How Do You Measure Fitness Success in Menopause? #452

06/08/21 • 26 min

How do you measure fitness success in menopause? Is it weight? Is it inches? Are you digging deeper for the results that lead to long term success? Or chasing the digital number you crave? Do you look for short term measures of fitness success that tell you you’re on the right track? Or do you see 5 things working and then that scale not changing and throw in the towel?

If you’re sleeping well, love your energy, are eating high-quality protein evenly distributed throughout the day, you’ve explored your diet with an elimination and reintroduction process, reaching fatigue in your strength sessions and avoiding muscle-wasting cardio sessions, it may be time to look at what lab tests can tell you.

Topic Interest You? Join me for the Flipping50 masterclass: Muscle Gain, Not Fat Loss

How to literally measure before and after your programs.

The number one thing every home that shelters humans who want to age optimally and see transformation need is a smart scale. A dumb scale measures only your weight. A smart scale tells you at the very least body composition and weight. From there you can calculate simply your lean body mass.

You want to be sure changes in that scale you give so much power to are positive increases in muscle and decreases in fat if you have weight to lose. You want to be sure you see gains that are muscle if you have weight and strength to gain because you’re on the skinny fat or frail side.

Measure Fitness Success During Menopause at Home

Pre-Pandemic I suggested Flipping 50 community members buy one or go and find a nutrition store, a fitness center, or doctor who had one. (Inbody or a dexa scan) Post pandemic I suggest that every home have one.

That alone isn’t enough as we know from JAMA 2021 study that the average smart scale user gained 1.5 lbs a month during the pandemic. But it allows you to have feedback about your habits so you can course correct as needed. I have 3 smart scales, one for every price range from good enough to gold standard, in my Flipping50 Amazon store and I’ll link to that in my show notes.

If you don’t know your body fat percent, you don’t know enough. If you absolutely can’t invest $25 (the lowest priced smart scale) and you care about health, what are you doing?

Measure your:

Inches (waist, and waist-to-hip ratio alone tell you a lot about your health)
Weight + body composition (never just weight)
Sleep
Appetite/cravings
Poop
Bloat vs comfort
Libido
Reflection: Skin/face/eyes
Energy
Interest in life outside of exercising (two speeds – possessed to move or sleeping?)
Productivity
Happiness vs depression/anxiety

Measure Fitness Success in Menopause by all these means, not just one.

Why What You Think is “a Good Workout” Is Disrupting Your Hormones

I’m about to challenge your ideal of a “good workout.” Can you remember, when was the last time you finished an exercise session and said, “that was a good workout”?

What was that valuation based on?

When you’ve been conditioned your entire life to think more is better, more recovery is generally not been included. More can mean harder, more often, longer, and all too often all of those at once.

But there’s an elephant in the room.

More means more, harder, longer, more often, and…

… fatter.

Because chances are you:

Have a greater appetite and more cravings
Are over-compensating with food
Or are under eating
And disrupting your sleep.

Any combination of which add up to STRESS for your body.

Signals get crossed. Your hormones don’t fire correctly.

Cortisol tells your body to gain weight, store fat.

Insulin sensitivity tanks and higher insulin and cortisol together deposit that fat right in the belly.

The real definition of a good workout is one that meets the goals/purpose of the plan you have for today. Monday for me, for example is a rest day. Generally, Saturday and Sunday are higher intensity days, wisely planned that way to optimize the balance of a hard workout with less stress elsewhere.

Do you get anxious on rest days? Fear that if you don’t move you’ll lose… your edge, the chance to burn calories, you’ll lose fitness? So on your rest days you make sure you’re doing “extra” something else? I’ve seen that kind of fear and addiction in clients. I can’t wait for an upcoming episode with Susan Niebergall where we dished on this a bit.

Is this you?

You’re alwa...

Topic Interest You? Join me for the Flipping50 masterclass: Muscle Gain, Not Fat Loss

How to literally measure before and after your programs.

Measure Fitness Success During Menopause at Home

If you don’t know your body fat percent, you don’t know enough. If you absolutely can’t invest $25 (the lowest priced smart scale) and you care about health, what are you doing?

Measure your:

Inches (waist, and waist-to-hip ratio alone tell you a lot about your health)
Weight + body composition (never just weight)
Sleep
Appetite/cravings
Poop
Bloat vs comfort
Libido
Reflection: Skin/face/eyes
Energy
Interest in life outside of exercising (two speeds – possessed to move or sleeping?)
Productivity
Happiness vs depression/anxiety

Measure Fitness Success in Menopause by all these means, not just one.

Why What You Think is “a Good Workout” Is Disrupting Your Hormones

I’m about to challenge your ideal of a “good workout.” Can you remember, when was the last time you finished an exercise session and said, “that was a good workout”?

What was that valuation based on?

But there’s an elephant in the room.

More means more, harder, longer, more often, and…

… fatter.

Because chances are you:

Have a greater appetite and more cravings
Are over-compensating with food
Or are under eating
And disrupting your sleep.

Any combination of which add up to STRESS for your body.

Signals get crossed. Your hormones don’t fire correctly.

Cortisol tells your body to gain weight, store fat.

Insulin sensitivity tanks and higher insulin and cortisol together deposit that fat right in the belly.

Is this you?

You’re alwa...

Previous Episode

Where’s the Tone? How Under-Recovery Kills Muscle Tone in Menopause 451

Episode #451 Muscle tone in menopause is a common topic around these parts. In that regard, I like to discuss strength, and measure body composition, but the first signs for you, listener, that your workouts aren’t working or you need to start strength training is often a lack of muscle tone.

You too? I’ve got you. This episode is all about it.

You can’t overtrain but you can under-recover.

If this topic is a little too near and dear to your heart, or your bat wings, short shorts, or bathing suit confidence, join me June 9th for the upcoming Flipping50 Masterclass: Muscle Gain, Not Fat Loss. It’s all about running, actually lifting, to the right target again. Click to save your spot. https://www.flippingfifty.com/strengthnow

REST

Above all, sleep. Get your ideal sleep quantity. If menopause symptoms are squashing your sleep goals, deal with them. There are answers to those issues (Sleep Yourself Skinny). From magnesium, carbs at dinner (more below), maca, the timing of your workouts, and your sleep hygiene.
Between sessions
In consideration with your current stress load (adding a challenging workout to a busy workday or one full of family stressors is a recipe for stress overload)
Between sets

If you have a low level of fitness just starting or restarting, your workouts are about setting habits. You may be able to do more frequent workouts. As your intensity progresses, however, you want to increase recovery days. Muscle tone in menopause requires intensity in exercise so you'll want and need more recovery.

LESS EXERCISE?

That is not intuitive, right? You will think that you’re ready for more, and more advanced so you should workout more frequently. No. A well-planned exercise routine for anyone includes hard days, easy days, and recovery days. And as you get older (or your life stressors compound your exercise stress) an additional recovery day is fitness boosting. Doing “more” for more-sake will likely reduce fitness, results, and send you backward.

Your Training “Week”

Whether you use a 7-day week, or you extend a training cycle to 9 days (You Still Got It, Girl!) to allow more optimal hard workouts coupled with optimal recovery, is up to you. Sometimes retired or not retired is the determinant.

It’s important that you realize your brain, your thoughts about what you need, are the limiting factor in your training. If you have to have more training time, you in that case might set Monday, Wednesday, Friday as your strength schedule. You’d only lift heavy on Monday and Friday, making Wednesday a functional kind of body weight or low resistance workout that varies the use of the body.

NUTRITION

Fuel Instead of Fast

For someone who exercises hard regularly and or who also is very active (say summer months when you’re golfing, gardening, hiking or biking more), make sure you’re not skipping quality calories or carbs. As for calories, even small changes make a difference.

For women in menopause at odds with carbs, start there. Try a baked slice of sweet potato or half a banana with a smear of almond nut butter before cardio/HIIT workouts. Enjoy a simple shake with protein and coconut milk or oat milk (instead of water). These small additions to your calories and to your pre-workout fuel will support a better workout AND better recovery.

After a workout is the right time to put them back in so you restore your source of energy for the rest of the day.

Surprised I’m not talking about protein first? It’s coming.

Think starchy carbs like:

Sweet potatoes, quinoa, gluten-free soaked oats (overnight oats) and more green than ripe bananas. Sit down to lunch with a bowl of salmon, black beans, and greens. If you have a smoothie, don’t skip the carbs. (sweet potatoes, aquafaba – liquid from chickpeas - or cannoli beans, are as appropriate if you don’t like the sweet of fruit).

You’re not going to lose weight eliminating carbs if you’re truly on the move. In fact, you’re more likely to halt your progress. If you’re “fit” but still fat, and it doesn’t seem to make sense, check on this one. So many women are beyond confused about keto, fasting, and think of carbs as the antichrist. If you’re an athlete, or active, start treating yourself like it at meals.

Protein is key

Unless you’re already working with a Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist I’m going to guess you are not eating enough protein. Here’s enough. About a...

Next Episode

TOTAL Body or SPLIT ROUTINE Strength Training in Menopause | #453

00:00 What’s best, total body or split routine strength training in menopause?

Whether you’ve lifted weights for years, or you’ve just come across a Sculpted Vegan workout, or you’re doing something labeled for women in menopause on YouTube, you may or may not know to question the routine you’re following. If you’re just doing what you’re doing out of habit, this episode may get you thinking about whether your current routine is really serving you. And serving you now, and later both.

If you’re in our Flipping50 community you can likely take a split second to tell me what you think I’ll say. I haven’t built 7 12-week programs based 100% on the science of strength training in menopause and 4 additional digital or DVD products prior to that without diving into the science.

Always Review Science

But it’s worth exploring. Even I am testing my personal results using a different protocol for 4 weeks (June 2021), even enlisting some of our community in a beta test when I’m finished to learn how they’re affected. Is a temporary change a stimulus that can create positive results? And will we want to continue that longer or return to prior strength strategies with a new level of intensity? Things I’m looking at.

Should you work your total body or do a “split routine” where you do different muscle groups or body parts on alternate days?

There are pros and cons to both as you might guess.

In this podcast I will review:

Pros and cons of total body
Pros and cons of split routine

My personal and professional recommendation for women in menopause based on:

37-years working with women in midlife
My own 28-day split test routine experiment

05:25

few terms for the discussion of total body or split routine strength

Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS) is the mechanism of increasing lean muscle to overcome muscle protein breakdown (MPB) that occurs with aging. Loss of muscle occurs at an accelerated rate during mid-menopause, and is worsened by lack of protein, sleep, and rest between exercise or inadequate exercise stimulus.

I’ve discussed previously that estrogen is a muscle stimulus – preserving losses of muscle and helps you in gaining with the right activity and nutrition. When that stimulus is gone, you need something else.

That something is strength training.

09:00

But what does it really mean?

The comparison of total body training to split routine is not just a matter of taking the portion of a total body workout and cutting it into pieces. Instead to fairly compare the benefits side by side you’d have to expand the volume of exercise in a workout so that number of exercise, sets, and repetitions makes it a fair comparison.

Remember:

Little bits of muscle protein stimulus [that occur from a couple exercises for one muscle group or body part] don’t add up to a big muscle protein synthesis – in the same way a protein snack doesn’t provide adequate muscle protein stimulus like at least 30 grams of protein does.

So immediately, time commitment is increased dramatically. Muscle soreness and fatigue that could decrease performance and or overall influence stress response also become factors for a menopausal woman.

The total body or split routine strength training in menopause dilemma

Because there exists a small percent of all research on females in menopause to begin with, and less on strength training specifically, this research review is challenged. The information has to be pulled from that including males (and sparse females) full body and split routine strength training, along with the exercise and hormone research on females in menopause to project the pros and cons.

14:13

That said, this is a hypothesis based on truths about menopausal women response to strength training, common hormone imbalances and contributing factors, and Flipping50’s After 50 Formula for Women™ blueprint.

Pros of TB:

Total body training allows you to maintain greater training intensity doing just a few exercises. That high intensity is necessary for elevated protein synthesis.
Multiple exercises (and sets) for the same muscle group could reduce the overall intensity because of a smaller mass of muscle as the focus any one day and the muscle fatigue that deteriorates form and technique reduces results and potentially sets up for injury.
One study showed 8x the strength and lean muscle gains from Total Body, while 2 follow up studies confirmed though showed less dramatic difference

Pros of SR: