Ep.188 Midlife Fitness for Women: Dr. Stacy Sims Explains Why Your Old Workouts Stopped Working

Episode Transcript
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Michele Folan (00:00):
I want to take a minute to talk to the woman
who's doing everything right.
You're eating well, you'relifting weights, you're walking,
managing stress, and trying tosleep.
And yet your body isn'tresponding the way it used to.
I see this every single day asa coach, and I've lived it
myself.
And here's what I want you tohear clearly.

(00:21):
There is no failure here.
Midlife physiology isdifferent.
Hormones shift, metabolismadapts, inflammation and muscle
loss become real obstacles, evenwhen your habits are solid.
That's why I went looking foranswers, not shortcuts.
After a lot of research,conversations with physicians,

(00:42):
and personal experience, I choseto partner with a medical team
that offers physician-prescribedpeptides as an adjunct to a
healthy lifestyle, not areplacement for it.
Peptides aren't magic, theydon't override poor habits.
But when used appropriately andmedically supervised, they can
help support things likemetabolic health, recovery, body

(01:05):
composition, and overallvitality, especially when
lifestyle alone isn't moving theneedle anymore.
If you're curious, if you wantreal information, not hype, and
you want to explore whether thisextra layer of support makes
sense for your body, I've madethat resource available.
You'll find the link in theshow notes.

(01:25):
No pressure, no shame, justoptions for the long game.
Health, wellness, fitness, andeverything in between, we're
removing the taboo from whatreally matters in midlife.
I'm your host, Michelle Fullen,and this is Asking for a

(01:48):
Friend.
Okay, today is a big onebecause if you've ever stood in
your kitchen wondering why your30-year-old metabolism packed
its bags and left, Dr.
Stacy Sims is here to explainexactly what happened and how to
get your power back.
She is the voice behind womenare not small men, the author of

(02:10):
Roar and the Next Level.
And the woman who has beentelling us lovingly to do less
cardio, stop undereatingprotein, and stop following
workout plans built for dudes.
And today she's breaking downthe real midlife playbook: how
to fuel before you lift, how torecover so your workouts

(02:30):
actually work, my creatinematters, and what kind of cardio
gives us return on ourinvestment without wrecking our
hormones.
If you're 45 plus and trying tofigure out why the old rules
don't apply anymore, thisepisode will get you started on
the right path.
Dr.
Stacy Sims, welcome to askingfor a friend.

(02:50):
Thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to uhhaving this conversation.
It's gonna be great.
Well, I quote you all the time.
After you were on HubermanLabs, I told my clients, I want
you to listen to this.
So if you wonder why I saycertain things, it's because of
this woman.
You can blame it on her.

(03:12):
But Stacy, what I love aboutwhat you do is that everything
that you say and do is reallyresearch-based.
And that gives you such amazingcredibility in my eyes.
So I am super excited to haveyou here.
I would like you to start,though, a little bit about your
background, your career path,and how you ended where you are

(03:32):
right now.
Yeah.

Dr. Stacy Sims (03:33):
So I never would have imagined being where I am
now.
Like if you were to ask my momwhen I was little what I was
gonna be, she's she probablywould say, I don't know, behind
some book in a library somewherebecause I was super quiet and
shy.
But through my life, finding umjust points of conflict where
it's like that's just not fair.

(03:55):
Like I grew up in a familywhere we're all about equality
and fairness, military family,you know, like there wasn't
anything that we weren't allowedto do.
We had to try things first.
And um, being a female athleteand going to university and
finding things that just weren'tright, and then looking into
things like why are we trainingthis way when we're not

(04:16):
responding the same as men, andthen not finding any
representation of women in anyof the textbooks being told
across my career, why do youwant to study women?
We don't know enough about men,and realizing that there is
such a massive gap in healthresearch, especially when we're
looking at sports science andexercise science.
I think the most recent umquote was out of the $460

(04:40):
billion of research funding lastyear alone, only 1% went to all
of women's health research.
So if we're thinking abouteverything that's in women's
health research, and 1% of thatseems like a lot of money.
But if you're thinking aboutall of our comorbidities, our um
disease states, how cancer andAlzheimer's well, Alzheimer's
doesn't even have a lot offunding, then you when you

(05:00):
disseminate it down into sports,science, and exercise, it's
almost nothing.
Yeah.
So my whole career has beenlike, I'm a female athlete, I'm
at a high level.
My friends who were also atthat same high level are now
coaches, and we want to get thebest out of ourselves and our
athletes and guide them in theright way.
And so that's kind of been whyI've taken this path of I want

(05:22):
the information for women, Iwant women to understand their
bodies, I want them to beempowered so that if things
aren't working for them, theycan push back and say, this is
not appropriate for my body atthis point in my life.
So we need to change it up.

And you've been on Mel Robbins, you've been on
Diary of a CEO.
I mean, does it blow you away alittle bit that we've got into
this place?

Yeah.
Uh when we hit, like when wegot the invite to go on the
panel for a diary CEO, and itwas about the time like our
Instagram was hitting close to amillion followers, and my best
friend is like, for theinfluence who are never wanted
to be an influencer, I was like,that's exactly it.
It's like I am not about, youknow, the social media stuff.

(06:06):
I just want to educate people,and it resonates.
Like you were saying with thescience space.
So it's like I'm a scientistand I want people to know the
information.
And I think we've just reacheda tipping point where the wave
is no longer just a small wave,it's a tsunami.
And everyone's like, I am onthis and I want to know the
information that's right for mebecause there's so much
confusion out there.

And I see that with my audience, because these
are 50, 55 plus women, and theywant this information.
And sometimes it's it's hard toswallow.
It's stuff that maybe we don'talways want to hear, but we've
got to hear it, right?
And you did a TED talk and youflipped the script with women

(06:50):
are not small men.
So for women 45 plus, what doesthat literally mean for how we
should train, eat, recover,etc.?

Yeah, I say that women are not small men because
one of the things that I wastold in my undergrad was, well,
we generalize information frommen to women because women are
too complicated to study becausethey have a menstrual cycle.
And I was like, but men don'thave a menstrual cycle and they
are not like women.
So I don't get this from birth.

(07:22):
Well, actually, from beforethat.
In utero, there are sexdifferences, and we see this.
After birth, there are stillsex differences in muscle
morphology and fueling andmetabolism.
And then you can have ourhormones that come into play
that can really exacerbate someof these differences.
So if someone's like, oh, uh,you know, you're just the same
thing, you know, we're justgonna generalize, like, that

(07:43):
does not make sense.
And all touch points around theworld.
You can see from the externaltouch points, you go into any
shop and they have like men'sdeodorant, women's deodorant,
they have men's clothing, femaleclothing.
Well, it comes down to like thethings that matter, like sex
differences in brain functionand brain metabolism, fueling
and diet, exercise, exercisehabits, the way that we interact

(08:05):
with the environment, they'relike, oh, just like a man.
Like, no, women are not smallmen.
So we have to understand notonly that, uh, sex differences
from birth, but as we age, we'redifferent too.
Because we have definitivepoints for women when we're
thinking about, okay, puberty,there's a big, huge switch
between the way that boys andgirls respond to this exposure

(08:26):
of our sex hormones and the waythat we see girls interact with
their environment and howself-conscious they are versus
boys who would tend to be moreaggressive and out there.
And then we have ourreproductive years, and what
does that look like?
Are we on any kind of birthcontrol?
Do we have any kind ofundercurrent of PCOS or
endometriosis?
Are we naturally cycling?
Do we have um times where wehave more an-ovulatory cycles

(08:49):
because of stress or not?
So we have a whole bunch ofstuff that's going on in our
reproductive years.
Then we get to perimenopause,and that can be seven to ten
years, and then we get topost-menopause, right?
Or we see men, they just havelike this puberty, 60 plus
aging.
So we are, and our bodies arealways changing.
So when we're talking about howwe're adapting, our bodies are

(09:10):
really adaptable and stressresilient.
So if we're talking abouttaking the same kind of stress
that we put on male physiologyto invoke a change in female
physiology, we have to take thatpause and say, hmm, it's not
quite the right stress.
If we look at thermoregulation,hot versus cold.
Well, women's bodies aredesigned to perturbate between a
lower and a high coretemperature across the month of

(09:32):
their menstrual cycle.
So the environmental stressorsare responses are different.
So that's why we seedifferences in cold versus hot
responses for women.

Oh, and I remember something you said
about the cold plunge.

Yeah.

How women respond so much more dramatically to
cold plunge, where maybe it'snot ideal for women to do as
cold as men would do.
Can you explain that a littlebit?

Yeah.
And I found that reallyinteresting because I think that
first came up on the Hubermanpodcast that you were talking
about earlier.
And I started as anenvironmental exercise
physiologist.
So I was looking at hot, I waslooking at cold altitude, that
kind of stuff.
And it didn't really dawn on methat people didn't realize that
there were sex differences inthermoregulation.
It's like when you hear all thestuff about how women in the

(10:19):
offices are always puttingsweaters on because they're too
cold, and men, you know, so Iwas like, but there's all this
research out there.
But when you come down to thecold water and cold immersion uh
like trend that's going on, theresults when you're looking at
the science behind it, that'sbeen around since the 90s, ice
is too cold for women becauseit's such a severe uh
sympathetic stress and survivalstress.

(10:42):
And it's because we responddifferently to hot and cold.
So we constrict a lot stronger,we vasodilate first, where men
are pretty like standard in howthey are, plus we have more body
fat.
And so there's just lots ofdifferent things.
So when we're looking at coolwater, so that's 14 or 15
degrees Celsius, around that 50,55 degrees Fahrenheit.

(11:03):
We can start to see some reallycool, robust endocrine changes
that we see with ice for men,but it's still not as strong for
women as we see in men.
But if you get them into thesauna, we see really cool,
robust health benefits frombeing in the heat for women that
aren't nearly as strong formen.
Both sexes will benefit.

(11:24):
Okay.
But we see these differences inthe way that women respond to
hot and cold versus the way menrespond to hot and cold.

All right.
This is really cool.
So what's happeningphysiologically in perimenopause
and menopause that makes ourold workouts and our old diets
stop being as effective as theywere when we were, say, 30?

Yeah.
There's a whole cascade ofevents that happen.
So we know that every system ofthe body is affected by
estrogen, progesterone, and tosome extent testosterone.
So those feedback uh responsesfrom those hormones that used to
drive anti-inflammatoryresponses used to drive how fast
our muscles can contract and uhproduce power and strength, and

(12:10):
uh how our bodies um respond toglucose and carbohydrate, those
feedback mechanisms becomedysfunctional because it's not
having the estrogen, theprogesterone, and testosterone
drive it.
So we start to see thisdysfunction.
We see the one of the veryfirst things that goes is power.
So women will say, all of asudden, like I'm my running pace

(12:30):
has gone from seven-minute mileto a nine-minute mile, and I
don't know why.
It's just happened over thecourse of nine months, and I
just can't get faster.
It's because our fast switchfibers aren't responding.
Uh, one of our contractileproteins becomes a little bit
dysfunctional unless we aredoing stuff to counter it.
We also see insulin resistancethat comes up, and people are

(12:52):
like, oh, I had a coffee and nowI feel awful.
Like my caffeine tolerance isreally off, and I feel
lightheaded, and we start to seeperturbations in our blood
glucose.
You might get your blood testsback, and all of a sudden you
have high cholesterol.
You've never had that before,and you're like, what is going
on?
And that's because we're havinga misstep in the way our liver
is looking at our free fattyacids, and instead of having

(13:15):
estrogen's influence on beingable to change those free fatty
acids to bring them into ourmuscle, we're seeing that's not
happening.
So the liver is saying we needto change these free fatty acids
and store them as visceral fat.
So we're seeing all thesemetabolic and body comp changes
because of these nuances offeedback mechanisms.

And I do recommend that my clients get a
fasting insulin because I thinkthat's usually one of the first
things that kind of rears itsugly head.
And people will say, I haven'tchanged anything.
Exactly.
Right?
I my diet's the same, I'mworking out the same.
Why is that changing?
And it's like, ugh, I know it'sfrustrating.

It's very frustrating.
And I'll have women who I'llhave them get a DEXA, right?
Because those of us who are inour late 40s, early 50s grew up
in the whole cardio in, cardioout, let's go for a smash fest.
Yep, right there.
And so you'll see these womenwho come in and they look pretty
lean, but when you get a DEXA,their bones are really uh low in

(14:19):
density.
So they're osteopenic, some areosteoporitic, and they have a
really high incidence ofvisceral fat, but it doesn't
necessarily come out because youcan't see it as well as
subcutaneous or under the skin.
And like, well, I don'tunderstand what's going on.
I'm doing all this cardio.
And it's like, but that's notthe answer because you're
driving a stress response upthat's not strong enough to

(14:41):
invoke the kind of change thatyou want.
So we have to take that stepback and say, okay, well, we
know that we want to change ourgut microbiome diversity because
that takes a massive hit aboutthe four or five years before
that one point in time ofmenopause.
Because as we start having adysfunction in our sex hormones,
we start to have less of them.
Then the gut bugs that areresponsible for kind of

(15:03):
metabolizing them and throwingthem back out have gone.
And unfortunately, we have anovergrowth of the bacteria that
really like simple carbohydratesbecause our bodies under such
sympathetic drive, we're tiredbut wired and we're always
stressed, which makes our bodygo, I need more simple
carbohydrate.
So the first thing is let'schange that gut microbiome,
let's increase the diversity,because if we do that, then we

(15:27):
also have all the cofactors thatallow us to have better insulin
control.
We also see better cofactorsfor brain health and BDNF and
serotonin for mood control.
So then we can start lookingat, okay, now what kind of
physical activity should I bedoing to create an extreme
stress that's positive in myadaptation?

(15:48):
And that's where people in ourage group are like, what do you
mean I have to lift heavy and dointensity work?
Like, I'm so used to doing 90minutes aerobic.
What happens is learningclasses, right?

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, and I think that is oneof the hardest adjustments.
You know, and I'm like, I getit.
You know, I'm very, I'm veryempathetic because I know, you
know, the the little pinkdumbbells that we so religiously
have used all these yearsaren't going to get the job
done.

(16:20):
But it's what you're saying isthat our long deal on the
elliptical is also in the rearview mirror.

Exactly.
Exactly.
So I bring strength to theforefront because it's it's
having its heyday as more andmore research is being done in
strength training.
So we look at it from howimportant it is for women of all
ages.
And if you're on a strengthjourney, you've never lifted
weights, or maybe you've justdone pink dumbbells, then yes,
you're going to start there.
But we want you to the eye oflifting heavier.

(16:52):
We look at the power-based endof the training spectrum.
And the reason why I keepgoing, we need this for older
women and for older men too, ispower is such an important
variable for a health span.
We see that you need to be ableto produce power, so have that
fast twitch grip strength, butalso in some regards,

(17:13):
understanding we need to protectour fast twitch fibers because
that's what gives women moremetabolic flexibility.
And that's the big words of,you know, we hear this all the
time, and you want to do zonetwo.
It's like, well, no, men dozone two because they need to
upregulate the amount of fattyacids that they can use and
burn.
But women need to do morehigh-intensity work because we

(17:33):
need to keep and progress ourfast twitch fibers to produce
lactate, because we need thatfor our brain health.
So there's all these littlenuances within the training
spectrum that we are like, okay,so let's look at
systematically.
Why strength training?
Well, we see that one of thevery first things, like I was
saying, with our run pace thatgoes and the power that goes, is

(17:56):
we have two contractileproteins.
We have myosin and we haveactin.
Myosin grabs onto actin andpulls really hard to create a
strong muscle contraction.
And the faster that is, and theharder that contraction
strength is, is how we producepower.
But one of the very firstthings that goes is myosin's
effectiveness of holding on toactin because it's driven by

(18:19):
estradiol.
So when we see that estradiolstarts to decrease, we have a
dysfunction in this myosinability to hold on to actin.
If we do heavy strength loads,it is one of the first protocols
of a central nervous system ora nerve response to say, hey,
myosin, we need to actually haveyou work.
So instead of having estrogendrive myosin, now we're having a

(18:43):
nerve response from liftingheavier loads that's making
myosin grab onto actin and avery powerful, strong mechanism.
So this is how we get our powerback if we're working those
lower loads.
It's one of our firstadaptations, right?
So when women are so afraid oflifting heavier weights, it's
like, yes, you can get strengthin anything.

(19:04):
It's a diminishing returns,right?
So if you don't have a strengthbackground, you start doing
body weight, you're going to getstronger.
You start pink dumbbells,you're going to get stronger.
But if we're looking toactually invoke change for women
who already have a strengthtraining journey, we need to
look at that heavier,power-based end and then throw
in some explicit movements tokeep and build that power that's

(19:25):
so important for longevity orhealth span and keeping our
muscle function.
And it's also sarcopeniaprevention.
And then the other thing ispeople think about heavy lifting
and getting bulky.
No, you don't get bulky becauseit's not a metabolic stress to
create hypertrophy.
And it's really hard to buildmuscle when you're older.

(19:46):
You're all about strength andpower, right?

Tell me about it.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.
I'm working as hard as I canand I'm eating my protein and
I'm 61.
So it's it's it's hard.
It's a challenge.
It is hard, you know.
And so on that note, I did I'veI've had a DEXA scan and I know
I have osteoporosis in mylumbar, but I did I did a full
body DEXA where they looked atmy body comp.

(20:12):
That was eye-opening becauseI'm I'm a small person, but I
have an opportunity, right, tobuild more lean mass.
But you you mentioned a littlebit about VO2 Max.
Are you doing that type oftesting as well to look at
longevity?

I look at VO2 Max, it's interesting how it's
come into the conversation.
Because being an exercisephysiologist, like learning VO2
on the old Douglas bags and thatkind of stuff, you're like,
what?
This is a lab-intensive test tobe able to quantify the fitness
level.
So when we start looking at VO2coming out in general
population, it's like if youhave a higher VO2, it just means

(20:51):
you have more aerobic andanaerobic capacity.
It means you're fitter.
So if we're all striving to getfitter and have more stress
resilience, then it's going toplay out into having a better
health span.
So I don't put a precedence onwe have to do specific VO2
workouts.
I'm like, let's look at how wecan increase our whole stress
resilience and the top end partof our fitness.
Because if we're doing that andfocusing on all the modalities

(21:14):
to improve that top end part offitness, you're naturally
improving your VO2.
So if you improve your VO2 andyour oxygen carrying capacity
and your oxygen consumption andyour ability to produce lactate
and deal with it, then you areexpanding your longevity and
health span.

All right.
I want to get a littledifferentiation from you on
HIIT, so high intensity intervaltraining versus sit.
So and then also zone two.
So kind of like where should awoman, say, who's 55 years old,
be spending her time during theweek?

Yeah.
So if we're looking at it, Ilook at optimization, right?
So if we're looking at peoplewho are already active, who
we're generally talking aboutwomen who are active and their
workouts are no longer workingfor them.
We have to look atoptimization.
So if we look at zone two, it'snot going to optimize.
And I say that because womenare already really, really good
at going long and slow.

(22:12):
We have a really goodmitochondrial capacity.
We have more mitochondrialproteins and density than men
do.
We also have more slow twitchfibers.
We look at zone two as like thesoul food.
You go out because it's socialinteraction, it's in nature, and
it's more mental release ratherthan we're trying to invoke
change.

(22:32):
So it's not off the table, butit's not what we want to do to
optimize.
If we want to optimizemetabolic and brain health and
create epigenetic change, wehave to really polarize our
training.
So this is where we have HITand then the subset of sit.
So if we're talking abouthigh-intensity interval
training, this is reallyspecific to interval intensity

(22:55):
and duration, not going to aCrossFit class or an F45 or an
Orange Theory or any of those.
We have to be really specificthat we are working maybe one to
four minutes at around 80, 85%of our max, and we have variable
recovery.
So this is where the Norwegian4x4s could come in if we're

(23:17):
looking at VO2 or we're lookingat like true intensity, four
minutes at around 80% and thenfour minutes off.
And you do that four times.
That's a true high intensitysession.
Another one would be taking apage out of the functional
fitness where we do every minuteon the minute for four minutes,
and the fifth minute is off.
So you do one higher intensityexercise, and then you switch to

(23:39):
another, and then another, andthen another.
You might have 10 to 20 secondsbetween each one to switch, and
then you have that full minuteoff, and maybe you do three or
four rounds of that.
So you have around 20 minutesof real work, and that's it.
And you have a cool warm-up anda cool down.
So the functionality of thathigh intensity is because, in
order to maintain intensity, youhave to work hard, but your

(24:02):
body can only maintain thatintensity properly for a short
amount of time.
If we're looking at the 45 to60 minute classes that are
called hit classes, the durationof the intervals and how long
that class is isn't short enoughto be able to maintain the
intensities you need to.
So a lot of women will come outfeeling smashed and sweaty, but

(24:25):
they've really only hit aboutthat 70%, which is too hard to
be easy, like our zone two zenout recovery.
And it's too easy to invoke thetype of change that we want,
meaning that it's not true highintensity that's going to create
a post-exercise response ofincreasing our growth hormone,

(24:46):
our testosterone, dropping ourcortisol, and invoking a lot of
the changes that we want.
So that's why we have to bereally specific on the
intensities.
Okay.
If we're looking at creatingmore of an epigenetic change so
that we are getting crosstalkbetween our skeletal muscle and
our liver so that we don't havevisceral fats, which is really

(25:07):
important.
And we also want to improve ourblood pressure because we start
to have less blood pressuretolerance, and we see our blood
pressure eking up as we get intolate peri, early
post-menopause.
This is where sprint intervaltraining comes in.
Now, sprint interval trainingis a harder subset of
high-intensity interval trainingwhere we're looking at a really

(25:29):
good warm-up of 10 minuteswhere you're mobilizing, you're
making sure everything is reallywarm, good range of motion, and
then you hit 30 seconds as hardas you possibly can, and then
you have two to three minutesfull recovery so that you can
hit the next 30 seconds as hard,if not harder, because the goal
is how hard can you go?

(25:50):
Because you need that upper,upper, upper intensity.
And you might be able to do twoat the most three, and then
you're completely wiped out, andthat's fine.
Okay.
Because we're looking for thequality, not how many you can
do.
Yeah, so assault bikes reallygood because that's a really
good mechanism uh or mode toteach people how to go as hard

(26:10):
as possible.
Ski erg the same because it'sreally low technique, but high
intensity.
And when women first startdoing it, they don't realize
like, I never knew I could gothat hard.
I want to vomit.
It's like, yay, you're doing itright.
But it's it's such a, you know,it's it's such a powerful tool
to improve cardiovascularhealth, to improve brain health,

(26:33):
to improve the our bodycomposition, all of the things
that tend to go to the waysidewhen we hit perimenopause.

All right.
I like sprint intervaltraining, and I've been trying
to do that.
So can you do a treadmill on anincline with that?

You can, but I'm really hesitant unless it's a
non-motorized treadmill.
Okay.
Because when you start gettingtired, right, then if you have
it at a certain speed, you mightfall off.
Or maybe you can go harder thanwhat the speed set.
So non-motorized treadmills arereally good.
But again, sprint intervaldoesn't have to be just running,

(27:09):
it can be any kind of mode aslong as you hit that intensity.

All right, got it.
Stacy, we're gonna take a quickbreak, and when we come back, I
want to talk a little bit aboutprotein and creatine.
Quick pause, because if you'rehere, you already know this
isn't just a health podcast.
Yes, we talk about nutrition,strength, and taking care of
your body and midlife, but wealso talk about life,

(27:35):
relationships, energy,boundaries, and what really
matters in this season.
This isn't about perfection orshrinking yourself.
It's about staying strong,curious, connected, and actually
enjoying the years ahead.
If this resonates, share theepisode with a friend who'd
appreciate the conversation andfollow us on Instagram at asking

(27:57):
for a friend underscore pod.
All right, we are back.
I really want to dig intoprotein because this is one
thing that I think there's a lotof misinformation out there
about how much protein midlifewomen need, and is it more than
what we needed when we were 30?

Yeah.
Protein again is having itsheyday because we've all talked
about fat, we've all talkedabout carb, right?
And remember the snack wellera?
That was funny.
Oh, yeah.
Heck yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And now that protein's makingits heyday, people are like,
wait a second.
So we have to look at thehistory.
Like when protein RDAs cameout, it was um soon after World

(28:39):
War II when they were trying tosee what was the minimal amount
of macronutrients people neededso they wouldn't get sick.
So when we look at the um RDA,it's the minimal amount a
sedentary individual needs tonot get sick.
So we know that that does notapply to most active people.

(28:59):
As we start to get older, webecome more resistant to the
antibiotic or tissue buildingproperties to protein and
resistance training.
So we need more.
We also have uh a higher amountof muscle loss just by the
nature of getting older.
So we need more protein andprotein turnover to in order to
keep building that muscle.

(29:20):
So we start looking at theresearch, we know that women who
are in the reproductive yearsneed at least 1.6 grams per
kilogram of body weight.
So that hits about that 0.8gram per pound, I think, if I'm
doing the metric conversionproperly.

Okay.

As we start getting older, we're seeing that
it's closer to 2 to 2.2 gramsper kilogram, which hits about
that one pound per kilogram orone pound per 1 gram.
One gram.
One gram of protein.

Yeah, thanks.

Thanks.
One gram of protein per poundof body weight.

And that you would that be desired body
weight?

Well, we we can say if we have your optimal body
weight, right?
Say you are 150 and you want tobe 140.
If you're hitting 150 grams ofprotein, that's gonna help
facilitate body fat loss andmaintain your bone and your lean
mass.
So it's hit or miss.
If you're on the really highend of body weight, then yeah,
hit ideal weight and try to beabout 50% of your calories from

(30:26):
protein.
But ideally, we want to go,what's your current body weight?
Let's hit about that one gramper pound.
And as you are losing weightthrough a very small calorie
reduction, you're gonna maintainlean mass and bone, which is
what we're after too.
All right.
So we see that it does helpwith satiation, it helps
maintain the mass that we wantand helps facilitate our body

(30:49):
fat loss.

And then how do you distribute that out through
the day?
Like ideally.
So, Dr.
Stacy Sims, you have protein atwhat times during the day?

I uh try to have protein and fiber at every
eating opportunity.
So before training, I'll haveum the infamous protein coffee.
It doesn't have fiber in it,but it's really easy to digest.
So it gives me about 20 or 30grams of protein.
That I mean, you don't needthat much before training, but
I'm like, if I'm gonna havecoffee and it has protein in it,

(31:22):
I'm gonna have a big whack.
And then I'll have another 20to 30 with post-training, which
is part of my breakfast.
And then at every meal I try toget 30 to 40, sometimes a
little bit higher, depending onthe meal or what I've been
doing.
Um, so I end up, you know,looking at all the different
types of protein sources thatare around.

(31:42):
It can be from nuts and seedsand peas and beans and tempeh.
And if you are more inclined toeat um animal products than
you're looking at fish andchicken.
So there's lots ofopportunities to get protein in.
It's not let's all have a bigslab of red meat, which I think
is where some of the confusioncomes in when we're reading like

(32:03):
New York Times and WashingtonPost and saying you shouldn't
have that much protein.
It's like those of us that aresaying we need more protein, the
research shows we need moreprotein, we're not saying get it
from big slabs of meat.
We're saying look at all thedifferent sources, including a
wide variety of plant sources.
We have some dairy, we havesome other ways of getting all

(32:23):
that protein in because you canreally easily get to 130 to 140
grams of protein in a day ifyou're looking at all the
different types of protein thatyou can put into all your
different meals.
Do you eat animal protein?
I do some dairy when I travel,but when I was 14, we went on a
field trip to a pigslaughterhouse for a biology

(32:45):
field trip, and uh that kind ofput me over the edge of not
wanting to have any kind ofanimal products.

Well, and it usually that usually happens
when people are younger.
They have that experience.
There's something and it you'redone.

Yeah.
And being in San Franciscodriving down the five towards
Hollister, you smell thefeedlots.
So it's just the way that itall came together in the
American food system where I'mlike, yeah, no.
But like my husband grew up ona dairy farm here in New
Zealand, and he's like, What doyou mean?
We would kill our own cows onthe farm.
Like, yeah, that's completelydifferent.

(33:20):
So yeah.

So your protein coffee, is it just coffee with a
scoop of protein in it?

Sort of.
I'm a bit of a coffee snob.
So I make a double espresso thenight before, and then I stir
my protein powder into coldalmond milk so it doesn't get
all gluggy.
And then I pour the espressointo the cold uh protein and
milk mix and put it in thefridge and have the next
morning.
I pull it out, I stir mycreatine in it, and then I go.

(33:50):
Okay.
I like that.
It's easy.
It's easy, it's very easy andtasty.

Yeah, okay.
Yeah, all right, all right.
I'm liking this.
I'm I'm gonna try that tomorrowmorning.
All right, creatine.
You said creatine, we're gonnatalk about creatine.
I know there's a lot of studiesout there.
What are you hearing?
What's current?
Like, should all women betaking creatine?

So it I love the fact that it's gotten out of
the bodybuilding world recentlyand it's like made its heyday
into um the health sector.
It's one of the most studiedsupplements, which is really
interesting that like everyone'safter creatine, but the data
that's coming out is reallycompelling because we're seeing
every fast energetic system ofthe body uses it.

(34:34):
So, for those who are not awareof what creatine is, when we're
talking about our zero to 20seconds of any kind of cellular
activity, we need creatinebecause it's part of the whole
fueling process in that veryshort amount of time.
So, if we're thinking aboutbrain health and all the brain
function, we're thinking aboutthe production of
neurotransmitters, we'rethinking about the way our heart

(34:56):
beats, we think about how ourintestines work and how we have
to keep our mucosal lining sothat we don't get kind of leaky
gut or endotoxins translocatingto places we don't want them to.
Creatine is involved in all ofthat.
Okay.
Our body naturally produces afew grams per day, and it used
to be that most people would eatenough of uh

(35:19):
creatine-containing foods thatthey would be fine, but we're
finding that that's not true.
We know that women have about70 to 80 percent of the stores
that men do by the nature ofhaving less muscle mass, which
is the main powerhouse storageplace of creatine.
And women tend not to eat asmuch of our creatine-containing

(35:39):
foods.
I like to use the example of 20chicken breasts is about two
grams of creatine.
So not very many people.

Yeah.
Yeah, not doing that.

Not so when we start looking at the research,
and you know, we know thatcreatine is so important for all
this, we're seeing that whenwe're looking at randomized
controlled trials for depressionand anxiety, that women that
are using creatine and also aserotonin reuptake inhibitor
have less severe depressive andanxious uh episodes and come out

(36:12):
of it a lot faster.
We see women who are on thecusp of having severe clinical
depression.
If they're just using creatine,stay out of severe clinical
depression.
We also, of course, see bettermuscle function.
We're looking at using creatinefor sarcopenia prevention
because if we're maintainingmuscle quality and muscle
function, then again, it reducesthe sarcopeniaic muscle loss.

(36:34):
We see it's involved in boneand bone health as well.
Um, and then, of course, youryour uh muscle performance from
the bodybuilding stuff.
So we see all of that.
There was a couple of studiesthat came out looking at
fatigue, especially with shiftworkers and people with jet lag,
and they're under high pressurejobs where you start to have a
misstep in concentration andusing, I think it's 0.38 grams

(37:00):
per kilogram, which ends up onthat, you know, about 20 grams
of creatine split across theday, okay, that it gives you
back the focus, even under sleepdeprivation and shift work.
So we know that's reallyimportant for cognitive
function.
There's a call uh for uh callfor proposals to look at

(37:21):
creatine and its involvement insarcopenia and Alzheimer's.
So there's so much stuff whenwe're looking at the health
benefits of creatine.
I'm like, yeah, it's probablythe one thing that every woman
should be considered taking.

Yeah.
And I I do I do suggest that tomy clients.
So but I'm also you knowcurious.
Most most of the time, youknow, starting dose is around
five grams.
And is that where you kind ofstay, or are you pushing it?
I mean, for you, I mean, you'remore of an athlete.

So well, I look at it as we know a base dose of
of three to five grams per dayis really a base dose that helps
with every system of the body.
I will have people go up higherif they're in heavy training
blocks or if they're travelingimmensely, or by shift workers.
So, you know, our military whoare on for three days and then

(38:17):
you're doing my night maneuvers,or my firefighters who are on
overnight shifts, even my um,you know, like uh medical staff,
then we look at how we'recirculating to keep that
cognitive focus.
Um, but for the most part,three to five is really good
base dose to keep.
And then life will tell you ifyou need more or not.

All right.
You know, back to your proteincoffee in the morning.
I know women are kind of splitout there about working out
fasted versus not fasted.

Yeah.

I think you are on that let's eat something
before we work out camp.
Absolutely.
Um, but can you explain whythat is your your philosophy?

Yeah.
So if we look at the researchand we're looking at sex
differences and um, well,there's a few layers.
First, sex differences inappetite hormone and appetite
hormone control, and the waythat that can drive the way our
endocrine system works.
We see that um when women wakeup within that half an hour, you
have your cortisol awakeningresponse.

(39:24):
We wake up and we have anelevation of our acylated
garolin, which is our activeform of our hunger hormone.
We also have an uh elevated uhguess level of what we call
peptide YY, which is ironicallyone that makes us feel not
hungry.
But if we don't eat something,then that acylated garolin and

(39:45):
peptide YY stay elevated and itstarts to affect the
hypothalamus.
And the hypothalamus is like,you haven't had any food yet.
You haven't had any food yet.
We're under a lot of stress.
So it starts going, okay, weneed to start conserving things.
So we see that women who Hold afast, will have this
perturbance in subsequentappetite control throughout the

(40:05):
day.
We see that uh they tend to endup moving less throughout the
day, so we end up having likethe shoulder lean on the wall
instead of standing upright, um,looking to sitting more instead
of standing more, justsubconsciously you start
down-regulating all yourmovements.
And we see that there's asignificant increase in the

(40:27):
craving for simple carbohydratein the late afternoon.
So people are like, I needsugar, I need caffeine in the
late afternoon.
It is because we have thisperturbant in our appetite
hormones.
The other big thing when we'relooking at circadian rhythm and
circadian rhythm shift, we knowthat women and men have
different circadian rhythm umlengths.

(40:48):
And when we're seeing that thetwo major things that will drive
circadian rhythm is light anddark and food intake.
So for women who are getting upin the dark, they're exercising
fasted, and then they're noteating, you're phase shifting.
So your body's like, I'm awake,but I'm not awake.
What's going on?

(41:09):
So we see that our melatoninrise that usually starts to go
about 8:30, 9 o'clock, thatmakes us start to get sleepy, it
gets delayed.
So if we're delaying that, thenit's harder to get to sleep.
And then we miss the secondrise, which normally hits women
about 11, it gets delayed evenfurther.

(41:29):
And then we don't get into ourdeep repetitive sleep because we
can't.
We can't get into that deepsleep.
We've phase shifted.
If we don't get sleep, then welose all of the brain quote
cleaning, which we like to sayin our house, you know, when
we're having the clear out ofthe towel plaques and we're
having consolidation of memoryand physical activity, as well

(41:50):
as the impetus for metaboliccontrol.
So when we start seeing allthis fasted information that's
coming out, it's based on maledata because men are different.
So they can hold a fast.
They're not gonna have theperturbance of the appetite
hormones, they're not assensitive to it.
And we also see that men dobetter when they hold a fast
because then their body getsinto we got to burn more fat, so

(42:13):
they start to become moremetabolically flexible.
But women, we are alreadymetabolically flexible, so we
don't have that response.
We have an opposite responsewhere we start down regulating
all of our movements, ourthyroid, our endocrine system,
our appetite hormones getmisplaced, and we phase shifts,
so our sleep is perturbed, whichthen leads into feeling more

(42:34):
fatigued, having lack of glucosecontrol, having an impetus to
put on more belly fat andexacerbates all of these issues
that we have in perimenopause.
Okay.
I just want to hug you.

Thank you because I have never been a big fan of
intermittent fasting because I'mone of these people that says
if you're hungry, you shouldprobably eat.
I mean, yeah, because yourbody's telling you something.
I, you know, if if one of myclients went to fast for 16
hours, I'm like, you still gottaget all your macros in.

(43:11):
I'm like, that's a lot of foodto eat in such a sh like little
narrow window.
You're not giving your body abreak throughout the day.
Eat earlier, make it a morenormal cadence of eating.
So you are you're saying thatthat's okay.
Yep.

I tell people like if you want to fast, then
we look at a 12 to 13 hourovernight fast.
Yeah.
Right.
Because then your body's gonnabe able to do what it needs to
do, you're gonna get into reallygood reparative sleep, you're
gonna wake up and everything,you're gonna be hungry.
And so you're gonna set right,your circadian rhythm is gonna
set right, your appetitehormones are gonna set right,

(43:49):
all the intricacies of ourhormone pulses are gonna be set
right.
So if you want to follow thetrend of fasting, what we do is
we get up, we have breakfast, wefuel ourselves during the day
when our body needs it.
Then we have dinner, then wedon't have anything after
dinner, and then we have thatlike long fast overnight.
Grandparents call it normaleating, but the trends call it

(44:09):
fasting.

I know it's so funny.
It's like, well, that's kind ofhow I grew up eating.
What why do we have to changethat?
So I know.
Yeah.
All right.
I'm I'm loving that.
All right.
I do want to talk a little bitabout recovery because you you
did talk about sleep.
How should recovery change forwomen in perimenopause and

(44:31):
menopause as estrogen drops?

It becomes a little bit harder for us to
recover from a day-to-dayperspective because when we're
looking at estrogen too, ithelps with soft tissue.
And we tend to have more softtissue injuries and less tendon
resilience.
So we can tend to overdo it ifwe don't do recovery properly.
So when I talk about recovery,um, yes, nutrition is really

(44:55):
important, but also working themobilization, so using
resistance bands to get into thejoints, open up the capsules,
making sure that we're nothunched, that we're opening up,
so we can get in all the softtissues, which helps with
recovery.
We look at the timing of ourworkout.
So if we're doing one earlymorning workout, then maybe
we're not doing every morning anearly morning workout, so we're

(45:17):
not impending sleep.
And if we do a morning workoutand then like an evening
workout, you have more recoverybetween.
And then you can look at thingslike using some heat.
So if we're looking at having areally hard workout and then
getting into the sauna, one, itextends the cardiovascular
stress, so you're getting moreout of that workout.
But two, it aids in recovery.

(45:38):
So we're looking at let's useheat post-exercise.
We don't use cold ever becausethat can impend some of our
gains.
So recovery can become anuance.
We also see that women who willspend time in a sauna or a spa
will sleep better.
So part of it is you drive yourcore temperature up through the
heat exposure, and then itdrops some plummets, and that's

(46:00):
what we need to get to sleep.
So we can time some of theserecovery mechanisms with women
who have difficulty sleeping.
So I'll have women who arelike, I can't get to sleep, I'm
doing all the food stuff right,but I'm still having problems.
It's like, okay, well, let's doa really light workout and then
get you in the sauna before umyou come home from work or right

(46:21):
at six o'clock or somethinglike that.
So you shoot your coretemperature up.
So then by the time nineo'clock rolls around and you hit
that wave of tiredness, yourcore temperature is on its way
down and you're like, boom, I'ma I'm asleep.
So the difference ways oflooking at how are we going to
use recovery.

And do you have a certain set amount of days you
think are good for midlife womenfor recovery, two, three days?
Like, what are you suggesting?

Yeah, so it it depends on training history.
Like if you're really stressresilient, maybe your body
bounces back.
But a lot of times people don'trealize, especially women, that
what you do on Saturday, you'regonna directly feel on Monday.
So you might go on Sunday,yeah, I feel pretty good.
And then Monday hits you,you're like, whoa, what
happened?

(47:07):
So, you know, you just have tolisten to your body and say,
okay, well, if I'm gonna gosuper hard on Saturday, then I
know Monday I'm definitely gonnahave to have a recovery day.
Or maybe you feel fantastic onMonday, and then you don't
realize that Wednesday, you'relike, whoa, what happened?
So you just kind of got to playaround, like when you're
planning your really hardsessions and know that it's

(47:28):
usually the day after the dayafter that hit you hard.
So maybe you go hard session, amoderate session, and a day
off, and then a hard session, amoderate session, and a day off.
And when I say moderate, Idon't mean moderate intensity.
I mean like we're doing somelifting and maybe it's more
technique focused instead ofheavy lifting.

Okay.
And then back to the hit andsit, just how many days a week
would you plug those in?

Yeah.
So um, if I were to look at awoman who is time crunched, like
most of us, because you know,we have partners or we have
kids, we're working, careers,all the things that go around
it.
I'm like, if you have threedays of 45 minutes, this is what
you do.
The first day you go in, youmobilize for 10 minutes and warm
up really well, and then youfocus on one compound movement.

(48:15):
So maybe it's your squat day.
So you're doing uh you know,focused, heavy squats, and then
you're complementing with maybesome single-leg bulb Bulgarian
split squats, so you're reallygetting into that whole knee
forward hinge motion.
And then you finish with someplumetric or some sprint
intervals.
Then you can replicate thatthree times a week, not just

(48:36):
squat, but you're changing thecompound movement.
So one's a squat day, another'sa push-pull day, and then
another is posterior chain day.
That covers you, right?
So you have your heavy lifting,you have your mobilization for
recovery and joint and tissue,and then you have your high
intensity and jumping, whichcovers you.
But if you're like, okay, Iwant to do something a little
bit different stays.
Okay, then we're going, you doyour heavy lifting, great.

(48:59):
And then if we can get twosprint interval sessions or one
sprint and one true highintensity interval session,
you're good to go.
So minimum three liftingsessions and one hit and one
sit.

Okay.
No, I I like that.
I because I think that's that'sdoable.
We're not talking being at thegym for two hours because nobody
got time.
It doesn't work for anyone.
No, no, no.
It doesn't work.
How much sleep do you try toget at night?

Oh, I uh someone asked me, okay, what's your
favorite thing as like sleep?

Me, me too.

Yeah, I know.
So I used to be, you know, likeearlier, it's like, oh, I don't
need sleep.
I mean, I don't, but now I'mlike, I need to be in bed by
9:30.
I might read till 10 and I'm upat seven.
So, you know, I know that I'msleeping most of that time.
Uh, when I'm traveling, it's alittle bit different, but I
really try to get that seven tonine hours.

(49:58):
And there's sometimes where Ineed more, and then sometimes
where I can get by with a littlebit less.
Do you have a dailynon-negotiable?
Yes.
I am like a dog.
I need to be outside every day.
So I go outside every morningfor about 10 minutes before
anyone else is up, and I have mymy coffee, and I just listen to
the early morning and breathein all that early morning, no

(50:21):
one else is around.
And that's my piece of the day.
I love it.

That I love that.
And I don't know, am I hearingthe ocean in the background?

We live really close, but what you're hearing
is we are in a major windstorm.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
This is the time of year uhthat New Zealand gets the side
currents of a lot of the frontsthat are coming in.
So there was some um massivethunderstorms yesterday and some
tornadoes, and now we're havingthe wind.

(50:50):
And this is normal for them.
Oh my gosh.
Anyone in the States would stepoutside and think we were in a
hurricane.

Because I can hear it.
I was like, oh, she lives rightnear the ocean.
I was getting really jealousbecause I've got five inches of
snow outside where I am.
Yeah.
No, no, no, it's wind.
Okay.
All right.
Well, listen, I want to say tothe listeners to check out
Stacy's website.
It is a gold mine of research.

(51:19):
There's courses, there'spractical tools for women.
If a midlife woman wants tostart implementing your
methodologies today, whatspecific resources would you
recommend on your site?
Where should they start?

So I would say go to our newsletter and our
blog section because we havesome specific things that will
differentiate what's sit, what'shit, what's heavy lifting.
So you can really get educatedon it.
And then we have links to ifyou want to do uh a Hayley Power
Happens program that will getyou started lifting, then you
can do that.
If you are looking at likewhat's hit and sit, we have

(51:58):
guidelines for that too.
How to eat.
So it's like if you go to theblogs and you read about stuff,
then we have links off that thatwill direct you on your path.

All right.
That is perfect.
Dr.
Stacy Sims, I am so grateful tohave you on the show today.
This was so much fun talking toyou.
And uh thanks for being aguest.
Oh, thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Before you go, thank you forbeing here.
If you want to go a littledeeper, make sure you check out

(52:29):
the show notes for this episode.
That's where I link anything wementioned, resources, partners,
or tools I actually use andtrust.
And if you're not already onthe Asking for a Friend
community newsletter, that'swhere I share practical midlife
tips, favorite finds, recipes,and the things that don't always
make it onto the podcast orInstagram.

(52:49):
You'll find the link to join inthe show notes.
Take care, and I'll see younext week.

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Ep.188 Midlife Fitness for Women: Dr. Stacy Sims Explains Why Your Old Workouts Stopped Working

Stuff You Should Know