are gonna set up our bodies for success, not just right now, but also for the body that you're gonna need when you're 70, and you're 80, and you're 90. And that includes resistance training. That includes high-intensity interval training spaced out once a week, maybe twice a week. You have to do those things in addition to the things that you love. So I'm sorry that you don't like doing legs, you still have to do them.

Yeah.

In the same way that nobody likes paying taxes, we still have to do them, you know. It's like, or you're going to be persecuted. In the same way, you know, you— if you are not going to put in the time to build out your legs, you are going to find yourself being, you know— I don't know if you remember that commercial when we were younger, like, help, I've fallen.

Yeah, yeah.

You're going to be the star of that commercial because you're not going to have the leg strength, the quad strength, the proprioceptive input from your ankles and your knees, and the glute strength to extend you back So yeah, sorry, I don't— I know you don't like it.

No, that's great. And there's an element of— I know women listening going, well, I can't— you can't control if you get sick or you get this diagnosis, you go whatever. But however, everything is going to be easier when you're stronger. So when you're strong, everything is easier. When you are weak—

The point is never to get sick. Like, that's not the point. Like, you get sick, I get sick, but it's how you recover from it, which is important, right? If you need surgery, you know, I can't control whether or not a car accident happens, or in your case, you know, you rupture a disc, you need to have emergency surgery. But what you can control And what is completely under your realm of control is how quickly you recover from it, right? And that, that really depends on what you— the body that you have going into that crisis, right? Um, so I'd say that the bulky thing, again, like, guys, okay, so I'll just say this. I've been training for, I don't know, 2 decades, maybe 20, like, like resistance training, uh, at least for 20 years. And it's like, a girl can continue to dream, you know? Like, I wish—

I know. It's so hard. It's so hard to add muscle, and people think it's just going to happen from touching a weight. It's so funny.

Yeah, in the same way that you're gonna be, you know, Margaret Atwood from journaling, and the same way that you're gonna be Lewis Hamilton because you drive to the grocery store and you're going to be a Formula 1 rider. Like, it's not— like, listen, for 98% of us mere mortals, it is extraordinary, extraordinarily difficult with the hormonal, you know, environment that we live in to build an extraordinary amount of muscle. There are outliers for sure. Uh, there are people who just have won the genetic lottery and can put on muscle just by looking at a steak. But for most of us, for most women, you got to work. And by work, I mean you got to move the muscle very close to failure often enough over a very long period of time. And if you are lucky, you will gain centimeters.

That's right. And it gets harder.

Yeah, harder as we age.

In our 50s, it's harder. Totally. So yeah, when you said— you mentioned intensity intervals, can you share your thoughts around cardio and that?

What I meant was intensity in lifting, not in But I will share intervals. I think that it is very important. So I am not somebody who's like, only just lift weights and walk with a weighted vest. I think that we also have to be thinking about our cardiovascular fitness as we age, as we lose estrogen. Estrogen is a potent systemic anti-inflammatory hormone. And so I think that training your heart and trying to preserve your VO2 max.

Yeah.

You know, we hear a lot of noise online about you lose 1% of muscle per year if you're not training, and that's true. That's also true for bone density. It's also true for your connective tissue capacity, but it's also true for your VO2 max. So, you lose about 10% per decade if you're not careful. So, cardiorespiratory fitness, cardiovascular fitness, however you want to call it, cardio, I think is incredibly important. I think that we should be aiming to do one very, very high-intensity workout per week. And, when I say high intensity, it should be high enough that you're kind of done in like the, the actual working time is like 15 minutes of work.

Yeah.

It's not a 45-minute HIIT class. That's not HIIT. So I would send— like, no shame to Group X. Like, that's, you know, I grew up on group— I was a group exercise instructor myself. But I'll say that— I'll give you an example. Like, personally, I love my, you know, interval of choice is Norwegian 4x4s. So I do this every Monday on my bike, and I will also sometimes in this— like, actually now in the summer, I actually like to go into the track and do it. But Norwegian 4x4s are sort of my year-round staple. And what I'll do with that is it's 4 It's the longest 4 minutes of your life, but it's 4 minutes, and it's like around 90% of your maximum in terms of your heart rate. So you— and, and in terms of like on the bike, you'll do like 90% of your watt, like your watt maximum. And then you'll take a 3-minute break, uh, let your heart rate come back down, and then you repeat that 3 more times. So it's 4-minute intervals 4 times. That's why it's hard. Yeah, it is hell. But as Juliette Staret talks about, it's like, I know that I'm just gonna go into the pain cave. Like, that's where, you know, that, that saying came from, is from, uh, from the Starets. And go into the pain cave, punch it out. And like the whole workout, including the warmup, the cooldown, and even like the 3-minute intervals is like 28 minutes. The total working time is 4 minutes by 4. So it's 16 minutes total. And I'll tell you—

Once a week, once a week you do it?

I do it once a week. Yeah, it's once a week because you're, you just, it, because it's so intense, the recovery needs of an, of an activity like that is so high.

Yeah.

Uh, and you also want to allow for the adaptation to take place, right? Like if you go, you do your Norwegian, then you're back at it on Wednesday or Thursday, let's say, for many women, That's not enough time to reap the rewards of the recovery piece before you go back and apply the stimulus again. So, I would say once a week for most people to start. If you are an elite athlete or you have a background in track or you have a background, you're an endurance athlete or something, your needs might be higher than that, like 2 times a week maybe, but not really much more than that.

So, for someone listening that's maybe not ready for that level, what could they do? Um, that would maybe be kind of mimicking that, working up to something like that?

Yeah, I would say that you can do it on any cardio machine in the gym. If you can— if you have a wearable, or your phone can, or you can invest in a heart rate monitor, I would start to understand what your maximum heart rate is, and you can slowly work up to it. So a Norwegian 4x4 in its truest form is like 90% of your max heart rate. Okay, but you can also just do a Norwegian at 70%.

Yeah.

And then, you can just make it next week 75, or 2, 3 weeks from now, 75, and then 2, 3 weeks from now, 80. So, you can slowly ratchet up the intensity as well, right? You don't have to start at 90. And, I really like the bike for a lot of people because it's a predictive line of drive, right? With track sprint, if you're on a track, let's say, and you're doing sprints, there's a much higher injury rate. It's a bit more sophisticated. You have to have the right mechanics, et cetera, et cetera. So, I like actually to start with sprinting for people. in a low-impact environment, and then eventually they can graduate to higher impact as well.

Now, you mentioned the 4 minutes with this, like the 4 minutes and the break, the 4 minutes. What about— think, like, I was just thinking my form, which is definitely not 4 minutes, would be like doing the sled at the gym. So going really hard on the sled, recovering, doing it again. So I do that maybe 4 or 5 times, but it's not 4 minutes each time. Does that matter?

No, I mean, there's lots of different ways that you can sprint. So that's one specific way, like the 4x4 is one way, and that's just my preference, so that's why I brought it up. But you can do like a true sprint is something like 10 to 20 seconds of like 100% effort. So that's what you're talking about with the sled. You're not actually able to do really much more than 20 seconds. Like, just if you think about the energy systems that are being used, 20 seconds is sort of the maximum. The reason why you're able to go for 4 minutes is because you're not at your maximum. You're doing like 85 to 90% of your total maximum. It's still hell. Uh, but the 10 to 20 seconds also Which is also still hell because it's like 100% ovaries to the wall, all effort, right? But you just can't do it for that long.

But so what I'm hearing, the important takeaway is this whole getting your heart rate up, then recovering, then getting it up and recovering. And we have to train for that. So at least once a week, you have to be doing that to be able to train that capacity.

Yeah. And that's going to improve— I mean, the Norwegian 4x4 has been extensively studied in terms of improving your VO2 max. So VO2 max is just nerd speak for how much oxygen You can take in at any given moment and then distribute that oxygen to the cells. So, your VO2 max, again, same as muscle, same as connective tissue and bone, declines about 1% every year if you're not training it. And, if you look at, you know, our aging parents or our aging grandparents, you know, they would, or you may even have a family member now that you can think of that gets winded just going up the stairs, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, that is something that we also want to be thinking about, not only for your cardiovascular fitness now, but as you age, there is just an age-related decline in your ability to take in large volumes of oxygen and get that oxygen distributed to your cells. So, you would be very smart to try and get ahead of that curve now.

Before we move into sort of nutrition and protein, because I want to cover that, I want to get your take on some of the trending wellness devices. And, I want to get sort of a yay or nay. And, if you want to elaborate on any, please go for it. I'm going to start with one you mentioned, weighted vest.

In terms of what? What's the goal?

Well, I don't know because we just keep seeing weighted vests for bone density, for cardio, for whatever in general.

Not for bone density. Well, let me say this, not for bone density at all, okay? Weighted vests, they are going to add metabolic stress. So you're going to burn more calories wearing a weighted vest than you would if you weren't. In terms of sufficient strain magnitude and strain rate, which is just a fancy way of saying like how fast and how hard can you bash your bones, weighted vests are not it.

Mm-hmm.

And there's been several studies looking at this where they looked at individuals who were weight training, weighted vest versus not. And the common theme is always that the weight vest The takeaway is you will increase your bone density when you're resistance training, independent of whether the weighted vest was present or not.

Interesting.

So I like weighted vests, and I wear a weighted vest when I go for a walk, but it's just a way to burn more calories, to give a little bit more of a cardiovascular— I guess more of a cardiovascular metabolic strain. But in terms of bone density, the research at this time is insufficient. Could infuse, if it's like a certain percentage of your body weight. And, you know, maybe that research can change as more is coming about, but the best way to increase your bone density is not going to be weighted vests. It's going to be doing things like resistance training. It's going to be doing things like, you know, plyometrics, standing on a box and jumping off of it or jumping onto a box. Anytime where there's like an explosion of power and there is like a, you know, there's like high impact. Yes.

So that's stomping. So I love stomping for that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So the first question you asked me when I said that, you said, for what? So I have a feeling as I read these, you're gonna probably also say, for what?

So a little bit of—

no, no, it's good. I love it. I love it. But it got me thinking, tell us for what, as I, as I asked them, because I'm, I'm curious now too. Um, so, um, because these are all things that we see, and I have some of them, and I'm— I've shared them too. So vibration plates. Vibration plates. That's another one.

Vibration plates. I like them for Strengthening tendons and ligaments. I have a vibration plate. It was a central piece of my rehab in my clinic. Again, I think that there is some, I will say the research is not robust enough to say that the, like the vibration in any way is going to positively impact osteoblastic activity.

Hmm.

Do we see a lot of elder, you know, we see, can you squat? Can you do lunges on a vibration plate? plate? Can you do an isometric hold on a vibration plate, which is fantastic for tendons and ligaments? Yes. Will you recruit more accessory muscles? Like, let's say you're doing a squat, potentially yes, because you are now on an unstable surface. And so your body now is trying to create stability and you can recruit more muscles that way. Again, for bone density, I would say that the research at this point is insufficient.

Got it. The steps today, the 12,000 steps today, or the 10,000 steps today.

If you want to do that, like, totally awesome. I think that the research is very clear that anything above, like most people are not getting 7,000 steps a day. And when we think about all-cause mortality, when we think about, and that's just like, again, nerd speak for all the reasons that you can die. Okay. So all the reasons like cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, all the things, the big 4 and, you know, and then some.

Right.

It tends to, you sort of see the biggest reduction at around 7,000 to 8,000 steps. If you want to do anything above that and you enjoy how you feel because you, you know, you have a goal, you set it on your watch or whatever, and you get 12,000, 15,000 steps a day, like, unbelievably amazing for you, but it's not necessary. So there's like, in the same way that, you know, if you train 4 times a week versus 5 times a week, it's like, you know, you're kind of getting like diminishing returns at that point. Like, is one better than the other? It's really hard to say. You have to sort of look at the individual and like their history of fitness, etc. So I would say at a minimum, we should all be trying trying to aim for 7,000 to 8,000 steps a day, and then anything above that, like, just give yourself an extra gold star on your chart because you're awesome and whatever, but it's not going to confer the same amplitude of benefits as like getting from like 4,000 to 7,000.

Totally, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay, Pilates as the only workout.

Oh dear. Um, I mean, that's a hard no. I mean, if you haven't listened to this episode up until this point, uh, I've talked resistance training probably 400 times at this point. I think Pilates is fantastic for pelvic floor, which is very important for women. This is one of the ways that we're very different from our male counterparts, right? Like, we have more— when we think about our pelvic floor, it's basically a sling of muscles that goes from our pubic bone anteriorly to the coccyx or the tailbone anterior— posteriorly. And the function of your, you know, pelvic floor is, you know, one, to keep all your organs in your body. That's kind of important.

Mm-hmm.

But also to appropriately respond to rapid changes in intra-abdominal pressure. So like when you're jumping, when you're coughing, when you're laughing, when you're sneezing. Okay. A lot of women will say as they age, and if they're multi-parent, like if they've had children, that they start to pee a little, like they start to notice that there's certain kinds of like stress incontinence. And part of that is due to insufficient strength and capacity of the PC muscles, the pubococcygeal muscles, the pelvic floor muscles that we're talking about. And when you look look at pelvic floor, like, just let me— if you can let me nerd out for like half a second. When we look at the pelvic floor of a man versus the pelvic floor of a woman, this is actually one of the ways that we're different. Like, well, I mean, we can get into like hips and carry angle and Q angle and all that stuff, but the pelvic floor is actually one of the ways that we're different as well. If you look at a man, he's much more, we'll say, mechanically simple, because there's only one hole, right? When you look at from the pubic bone to the tailbone for a man.

Yeah.

For a woman, we have 3 holes, right? And then you also add on top of that hormonal fluctuations over the 40 years that she's menstruating. And then you add on pregnancy, which is— and there's, you know, you're carrying, you know, 9 to, you know, 9 to 20 pounds of extra weight or 30 pounds of extra, however much weight you gain when you're pregnant. And then you have labor and delivery, which can also be quite traumatic to the pelvic floor as well. So back to Pilates, it's fantastic for the pelvic floor and the core muscles as a whole. So from the diaphragm To the transverse abdominis, which is very deep muscles in the core, to the PC muscles at the base. So I love Pilates for women over 40, if you— whether you've had children or not, if you've had, you know, if you're an XX person, you have XX chromosomes, you've been, you know, subject to the hormonal fluctuations that we all are. And so I would say that's really great for, we'll say, the pelvic diaphragm sometimes is referred to as that posture. It's really great for that as well. It is not sufficient. It is not sufficient for progressive overload. It is not sufficient for bones. Again, there's no bashing that's happening there. You're, you're either on the floor with some props or you're on a reformer with some, you know, uh, they're not chains, they're, you know, like weights. Like, you can add more resistance to it, um, but that is not sufficient for bone health.

Okay, here's another one that's probably going to trigger you, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Um, I'm not triggered. I'm just—

no, I love it, I love it, I love it. Toning workouts.

Yeah, there's no such thing. I'll say toning as someone who, you know, when you go to the doctor and they are testing your reflexes, right? That's an appropriate use of the word tone. Tone is how we categorize your nervous system. So you either have hypertonic, which is too much of a response, hypotonic, which is too little of a response, atonia, which is not a response at all. So these are, these are proper comments around nervous system. What we do see is that the fitness industry has hijacked this word.

Yeah.

To basically mean like a little bit of muscle, but not too much because we don't want to be bulky. We want long, lean, toned muscles, right? So I understand when people say I want to be toned, but if you want to be toned, what you need to be doing is resistance training with a lens to progressive overload. Like, there's no difference between men and women in terms of how muscles grow. Like, men don't bulk and women tone. Men and women grow muscle, the end, period. It's the same mechanism.

There's So good. Okay, I want to pivot a little bit into food, and I want to start with protein. We kind of started the whole conversation there, but with this, we have to eat more protein. Here's my concerns, and then I want to get educated from you here.

Sure.

My concern number 1 is as soon as we get into counting protein grams, it's back to calorie counting, and it's just another weird focus for me. It creates an obsessive thing, and we get away from bio-individual. So, I have a little bit of a concern there. Second, I think when we just think cram in protein, cram in protein, I think we need to be thinking like, what are we doing with that? Like, what's the reason for that? Like, what is that? Is that for appetite? Is that for muscle building? Like, what is the reason?

Yeah.

2, what kinds of protein? And then, at the cost of what other foods? And, I want to know how you feel about all that because for me, I'm a huge fan of phytonutrients and getting our antioxidants and I want fiber and there's a lot lot of macronutrients aside from just protein. So, want to get your thoughts around all of that.

All of that. Those are really great. Yeah, yeah, great. These are really great observations. I love these questions. You ask such good questions, by the way. Like, can I just say, from one podcaster to another, great, great questions. Okay.

You know what's funny about that is, and I told my husband this recently, is that I used to get in trouble in school for asking questions. Like, I was that kid in school. I was always like, but I have a question. And my teachers would say, Natalie, give someone else a chance. And then I would, I would tune out, right? So, so my podcast is my way that I can ask all the questions I want.

So, so awesome. I used to always get, Stephanie's too chatty, Stephanie's too chatty, she's not reaching her potential, which is probably because I had ADHD.

Me too.

See, we're curious. Yeah, we're curious, curious souls. All right, so I would say with the protein, protein definitely has had its moment. I think that there's been, you know, memes. You know, I saw one meme that made me laugh and I always quote it. It's like, I have to give up my my, my full-time job so I can make sure that I'm getting enough, which I thought was great.

So I think that though, lately it does feel like that.

And I think that the average American— the last stats I looked at, the average American woman takes something in like 60 to— I think it's 40 to 60 grams of protein a day. So which is aligned with the RDA, right, which is the recommended daily allowance, but it's nowhere near sufficient. So I would say The most common thing that we see is like 1 gram of protein per ideal pound of body weight. I think the ISSN says something like 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight up to 1.2 grams of protein per ideal pound of body weight. Or if you are, if you don't work in pounds, I think it's 1.6 grams per kg up to 2.2 grams per kg, but I'll have to fact-check myself on that because I think in pounds.

Okay.

So, I think that there is a case to be made around most the general population thinking about increasing their protein because most of us are probably under-consuming protein. I don't think that it's warranted to get obsessive about it, but to your point, you know, if you're consuming like 200 grams of— first of all, if you're consuming 40 grams of protein and you're like, well, I want to weigh 130 pounds, so I'm gonna— so that should— that means like 130 grams of protein. You can't go from 40 grams to 130. Like, you're gonna destroy your gut. Like, your gut is not gonna know what hit it. So again, in the same way That we were talking about the Norwegian 4x4s and like you sort of temper, you slowly add up, right? I would say the same is true if you're— if you start kind of tracking roughly what you're taking in, then you can start slowly adding in 10 grams, 20 grams here and there as your— as your digestive system adjusts to that and continue until you sort of hit your target. I don't think— I think that the— I think that the problem that people typically run into is That they are not so much the protein per se, but I think it's actually the fear of carbohydrates. I think for women, that's something that I see a lot. I don't know if you see that. I'm actually curious.

I used to see the fear of carbohydrates. It's veered to fear of everything unless it's just protein. So, like, at the cost of— now we're hearing like vegetables are going to kill us, like oxalates. Like, people are scared of oxalates when that's like so rare that you're going to have an oxalate issue, or fiber. So, it's just— I'm seeing a problem with all of it. Not just carbs.

Yeah. And I think that it's also really confusing for the, you know, for anyone— I call them my overwhelmed Ophelias, right? Like, they're online and like, I want to do the right thing. And then, you know, within 10 minutes of being on Instagram, you see someone that's like, plants are trying to kill you. Then you see someone else that's like, plants are not trying to kill you. In fact, you're probably under-consuming fruits and vegetables. It's like, fruit's gonna make your liver fat. And then, you know, so you see all of these different silos of people where, you know, they're influencers or gurus, and in some cases clinicians that are complete, like, spouting absolute nonsense. So, it's really difficult to sort of parse through what is real and what isn't. I would say generally, I think most women would benefit from increasing their protein intake, not just for the muscle protein synthesis, because we do lose muscle as we age. You do— it is important to pair the mechanical signal that you're getting from the gym with the kitchen signal, which is the protein and the carbohydrates, hopefully.

Yeah.

So, I think that that is important. I think that, to your point, we should just be trying as much as we can to eat whole foods. So, I don't like to look at any food as good or bad, including Oreo cookies and macaroons and chocolate, which I have almost every day. I think that you can include all fruits, all vegetables, complex carbohydrates, simple carbohydrates, like all of that should be included in your diet as long as you are as close to whole foods as possible. foods, you know, 80% of the time. Um, and then, you know, I have a cappuccino with a slice of chocolate in the morning and, yeah, you know, I'm fine.

Do you have a thought around protein powders? Like, for me, protein powders are like a backup plan or if I'm traveling. I don't love them though as a main— it's not like I'm trying to have a protein powder every day.

Yeah, it's not my main source either, but it is a nice bridge for a woman that's like, how am I going to have 130 calories? Well, you know, You take a scoop or 2 of protein and you're like at 50 grams, you know, 40, 50 grams depending on the company. So it does make it easy. It's in liquid form. You can add some blueberries and spinach and you can add some really good— blend it all up and all that stuff. So you can get in protein that way. Is it the main way that I take protein in? No. When I travel, do I use it? Yes.

That's like me. What are your main— is it like steak, chicken, fish, or what's eggs? Yeah, eggs.

I love eggs. I have an egg omelet every single morning, and I will continue to have that on a piece of sourdough toast with feta. And if I have spinach and olives, those go into it as well. 2 pieces of sourdough toast, some, some fruit, like if I have blueberries or apples afterwards. That is like my favorite breakfast.

Yeah. Egg—

I have an egg white omelet, and then I'll add in, uh, 1 or 2 eggs depending on Yeah, whatever. So that's my— that is my favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite breakfast.

Did everyone hear what she just had for breakfast? Because I want that— what you just listed for breakfast, some people are not having enough calories, period, throughout the whole day. Can you just share your thoughts around that, especially with— I mean, I'm not knocking GLPs. I don't want to have a whole conversation around that, but it is creating— it's okaying a calorie deficit again.

So yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. I think the problem— I mean, I'll just say You know, there's 33 to 35 million people on GLP-1s right now in the States. So the likelihood that somebody listening to this show is on a GLP-1, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. They are absolutely fantastic. If you are obese, you are much better not being obese. Okay.

Oh yeah.

Where I think the issue is coming in is that in tandem with the pharmacology of, you know, it's going to downregulate your your hunger signals, it's going to slow the emptying of the gut, et cetera, et cetera, is that we are not teaching these people on these medications how either to eventually get off of them, but also the lifestyle stuff that should be going along with it. Because just losing weight is, in the same way that we were talking about lift heavy, eat 30 grams of protein, losing weight is also very nonspecific.

Yeah.

So, if I said to you, hey, would you like to Would you like to lose your bone density? Would you like to lose some of your brain weight? Would you like to lose some muscle? Would you like to lose your connective tissue capacity so you're very susceptible to injury? You're probably going to be like, no, right? But if your scale is like, hey, minus 10 pounds, so yay, right?

Right.

So we want to be thinking about what kind of weight we're losing. And so when you are on a GLP-1 or any kind of medication, like there's, you know, many iterations now from GLP-1As, but we want to be thinking about what are the signals that you're putting into the body. And in this is I'm specifically talking about mechanical load and tension, because once your body, your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, your bones detect that there is mechanical tension, it tells the body, keep these tissues because I need them, right? So, it will preferentially then move to adipose, like fat tissue, right?

Yeah.

So, that's what I'll say around GLP-1s. I would also say that if you have a goal of, a lot of women will come to me and say, I wanna build muscle and lose fat. Those are the 2 goals that I have. You are going to need to consume sufficient calories to match the level of activity that you have. Your body, if you are doing an intense leg day or an intense, you know, HIIT training or whatever, is now going to be farming, right?

Yeah.

For the glucose from the carbs and the amino acids from the protein and the fatty acids from the fat. And if that's not present, you can't do that. Build you can't build muscle, right? So in order to build muscle, I want you to think about how can I be anabolic? What are the ways that I can expand? And part of that is consuming sufficient calories. So yeah, I have food. Like yeah, I love food and I enjoy it too.

And if I ever have a less appetite for whatever reason, it that always like freaks me out. Like I'm like because I know how important. So I think of food as not just muscle. Growth. And I think of it as healing. So I'm like, my, my first 2 books were really all about food and macronutrients and like that we need fiber, we need antioxidants, we need phytonutrients. Like, so to me, I feel like we need this variety. And I get concerned anytime someone's really severely limiting or they're eliminating a whole group. So that's why I've never been a fan of like carnivore or even extreme keto, or there's a lot, because we're just taking out entire food groups. And I think it's more than just protein, so important, but it's more than just protein. We need fats, We need fiber. We need all of it together. And, I get concerned when we just eliminate these whole groups and just say we favor the thing of the month or the thing of the year. I mean, I grew up in the time of everything should just be fat-free. It doesn't matter what you eat as long as it's fat-free. And then, it was like everything needs to be sugar-free. It doesn't matter that you have chemicals, but just sugar-free. It's like we've seen all these things.

Yeah.

And, I think it's just we've lost sort of the plot around food and why we eat. Why should we eat to sustain and to grow. It's nourishing.

And for pleasure. We also eat for pleasure. And to eat, you break bread with someone. There's that common saying. You actually said something that I just want to double-click on for a second because I thought it was so interesting. You said, if my hunger ever goes down, I'll be really concerned. And I think that for women, this is another big area because so many of us underconsume calories that we are just like, oh, I'm not I'm not hungry, so I only eat when I'm hungry. And it's like, you also need to know that because you have been consuming 1,200 calories for the last 10 years, your body has adapted to that, and it views the, we'll say, mismatch between the intensity and the activity output and the calories that are coming in as a threat. As a threat.

Yes.

Okay, so you will now stop using body fat, and this is probably why you're frustrated, because you're like, God, what can I— do I got to go down to 1,100 calories?

Yeah.

Like, where else? Where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna go? 1,100 calories, right? So this is like a very tech— it's a very complicated process called metabolic adaptation. But it's just to say that when you underconsume calories chronically, your body's not stupid. It's like, all right, I guess we're just not gonna do what— like, I know this is intense, but this is a threat now. This exercise is a threat. And so you hold on to body fat like an insurance company not wanting to pay out.

And you also start losing hair, your skin gets worse, like everything starts not working.

Thyroid, abdominal Yeah, like your body will shut down your thyroid, all the things, sex hormone production, all the things, your cortisol goes up. It's like, it's a disaster.

Yeah. So I know when I've ever felt like that, it's usually if I've been less active or like, so if I'm in my normal activity level, my appetite stays the same. As soon as I'm not as active, then I, that's when I'll notice that. And it's just, it's a reminder to me, like, keep, you know, to stay active, to keep moving, all of those things. I did not ask you yet about supplementation. And I just want to kind of get your thoughts. I know you're more whole food like me, but are there any things that you're like, these are like the key things? Like, I know for me, I like— I love having minerals. I do do aminos as like an insurance policy. I, I take digestive enzymes. Do you have anything that's like, these are the— I will always do these? Or where do you feel about that?

Yeah, I have a couple of them that I will always do. I think that are foundational basics. And then there are— it's like tier 1, right? Like everyone should be taking tier 1. And then there's tier 2 for people that are like, okay, I have everything dialed in, my workouts, my cardio, My stress management, etc. So I'll say my tier one supplements are creatine.

Okay.

Everybody should be taking creatine.

And how much are you taking?

Yeah, I probably do about five mgs. Five. Okay. Sorry, sorry. Five grams. Five grams a day.

This whole trend now of like do twenty for your brain. I just do. I do five also.

Yeah. I mean, there's some evidence. I think twenty's okay.

Successive to me. I don't know.

Yeah. I, I mean, I don't know. I think I've had, uh, Dr. Darin Kando on the show, who is like the premier creatine researcher. And actually what he told me was 10 grams to get into the brain. So 20 grams is kind of like what people will call like a loading phase. And if you're gonna, you know, people— I've had like a lot of women say, I feel bloated when I'm on it. It's like, yeah, it's probably because you're having 20 grams of it, right?

Too much.

And you're, and you're not— it's too much. So I would say 5 grams over the course of, you know, call it 20, 30 days, you're going to sufficiently replenish any creatine stores in the muscle. Do you do it every day, or is it around workouts?

Does it matter what for you for creatine?

Doesn't matter. I just put it in my morning, like the water that I'm bringing to the gym. I put it in there because it has no taste. I'm not gonna— I'm gonna forget otherwise. So that's, I would say, creatine for every woman. We produce less creatine as well from than our male counterparts. So I would say 5 grams of that. I take magnesium every day, so I take about— I do it in 2 doses. Each one is like 250 mgs, so about 500 mgs a day. Do you care?

Do you have a preference of the form of magnesium? Like, there's so many different types of magnesium. Do you do all of it? What's your thoughts there?

I like the glycinate just because it's readily bioavailable.

Calming.

Yeah, so I take one. I'll usually take one around lunch, and then I'll take one in the evening as well because I I find that it just helps me wind down. Yeah, omega-3. I think everyone should be taking an omega-3, something like 2 grams a day, so 2,000 milligrams a day, uh, blend of EPA and DHA. The other one I take every day is vitamin D. That's the other one. Okay, so I'll take about 4,000-ish with K2, I'm assuming. Yeah, yeah, D3 with K2. Yeah, so those are like tier 1. Okay, those are like everybody. And probably if you're listening, you probably have those in your supplement closet. I hope so.

I think the creatine's Questionable for people. And I think the omega-3— like, so there's people— I, I don't know. I think— I hope so. I hope— I think vitamin D probably, but not everyone's doing all the others.

Yeah, those are like my top, top, top. And then if you're— and then, you know, then you can get to more sophisticated, like you just mentioned digestive enzymes. I like digestive enzymes too, especially if I know I'm going to have a high protein meal. Yeah, like I want to be able to, you know, associate with people after I have a lot of protein.

Stephanie, you have to do this visual. I've told my audience about this before, but you have to take— okay, so next time you're at the Go to the grocery store, buy 2 processed, the little pudding cups, the little whatever, the junk food pudding that you probably wouldn't buy.

Yeah, yeah, the Jell-O.

Buy a flavor that you might like, but buy 2 puddings. In one of them, open up 2 or 3 digestive enzymes and put it in. And, in the other one, you don't. And then, stir them both with a different spoon and then turn them upside down. When I saw that, what happens, the pudding that you put the digestive enzymes in pours out like soup. The one without it is still clumpy.

clumpy.

And that gave me such a visual that stuck in my brain about digestive enzymes and how it helps break down your food. So just, just a thought there.

That's really cool. Yeah, I'm actually gonna totally do that. I love, I love experiments like that. Yeah, so digestive enzymes would be one. Another one that I think, which is like tier 2, is like urolithin A. Yep. But we're kind of getting it, kind of getting in the weeds a little bit with, you know, it's like if you're not taking, if you're not training and you're not doing cardio, don't worry about, don't worry about creatine, you know. And if you have the creatine, the vitamin, you know, D3, and You know, omega-3s and, you know, urolithin A for sure, digestive enzymes for sure. Yeah.

I'm the same way as you. I think I have like my main— like, these are my staples, these will never go away. And mine's similar to yours. I think creatine, I'm not as consistent as I need to be. I just need to start throwing it in my water because I used to— my mind was I would mix that with my BCAAs when I used to take BCAAs. Now I do full— the full aminos. But I used to just like— that was a habit before I'd go to the gym, I'd put them in. But when I went to like regular aminos, I just kind of got out of the habit. So, I need to— you've reminded me I need to have my creatine like first thing in the morning and just remember to do it. But I have— I'm similar to you. The thing I also do every day, non-negotiable for me, is just minerals. I've just kind of been convinced that I want to get good minerals for hydration and to make sure I cover everything.

Like electrolytes, you mean?

Yeah, like electrolytes. Or I mean, I use Beam Minerals right now, but I've also tried Ketone Minerals before. Like, I just like— there's something about that that makes me feel better. I don't know, maybe it's in my But I like having minerals daily too.

Nice.

So is there anything I didn't ask you today that you're like, I wish you had asked me this?

I would say, I think we've talked a lot about it. I would, if I can just harp on another point for another moment, if I'm allowed. Yeah. I would just say unhitch yourself from this idea that you need to be skinny as a woman.

Yeah.

I think that every, I mean, I grew up like this. You probably grew up like this as well, where every health endeavor was like just code word for skinny, right? And you see it Today being repackaged as long, lean, toned Pilates bodies and ballerina bodies, aspirational wellness with like the pastel pink matching cute outfit. And these women are— or you see it in Hollywood with these like, you know, emaciated, malnourished men and women. So I would say, even though you've probably marinated in the soup of your worth is determined by how small you are and how skinny you are and what jean size and what the weight on the scale says, If you can unhitch from that and try to think about what your body needs right now, as well as the body when you're 70. What does your— because if you fit into the dress now, but you have osteoporosis when you're 65, you haven't won.

Yeah.

You've been tricked. You know, you've lost. So I would say, don't destroy your body today at the sacrificial altar of skinny, because it is not the be-all and end-all. And maybe we can try to expand our definition of what a healthy woman looks like, feels like, and performs like.

So good. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna link up Stephanie's Instagram below. Where else do you want people to go if they're going to start one place with you? Where should they go? Tell us all the things.

Instagram is the great, you know, it's like, come on into my home, see what I'm all about. And if you, if you want to go further into the home, into the Bettyverse, as we like to call it, you can check out my So Better with Dr. Stephanie. So same place that we're listening to, to you here today, you'll find my show, and you are on my podcast as well. We're getting such incredible feedback from it. Those would be the places I would say. And then if you want to hear from me weekly, I have a little rant, like a little weekly— I call it my mini pause. That's my little play on— I love that. But mini pause every week comes out every Saturday, and I will talk about, you know, things that are on my mind, talk about the latest science, Body composition, like all the things that we've talked about today.

So good. Thank you so much, Stephanie. I'll have to have you back on again. Thank you so much.

Oh, a delight and a pleasure. It was all mine. Thank you.