April 10, 2025 • 32 mins
In this solo episode of The Real Life Runners podcast, I’m diving into something so many of us struggle with after 40: why it feels harder to maintain a healthy weight, even when you’re exercising and eating right. Trust me, you’re not alone in this!
I’ll walk you through what’s really going on inside our bodies — how hormonal shifts, like drops in estrogen and progesterone, impact our metabolism and muscle mass. And more importantly, I’ll show you what we can do about it.
We’ll talk about why building muscle is key (it’s not just about losing weight anymore!), how much protein you actually need, and why proper recovery is just as important as training hard. I’ll also share how stress and nervous system regulation fit into the picture — because if we don’t manage those, it’s like swimming upstream.
I’m here to help you shift the focus from shrinking your body to building strength, energy, and vitality — because you deserve to feel powerful and alive at every age. I’ll wrap up with some practical tips you can start using today to rebuild muscle, boost your metabolism, and feel amazing again.
00:21 Understanding Metabolism Changes
01:52 Hormones and Their Impact
05:54 The Role of Stress and Cortisol
11:19 Importance of Muscle Building
16:37 Effective Training and Recovery
20:24 Shifting Focus: Strength Over Weight
22:23 Practical Tips for Building Muscle
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angie (00:00):
So you're eating healthy, running a few times a week,
(00:02):
maybe even trying to cut back alittle, but the scale won't
budge or worse.
It keeps creeping up.
You're more tired than used tobe, and the workouts that used
to help you lose weight now,they just seem to make you
hungrier, more exhausted.
And more frustrated.
If that sounds familiar, you'renot alone and you're not doing
anything wrong.
Today, we're diving into thereal reason.
(00:23):
Your body feels different after40.
The truth is your metabolism haschanged, but not because it's
broken.
It's because your body is askingfor a new approach.
In this episode, we're breakingdown how hormone shifts, muscle
loss, and nervous system stressare affecting your metabolism,
and more importantly, what youcan do about it.
Because here's the good news.
(00:45):
You are not stuck.
You just need to train and fueldifferently now.
So today I'll show you howbuilding muscle, eating enough
protein and actually recovering,can reignite your energy,
jumpstart fat loss, and help youfeel strong, powerful, and
vibrant.
Again, this is about so muchmore than just your body.
It's about reclaiming yourstrength and vitality in this
(01:07):
next phase of life.
So let's get into it.
(01:33):
What's up runners?
Welcome to the show today, it'sa solo episode.
I'm here by my lonesome selftoday.
Unfortunately, Kevin isn'tjoining me this week, but that's
okay because today I wanna talkabout something that is so
important.
You guys all know that I love.
Strength training and theimportance of that.
And so today we're talking aboutmuscle metabolism and menopause
(01:55):
so that you can reallyunderstand the real connection
between these things and why itfeels so much harder to change
your body after 40.
So if you're like so many womenthat I work with.
What used to work doesn't workanymore, and there's a reason
and also a real solution.
So today we're breaking down whyyour metabolism shifts during
perimenopause and menopause, andhow building muscle is the most
(02:18):
effective way to reclaim yourenergy, your strength, and your
fat loss.
So I know I used to fall intothis trap as well of running
more and eating less when Iwanted to lose weight.
But now that just leaves meexhausted and frustrated, and I
know so many other women arefeeling the same way here
because this is how we've beenconditioned.
(02:39):
We've been conditioned tobelieve that if we want results,
we need to do more.
We need to push ourselvesharder.
We need to ignore hunger cues.
We need to eat less andrestrict, and that.
Wrecks your body.
When you start to enterperimenopause and menopause, you
might have been able to get awaywith this.
And this is the frustratingthing, and this is why so many
(03:01):
women are confused because thatstrategy may have worked for you
in your twenties, in yourthirties, of like doing more and
eating less.
But once you start to get intoyour forties, your fifties and
beyond.
That strategy can actuallybackfire.
And today I'm gonna explain whyall of that's happening.
So let's first start to talkabout why it feels harder after
(03:24):
40 now when you're going intoperimenopause and menopause.
And I say after 40 becauseessentially that's when
perimenopause.
Menopause begins, and there's alot of women that don't even
realize that is what they'reexperiencing.
And there's a lot of women thatwant to blame their age or think
there's something wrong with me.
(03:44):
And while age is related to itbecause perimenopause.
Tends to be a little bit agerelated, right?
It's not something that mostwomen go through in their
twenties.
It's what most women go through.
The average age of menopause is51 in the United States, and so
it is age related, somewhat, butyou can go through
perimenopause.
There's a huge range of whenwomen go through perimenopause
(04:06):
and menopause, and when we startto go into this phase of our
life, basically what happens isthat our hormones start to
shift.
And this can lead to some majorchanges in our body and the way
that our body responds toexercise.
So estrogen and progesterone aretwo of the main female hormones
that start changing anddeclining during perimenopause.
(04:30):
And estrogen plays a veryimportant role in the body.
Now, I am a medical professionaland I didn't even understand.
All of the things that estrogenplays a role in until I started
to really dig deep into thisresearch myself.
So estrogen is what's known asan anabolic hormone, so it helps
our body to build.
(04:50):
Okay?
So think of anabolic isbuilding.
So it helps to build muscle, ithelps to build bone, it helps
our metabolism.
It has an effect in fatdistribution in the body and
like how our body stores fat.
And so as estrogen declines,those things also start
changing.
It becomes harder for us tobuild muscle.
It becomes harder for us tobuild bone.
(05:11):
We notice changes in metabolismand fat distribution mostly that
a lot of women start gainingfat, especially around the belly
area.
And that's because of some ofthese changes.
There's also something calledsarcopenia, which is a natural
loss of lean muscle mass thatstarts in our thirties.
So even if you saw the title,hopefully if you saw the title,
(05:34):
it didn't scare you away ifyou're not in menopause yet,
because these changes starthappening as early as our
thirties and Sarcopenia isbasically our body just starts
to lose lean muscle mass if wearen't doing something to
actively preserve it.
If we're not strength training,if we're not actively trying to
build muscle, our body starts tolose it.
(05:54):
Now we wanna talk about stress,cortisol and nervous system
dysregulation because these arethree things that you all know
that I am.
Have become even more and morepassionate about, because we
just keep figuring out more andmore links between these things
and inflammation in the body andperformance and overall health
and chronic disease.
(06:15):
There is so much, there's somany links, between stress and
the nervous system and ourhormones and all of the things.
So when we go back to like whyit's starting to feel harder
after 40 estrogen as it'sdeclining.
Estrogen has an effect oncortisol.
And so when estrogen declines,cortisol levels stay more
(06:38):
elevated, they essentiallybecome less checked.
Like they're more uncheckedbecause cortisol helps to, I'm
sorry, estrogen helps toregulate cortisol.
So when we start to loseestrogen, cortisol levels stay
higher.
Cortisol is your stress hormoneand cortisol.
Makes your body feel morestressed.
It keeps your state, your bodyin a state of more sympathetic
(07:01):
activation, which is your stressmode, your fight or flight
response.
And this causes your nervoussystem to get dysregulated.
So basically we have these twosides of our nervous system,
your, sympathetic nervous systemand your parasympathetic nervous
system.
And your sympathetic is known asyour stress response or stress
mode.
That's your fight or flight, andyour parasympathetic is your
rest and recovery mode.
(07:23):
And it's our normal state ofbeing is to shift between these
two things, like when we areout, when we're running, when
we.
When there's danger, our bodyneeds to be in sympathetic mode
because our heart rate needs toincrease and our breathing needs
to increase.
It needs to prime the body torespond, and so when we sense
(07:43):
danger, when we're stressed out,we tend to go into sympathetic
activation.
Parasympathetic activation iswhen our body can rest and
recover and actually rebuild.
Maybe you've heard me say thatworkouts and training actually
break your body down, and duringrest and recovery, that's when
your body actually builds backstronger than it was before.
(08:04):
So training is actually a stresson the body.
And in our forties, our bodyjust doesn't respond to stress
in the same way because of theselosses of estrogen and because
our cortisol levels are.
More elevated than they used tobe.
So that keeps our body more inthat sympathetic activation
state, which is more of thatstress state.
(08:24):
And when we're in that stressstate.
Our body does not burn fatefficiently.
Our body does not recover andrebuild muscle, and that's why
it becomes harder for a lot ofwomen to build muscle after 40.
That's why workouts also becomeharder because your body's just
in this constant state of stressand it doesn't have as much time
in the parasympathetic mode forit to.
(08:46):
Rest and recover and rebuild, soyou're never truly gaining the
benefits of those harderworkouts because your body
doesn't have enough time torecover.
And so this is one of thereasons why your old strategy no
longer works.
This whole idea of eating lessand running more.
Just leads to more stress on thebody.
It leads to a breakdown of yourmuscle and it leads to slower
(09:08):
metabolism, which then of courseleads to this cycle of
frustration that so many womenfind themselves in and they have
low energy levels, more bellyfat, increased cravings, and
it's becomes this very nastycycle.
So the important thing for youto understand.
Is that me.
Metabolism is not just caloriesin, calories out.
(09:30):
This is one of those lies thathas been perpetuated.
Your metabolism is much morecomplicated than that.
Your metabolism.
Metabolism is driven by yourlean muscle mass, so the more
muscle mass you have, the higheryour metabolism, because muscle
is the most energy.
requiring tissue in the body,like it requires more energy
(09:51):
just to maintain muscle at rest,which is why they say you can
burn fat at rest if you havemore muscle.
So that has a big role in yourresting metabolism, your nervous
system health.
Again, if you're constantly insympathetic mode and you're
constantly stressed out, yourmetabolism is going to decrease
because your body is trying tosurvive.
(10:11):
When you're in sympathetic mode,that's your survival mode.
Your, basically your body, justwhen it's in survival mode, it
doesn't burn fat and energyeffectively.
It's trying to hold ontoeverything because it's trying
to just survive.
It's also driven by yourrecovery and your hormones.
Okay?
All of these things have aneffect on your metabolism.
(10:32):
So just counting calories andthinking it's as simple as
calories in calories out is oneof the reason that so many women
are frustrated when it comes totrying to manage their weight
and trying to build a strongerbody, whether, whatever your
goal is, you guys know if you'velistened to this podcast for any
length of time, that I don'tusually like to talk about
losing weight.
Because I don't think it's theright focus for us as runners,
(10:55):
as women.
I think that we need to shiftour focus, and we are gonna be
talking about that in thisepisode of what we wanna shift
our focus to instead.
But I do wanna address itbecause I do know that this is
where a lot of women are, andthis is a goal that a lot of
women have.
And so I don't want to just tellyou, that goal is not a good
goal because if it meanssomething to you, then we need
(11:16):
to talk about it.
We need to address this.
I would love for you to startshifting away from your focus on
losing weight into your focus ofbuilding muscle and building a
stronger body and stronger boneslike we're gonna be talking
about today.
But just understand that.
Because I'm talking about losingweight doesn't mean that I think
you should.
It's because I know that there'sa lot of women out there that
(11:37):
feel like they should and thatthey want to, and I hope my,
after this episode that you'llstart to shift some of that.
You can start to release thisidea of just trying to get a
smaller body of just trying tobe thinner, just trying to lose
weight, because that can lead toa lot of problems.
So instead of.
Really focusing on just losingweight and just numbers on the
(12:00):
scale and just calories in,calories out.
It's important for us in thisphase of our life after 40 in
perimenopause and postmenopause, to really change our
focus to building muscle becausemuscle is the missing link for
your metabolism, for yourrunning performance, for any of
the goals that you want toachieve in your running and your
(12:22):
fitness.
You need muscle.
You also need muscle to help youbalance, to help keep you
independent, to keep you activeas you age.
And that is such an importantgoal for us to start thinking
about it.
This phase of our life as well.
Muscle leads to better balance.
When you have more muscle andyou have more strength, you're
(12:42):
less likely to fall.
If you're less likely to fall,you're less likely to break a
bone.
Resistance training and buildingmuscle also strengthens your
bones so that if you do fall.
You're less likely to break abone also, because you've
probably heard that breakingbones when you're older can lead
to a lot of health problems.
So why not try to avoid that?
Let's start to shift our focusinto really understanding how
(13:06):
important it's for us to buildstrength and muscle, of course,
is a big part of that.
So why is muscle so important?
Why is muscle the thing that weneed to be focusing on right
now?
Muscle is your metabolic engine.
So when you have more muscles,you burn more calories at rest.
Muscle also improves insulinsensitivity in the body, which
means it helps to regulate yourblood sugar levels.
(13:28):
Now, if you've ever been hangry,we all heard that term of
hangry, you understand theimportance of your blood sugar.
Blood sugar is not just aboutfat and.
Se, fat storage.
It's also about your moods.
It regulates how you feel.
A lot of people like how muchenergy you have, all of that.
Is based on what's going on withyour blood sugar.
(13:49):
I shouldn't say all of it, but alot of it is.
And so your insulin sensitivityhelps to regulate your blood
sugar levels and muscle improvesthat.
So let's get more muscle, right?
Muscle also improves yourhormonal balance and your energy
levels through all of thesethings.
Through, your helping toregulate your blood sugar
through some of the otherhormones that are released when
(14:09):
we're building muscle andmaintaining muscle.
Yeah, your muscle's veryimportant for your metabolism.
Okay?
Muscle is also anti-agingmedicine, and this is what I
started talking about before,muscle.
When you build muscle by throughresistance training, not only
are you building strongermuscles, you're also building
stronger bones.
(14:29):
Resistance training has beenshown to reduce the incidence of
osteoporosis related fracturesby 40 to 60%.
That is huge.
And considering that one in twowomen will suffer a fracture
from osteoporosis at some pointin their life, wouldn't, don't
you wanna.
To help to reduce that, right?
So we can do that when we buildstronger muscles through
(14:50):
resistance Training stronger ormuscle also helps us to have
better balance and reduces ourinjury risk, not just from
falling, but from running.
Running is a very repetitivehigh impact activity and when
you don't have enough muscle,your tendons, your joints, they
absorb more of that stress whenyour muscles are stronger.
(15:13):
They help to absorb some of theforces that come into your body
through running, and theyprotect your joints and your
tendons, so you have a reducedrisk of running injury as well.
And when I was in the clinic asa physical therapist, I gave
everyone exercises.
This is what we do.
I know a lot of people thinkthat PT is just about massage
and electric stimulation andultrasound and those tools.
(15:35):
Have a very limited place in pt.
The main thing that you do in PTis exercise.
You do stretching and mobilitywork and strengthening exercise,
because the truth is you needmuscle.
You need muscle to improve yourbalance.
You need muscle to both rehaband prevent injury.
When you have stronger muscles,you also have better posture.
(15:55):
You have more power.
You have improved runningeconomy.
When you have improved runningeconomy, that means that.
You use less energy to do thesame thing, so running the same
pace, running the same distance,you're using less energy when
your economy is better becauseyou're wasting less energy.
So that's beautiful because thatmeans you have more energy to
(16:16):
actually do what you wanna do.
When it comes to speed orendurance, running longer,
running faster, all of that iseasier when you have more
muscle.
So when we look at buildingmuscle, it's not just about
lifting.
a lot of people think that,okay, in order to build muscle,
I have to, I just have to liftweights.
But that is not the full pictureeither.
(16:37):
It's also about recovery andfuel, because like I mentioned
earlier, when you train, whetherit's running or lifting, when
you're doing something hard andchallenging your body.
That's actually breaking yourbody down.
And during rest and recovery,that's when your body has time
and resources to actuallyrebuild your muscle.
(16:58):
So if you're working out andyou're lifting heavy and you're
quote unquote, doing all thethings that you're supposed to
be doing in your exerciseroutine, but you're.
Skimping on recovery.
You're not getting enough sleep,you're not giving your body
enough protein, you're not goingto build the muscle because
protein is the building block ofmuscle.
So we have to make sure thatwe're getting enough protein.
(17:21):
We have to make sure we'regetting enough carbohydrates
because carbohydrates areactually fuel for your training
sessions, and we have to getenough sleep and recovery,
especially in between thoseharder sessions so that our
muscle actually has time torebuild.
Because the truth is as we getolder and as these hormone
shifts happens, it takes alittle bit longer to build
(17:42):
muscle in between sessions aswell.
So it's not just about liftingweights and doing resistance
training.
Yes, that is important, but it'salso about combining that with
rest, sleep, and protein so thatyour muscles will actually get
stronger.
Now all of this is also rootedin nervous system regulation
because stress plays a huge rolein your body's ability to
(18:05):
actually sleep and recover andbuild that muscle as well.
I forget where I heard this, butsomewhere I heard someone make
this distinction of when you'retraining, you could either be
accumulating stress.
Or adapting to stress and thegoal is adaptation.
Okay, so the whole idea oftraining is that you are doing
(18:28):
something in your training,whether that's running, trying
to run faster, or trying to runlonger, or lifting heavier
weights.
And you want your body to adaptbecause when you place a stress
on the body, if the body is notstrong enough to handle that
stress, then there's all theseneural pathways and muscular
pathways that happen, andbasically your body gets the
(18:49):
message of, oh, that load was alittle too much, and so your
body wants to be prepared.
So during the rest period, itbuilds back stronger than it was
so that when your bodyencounters that load again, now
it is more able.
To handle that load.
So that is what's calledadaptation, and that is the
whole point of training, right?
(19:09):
You do a little bit, yourecover, you do a little bit
more, you recover.
You push your body to the edgeor a little bit over the edge,
and then you allow your bodytime to recover.
And that is what allows you toget stronger.
That's what allows you to runlonger.
So if you're training for amarathon.
It's not like you just go outand run 26.2 miles.
Most people would be completelywrecked or wouldn't even be able
(19:31):
to complete that if they justwent out and tried to do it.
So during training, we pushourselves a little bit more.
So say you're starting andcurrently you can run five
miles, then.
Maybe your long run over theweekend is six miles, and then
you've got some shorter runsduring the week, and then the
following week you're at eightmiles and then you pull back a
little bit and then maybe youpull back to six miles after
(19:52):
that eight.
Because you, we always wannagive our body time to recover in
between.
We don't wanna just continuouslybuild up.
Again, that's one of thosemistakes that.
A lot of generic training plansmake a lot of runners that
don't, aren't following atraining plan.
They just think, oh, I'll justkeep adding a mile every week,
and that'll get to get me towhere I wanna go.
And that is a very outdated wayof training.
So please don't do that.
(20:12):
You have to have pullback weeks,in there to allow adaptation
versus just accumulation of morestress, right?
So keep that in mind.
We want adaptation, notaccumulation.
And this really goes back toagain, this whole idea of I want
to be strong versus I wanna beskinny.
We have to start shifting theway that we're thinking about
(20:34):
ourselves instead of justthinking about the size of our
body instead of just thinkingabout a number on the scale.
Why do you want, I would eveninvite you to just ask yourself,
why do you even wanna loseweight?
what is it about a smallernumber on the scale that you
think you want?
And a lot of people say, I wannafit back into my clothes.
then ask, why does that matterto you?
(20:54):
I wanna feel good in my skin.
why does that matter to you?
And does the number on the scaleactually make you feel good
about yourself or make you giveyou that confidence that you're
looking for?
How would you feel if you werestronger?
If you knew that you were ableto go out and run the distance
that you wanted, or the speedthat you wanted, or whatever
your goal is?
(21:15):
How would that feel?
Isn't that really what you'regoing for?
Because a lot of peopleassociate body size or weight
with allowing them to achieve aspecific goal.
Because you don't actually careabout the number on this scale.
You care about what you thinkthat number is going to mean or
what you, how you think you'regoing to feel when you achieve
(21:37):
that number.
So I'd love to invite you justto ask yourself that question,
like, how do I, how would thatmake me feel?
if my goal is to lose weight,what do I think that will give
me?
And then make that the goal tocelebrate what your body can do.
Not just how it looks and tochoose to feel confident, to
choose to feel strong, to reallyfocus in.
On being strong and makingsustainable changes to your
(22:01):
training, not just trying tolose weight quickly in six weeks
and then go right back to youwhere you were just a couple
months later.
We wanna be starting to shiftthe way that we look at our body
shift, the way that we'relooking about what we can do and
who we are, and really adoptthis mindset of wanting to be
strong versus just wanting asmaller body.
(22:23):
So now that you understand whymuscle is so important, the
question then is, how do I buildit?
How do I actually train and fuelto build muscle?
Number one, strength training.
Okay.
Strength training isnon-negotiable after the age of
40.
I think after the age of 30, Ithink every woman should be
strength training, no matterwhat age you are, because
(22:44):
strength training is veryimportant for so many reasons.
So it definitely becomesnon-negotiable after 40.
So you have to focus onresistance training, and we also
have to start lifting heavier.
Now be careful when I say thisbecause.
There's always a caveat.
If you've never strength trainedbefore, don't just jump into the
gym and start lifting heavyweights.
(23:05):
That's a great way to hurtyourself, and I don't want that
for you.
You have to meet yourself whereyou are.
You have to figure out like whatyou're currently capable of
that's not going to wreck youfor a week.
Because a lot of people, they goin and maybe that first session
they're like, okay, this washard, but like I could do it.
But then.
They're sore for a weekafterwards.
Okay, that was too much.
(23:25):
So we have to figure out whereyou are, meet yourself where you
are, and then gently andprogressively overload the body
from there with a focus onprogressive overload like I just
mentioned, which means like agradual increase in the load
that you're placing on the body.
In a very intelligent way with afocus on your form with these
exercises so that you don't hurtyourself.
(23:47):
And a focus on recovery becauseagain, during recovery and rest,
that's when your musclesactually get stronger.
So you need to be strengthtraining at least two, two times
a week as minimum, I wouldsuggest two to three times,
depending on who you are andwhat your goal is.
Second thing you have to do isfuel your body, right?
And this.
Is where protein becomes apriority.
(24:08):
We as women need to be eatingmore protein.
Most women aren't getting enoughprotein, which is make what
makes it harder for women tobuild muscle in this phase of
life as well.
And it becomes very important tonot only get the right amount of
protein, but also time out yourprotein too.
So especially like before andafter your runs or before and
(24:28):
after your training sessions,it's important to fuel your body
to both give yourself energythrough the carbohydrates and
then give your body enoughprotein so that your body's able
to build the muscle.
So the new recommendations arethat we should be aiming for
about one gram.
Of protein per pound of idealbody weight.
So if you, if your goal is toweigh 130 pounds, you should be
(24:51):
aiming for 130 grams of proteinper day.
And I know that sounds like alot, it's much more than a lot
of women are eating right now.
So if you realize that you'renot eating enough protein,
again, start where you are.
Don't try to go from 60 grams ofprotein a day to 130 grams of
protein a day, because that'sgonna be very difficult and hard
to sustain.
But just.
(25:11):
Gently start to increase howmuch protein you're eating
throughout the day.
And again, if you want moreguidance on this, we go through
all of this stuff in a greatamount of detail inside of
Running Reconnected, which isthe step-by-step program that
will help lead you through allof these things.
Okay?
Then the third thing that wewanna focus on when it comes to
building muscle is what's calledpolarized training.
(25:32):
And we went through this conceptin one of our recent podcasts.
Let's see, I think it wasepisode number.
3 98, if you wanna go back andcheck that one out.
polarized training means thatnot all of your runs need to
feel the same.
You have to have a combinationof easy days and hard days.
If you want to build strength,build speed, build muscle, build
(25:55):
endurance, whatever it is thatyou're trying to improve upon.
We have to focus on making surethat our easy days actually feel
easy, and then we have to have acouple hard days in there as
well.
Because doing hard things isimportant.
It is important to challengeourselves, but we can't be
pushing hard all day every dayon every single training session
(26:15):
because that's a great way toget injured or burn the body
out.
I don't want that for you, and Iknow that you don't want that.
So let's, instead of, continuingto think about just pushing
harder and doing more, we haveto make sure we are doing
polarized training, avoidingthat moderate effort level,
which is where so many runnersfind themselves.
(26:37):
When I ask this question to mostrunners, I say, okay, on a scale
of one to 10, how hard are mostof your runs?
I'll answer that question rightnow for yourself.
So when you go out on yournormal run, on a scale of one to
10, how hard is your normal run?
And if you're like a lot ofrunners that I talk to, most
runners before they find thepodcast and join our program,
(26:59):
they're somewhere in the rangeof five to eight out of 10.
And this is one of the reasonsthat they stop seeing progress
because they're just in thisgray zone of constantly pushing
but never recovering and askingtheir body to.
More, do more.
And again, just accumulatingstress on the body.
And when they start to shiftover to easy days, easy, hard
(27:22):
days, hard.
Number one, they start feelingbetter almost instantly.
Like they enjoy their runsagain, their body's not sore.
They have more energy.
And then.
A lot of our clients really lovegoing hard on hard days then,
because they're not wiped outall the time, so they have more
energy to push harder, andthey're hitting speeds on their
(27:43):
hard days that they have maybenever even seen ever in their
lives, or maybe they haven'tseen them in years.
And that's the true way that youstart to see actual progress.
Now, going back to this wholeidea of stress and accumulation,
this is where the nervous systemcomes in, and this is why.
Stress regulation matters andnervous system regulation
matters because when your bodyis constantly stressed out, it
(28:06):
stays in that state ofsympathetic activation or
survival mode where your body isliterally breaking down muscle
and storing fat, which is theopposite of what you want,
right?
I think.
Anyone listening to thispodcast, if I ask you, would you
like to burn muscle or burn fat?
They would probably say, I'dlike to burn fat, please.
And I say, would you like tobuild muscle or build fat?
(28:30):
They'd probably say, I wannabuild muscle.
But when you're stuck insympathetic stress mode.
Survival mode.
Your body's doing the oppositeof what you want.
It's burning your muscle,breaking down your muscle, and
breaking down your bone andstoring fat.
So recovery and nervous systemregulation is where true change
happens.
(28:50):
And this is one of those areasthat not a lot of people
understand and not a lot ofpeople are talking about.
And so that's why you're gonnahear me talking about it a lot
because we need to get thismessage out there.
It's not just about thetraining.
Yes, your training matters.
Yes, your nutrition matters.
All of those things matter.
But if you are constantlystressed out, if you are eating
on the go, if you are stressedout about the food that you're
(29:14):
eating, if you're stressed outabout your training, I.
Your body like the hormones inyour body.
They don't know the differencebetween physical stress and
emotional stress.
Stress is stress.
The same hormones are released.
Cortisol is still being releasedregardless of what kind of
stress you're under.
And so once you start tounderstand how to regulate your
stress and how to recover.
That's when you really startseeing the change, and again,
(29:37):
this goes back to how you'rethinking about your body, really
understanding the proper way totrain in a different strategy
that you need to start usingwhen it comes to building
muscle, improving your running,not feeling exhausted all the
time.
We need to stop trying to fixthings.
(29:58):
Stop trying to fix your body.
Your body is amazing.
Start honoring your body.
Start supporting your body likean athlete.
Nothing is wrong with you.
Nothing is broken.
You are just.
Most likely, if you're notseeing the results that you
want, you're most likely underfueling, over training and under
(30:19):
recovering.
Those are the three biggestmistakes that I often see.
Or again, thinking that you'rebroken, thinking that there's
something to fix here.
We just need to start shiftingand supporting our body and
starting to ask ourselves, okay,what can I do here to support my
body?
What can I do to get stronger?
(30:40):
As a little recap.
Yes, it's normal that all thisbecomes harder after 40 because
of the physiological changesthat are happening in the body.
But that doesn't mean you'rebroken.
It just means that you need anew strategy.
And muscle is really the key toyour metabolism, to your
vitality, and to your fat loss.
And so is nervous systemregulation because without a
(31:02):
regulated nervous system.
You're not gonna be able to burnmuscle.
Your body's gonna be breaking itdown.
So you need to traindifferently, fuel differently,
and recover.
Prioritize recovery now.
And that is a very empoweringplace to be because I want you
to understand it's not your age.
It's not that you're.
Anything's wrong here.
We just have to start changingup the way we do things, okay?
(31:23):
And that's exactly what we teachinside of Running Reconnected.
So if you want more informationabout that program, you can head
over to our website, real liferunners.com/reconnect.
We're running a special rightnow, so you can check that out.
If you want to go into moredetail in my training, I've got
a couple free trainings comingup.
You can join my free class.
You can check that outover@realliferunners.com slash
(31:46):
strong.
If you wanna join my free classor catch the replay of it, you
can get all that, all thoselinks there.
And then exciting announcement,we've got our five day challenge
coming up at in May.
Okay?
So stay tuned, to all of yourreal life runners channels so
that you can find out all thedetails on the five day
Challenge coming up.
So again.
(32:06):
This season of life is not aboutshrinking.
It's about stepping into yourpower as a woman over 40, as a
strong woman over 40 that isbuilding sustainable habits,
sustainable fitness, so that youcan be strong both now and for
decades to come.
So if you loved this episode, Iwould love to invite you to
write a review on Apple Podcastsor on Spotify, and let us know.
(32:29):
What you gained or to share thisepisode with a friend.
And as always, thanks forjoining us.
This has been The Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
405.
Now, get out there and run yourlife.
So you're eating healthy, running a few times a week,
(00:02):
maybe even trying to cut back alittle, but the scale won't
budge or worse.
It keeps creeping up.
You're more tired than used tobe, and the workouts that used
to help you lose weight now,they just seem to make you
hungrier, more exhausted.
And more frustrated.
If that sounds familiar, you'renot alone and you're not doing
anything wrong.
Today, we're diving into thereal reason.
(00:23):
Your body feels different after40.
The truth is your metabolism haschanged, but not because it's
broken.
It's because your body is askingfor a new approach.
In this episode, we're breakingdown how hormone shifts, muscle
loss, and nervous system stressare affecting your metabolism,
and more importantly, what youcan do about it.
Because here's the good news.
(00:45):
You are not stuck.
You just need to train and fueldifferently now.
So today I'll show you howbuilding muscle, eating enough
protein and actually recovering,can reignite your energy,
jumpstart fat loss, and help youfeel strong, powerful, and
vibrant.
Again, this is about so muchmore than just your body.
It's about reclaiming yourstrength and vitality in this
(01:07):
next phase of life.
So let's get into it.
(01:33):
What's up runners?
Welcome to the show today, it'sa solo episode.
I'm here by my lonesome selftoday.
Unfortunately, Kevin isn'tjoining me this week, but that's
okay because today I wanna talkabout something that is so
important.
You guys all know that I love.
Strength training and theimportance of that.
And so today we're talking aboutmuscle metabolism and menopause
(01:55):
so that you can reallyunderstand the real connection
between these things and why itfeels so much harder to change
your body after 40.
So if you're like so many womenthat I work with.
What used to work doesn't workanymore, and there's a reason
and also a real solution.
So today we're breaking down whyyour metabolism shifts during
perimenopause and menopause, andhow building muscle is the most
(02:18):
effective way to reclaim yourenergy, your strength, and your
fat loss.
So I know I used to fall intothis trap as well of running
more and eating less when Iwanted to lose weight.
But now that just leaves meexhausted and frustrated, and I
know so many other women arefeeling the same way here
because this is how we've beenconditioned.
(02:39):
We've been conditioned tobelieve that if we want results,
we need to do more.
We need to push ourselvesharder.
We need to ignore hunger cues.
We need to eat less andrestrict, and that.
Wrecks your body.
When you start to enterperimenopause and menopause, you
might have been able to get awaywith this.
And this is the frustratingthing, and this is why so many
(03:01):
women are confused because thatstrategy may have worked for you
in your twenties, in yourthirties, of like doing more and
eating less.
But once you start to get intoyour forties, your fifties and
beyond.
That strategy can actuallybackfire.
And today I'm gonna explain whyall of that's happening.
So let's first start to talkabout why it feels harder after
(03:24):
40 now when you're going intoperimenopause and menopause.
And I say after 40 becauseessentially that's when
perimenopause.
Menopause begins, and there's alot of women that don't even
realize that is what they'reexperiencing.
And there's a lot of women thatwant to blame their age or think
there's something wrong with me.
(03:44):
And while age is related to itbecause perimenopause.
Tends to be a little bit agerelated, right?
It's not something that mostwomen go through in their
twenties.
It's what most women go through.
The average age of menopause is51 in the United States, and so
it is age related, somewhat, butyou can go through
perimenopause.
There's a huge range of whenwomen go through perimenopause
(04:06):
and menopause, and when we startto go into this phase of our
life, basically what happens isthat our hormones start to
shift.
And this can lead to some majorchanges in our body and the way
that our body responds toexercise.
So estrogen and progesterone aretwo of the main female hormones
that start changing anddeclining during perimenopause.
(04:30):
And estrogen plays a veryimportant role in the body.
Now, I am a medical professionaland I didn't even understand.
All of the things that estrogenplays a role in until I started
to really dig deep into thisresearch myself.
So estrogen is what's known asan anabolic hormone, so it helps
our body to build.
(04:50):
Okay?
So think of anabolic isbuilding.
So it helps to build muscle, ithelps to build bone, it helps
our metabolism.
It has an effect in fatdistribution in the body and
like how our body stores fat.
And so as estrogen declines,those things also start
changing.
It becomes harder for us tobuild muscle.
It becomes harder for us tobuild bone.
(05:11):
We notice changes in metabolismand fat distribution mostly that
a lot of women start gainingfat, especially around the belly
area.
And that's because of some ofthese changes.
There's also something calledsarcopenia, which is a natural
loss of lean muscle mass thatstarts in our thirties.
So even if you saw the title,hopefully if you saw the title,
(05:34):
it didn't scare you away ifyou're not in menopause yet,
because these changes starthappening as early as our
thirties and Sarcopenia isbasically our body just starts
to lose lean muscle mass if wearen't doing something to
actively preserve it.
If we're not strength training,if we're not actively trying to
build muscle, our body starts tolose it.
(05:54):
Now we wanna talk about stress,cortisol and nervous system
dysregulation because these arethree things that you all know
that I am.
Have become even more and morepassionate about, because we
just keep figuring out more andmore links between these things
and inflammation in the body andperformance and overall health
and chronic disease.
(06:15):
There is so much, there's somany links, between stress and
the nervous system and ourhormones and all of the things.
So when we go back to like whyit's starting to feel harder
after 40 estrogen as it'sdeclining.
Estrogen has an effect oncortisol.
And so when estrogen declines,cortisol levels stay more
(06:38):
elevated, they essentiallybecome less checked.
Like they're more uncheckedbecause cortisol helps to, I'm
sorry, estrogen helps toregulate cortisol.
So when we start to loseestrogen, cortisol levels stay
higher.
Cortisol is your stress hormoneand cortisol.
Makes your body feel morestressed.
It keeps your state, your bodyin a state of more sympathetic
(07:01):
activation, which is your stressmode, your fight or flight
response.
And this causes your nervoussystem to get dysregulated.
So basically we have these twosides of our nervous system,
your, sympathetic nervous systemand your parasympathetic nervous
system.
And your sympathetic is known asyour stress response or stress
mode.
That's your fight or flight, andyour parasympathetic is your
rest and recovery mode.
(07:23):
And it's our normal state ofbeing is to shift between these
two things, like when we areout, when we're running, when
we.
When there's danger, our bodyneeds to be in sympathetic mode
because our heart rate needs toincrease and our breathing needs
to increase.
It needs to prime the body torespond, and so when we sense
(07:43):
danger, when we're stressed out,we tend to go into sympathetic
activation.
Parasympathetic activation iswhen our body can rest and
recover and actually rebuild.
Maybe you've heard me say thatworkouts and training actually
break your body down, and duringrest and recovery, that's when
your body actually builds backstronger than it was before.
(08:04):
So training is actually a stresson the body.
And in our forties, our bodyjust doesn't respond to stress
in the same way because of theselosses of estrogen and because
our cortisol levels are.
More elevated than they used tobe.
So that keeps our body more inthat sympathetic activation
state, which is more of thatstress state.
(08:24):
And when we're in that stressstate.
Our body does not burn fatefficiently.
Our body does not recover andrebuild muscle, and that's why
it becomes harder for a lot ofwomen to build muscle after 40.
That's why workouts also becomeharder because your body's just
in this constant state of stressand it doesn't have as much time
in the parasympathetic mode forit to.
(08:46):
Rest and recover and rebuild, soyou're never truly gaining the
benefits of those harderworkouts because your body
doesn't have enough time torecover.
And so this is one of thereasons why your old strategy no
longer works.
This whole idea of eating lessand running more.
Just leads to more stress on thebody.
It leads to a breakdown of yourmuscle and it leads to slower
(09:08):
metabolism, which then of courseleads to this cycle of
frustration that so many womenfind themselves in and they have
low energy levels, more bellyfat, increased cravings, and
it's becomes this very nastycycle.
So the important thing for youto understand.
Is that me.
Metabolism is not just caloriesin, calories out.
(09:30):
This is one of those lies thathas been perpetuated.
Your metabolism is much morecomplicated than that.
Your metabolism.
Metabolism is driven by yourlean muscle mass, so the more
muscle mass you have, the higheryour metabolism, because muscle
is the most energy.
requiring tissue in the body,like it requires more energy
(09:51):
just to maintain muscle at rest,which is why they say you can
burn fat at rest if you havemore muscle.
So that has a big role in yourresting metabolism, your nervous
system health.
Again, if you're constantly insympathetic mode and you're
constantly stressed out, yourmetabolism is going to decrease
because your body is trying tosurvive.
(10:11):
When you're in sympathetic mode,that's your survival mode.
Your, basically your body, justwhen it's in survival mode, it
doesn't burn fat and energyeffectively.
It's trying to hold ontoeverything because it's trying
to just survive.
It's also driven by yourrecovery and your hormones.
Okay?
All of these things have aneffect on your metabolism.
(10:32):
So just counting calories andthinking it's as simple as
calories in calories out is oneof the reason that so many women
are frustrated when it comes totrying to manage their weight
and trying to build a strongerbody, whether, whatever your
goal is, you guys know if you'velistened to this podcast for any
length of time, that I don'tusually like to talk about
losing weight.
Because I don't think it's theright focus for us as runners,
(10:55):
as women.
I think that we need to shiftour focus, and we are gonna be
talking about that in thisepisode of what we wanna shift
our focus to instead.
But I do wanna address itbecause I do know that this is
where a lot of women are, andthis is a goal that a lot of
women have.
And so I don't want to just tellyou, that goal is not a good
goal because if it meanssomething to you, then we need
(11:16):
to talk about it.
We need to address this.
I would love for you to startshifting away from your focus on
losing weight into your focus ofbuilding muscle and building a
stronger body and stronger boneslike we're gonna be talking
about today.
But just understand that.
Because I'm talking about losingweight doesn't mean that I think
you should.
It's because I know that there'sa lot of women out there that
(11:37):
feel like they should and thatthey want to, and I hope my,
after this episode that you'llstart to shift some of that.
You can start to release thisidea of just trying to get a
smaller body of just trying tobe thinner, just trying to lose
weight, because that can lead toa lot of problems.
So instead of.
Really focusing on just losingweight and just numbers on the
(12:00):
scale and just calories in,calories out.
It's important for us in thisphase of our life after 40 in
perimenopause and postmenopause, to really change our
focus to building muscle becausemuscle is the missing link for
your metabolism, for yourrunning performance, for any of
the goals that you want toachieve in your running and your
(12:22):
fitness.
You need muscle.
You also need muscle to help youbalance, to help keep you
independent, to keep you activeas you age.
And that is such an importantgoal for us to start thinking
about it.
This phase of our life as well.
Muscle leads to better balance.
When you have more muscle andyou have more strength, you're
(12:42):
less likely to fall.
If you're less likely to fall,you're less likely to break a
bone.
Resistance training and buildingmuscle also strengthens your
bones so that if you do fall.
You're less likely to break abone also, because you've
probably heard that breakingbones when you're older can lead
to a lot of health problems.
So why not try to avoid that?
Let's start to shift our focusinto really understanding how
(13:06):
important it's for us to buildstrength and muscle, of course,
is a big part of that.
So why is muscle so important?
Why is muscle the thing that weneed to be focusing on right
now?
Muscle is your metabolic engine.
So when you have more muscles,you burn more calories at rest.
Muscle also improves insulinsensitivity in the body, which
means it helps to regulate yourblood sugar levels.
(13:28):
Now, if you've ever been hangry,we all heard that term of
hangry, you understand theimportance of your blood sugar.
Blood sugar is not just aboutfat and.
Se, fat storage.
It's also about your moods.
It regulates how you feel.
A lot of people like how muchenergy you have, all of that.
Is based on what's going on withyour blood sugar.
(13:49):
I shouldn't say all of it, but alot of it is.
And so your insulin sensitivityhelps to regulate your blood
sugar levels and muscle improvesthat.
So let's get more muscle, right?
Muscle also improves yourhormonal balance and your energy
levels through all of thesethings.
Through, your helping toregulate your blood sugar
through some of the otherhormones that are released when
(14:09):
we're building muscle andmaintaining muscle.
Yeah, your muscle's veryimportant for your metabolism.
Okay?
Muscle is also anti-agingmedicine, and this is what I
started talking about before,muscle.
When you build muscle by throughresistance training, not only
are you building strongermuscles, you're also building
stronger bones.
(14:29):
Resistance training has beenshown to reduce the incidence of
osteoporosis related fracturesby 40 to 60%.
That is huge.
And considering that one in twowomen will suffer a fracture
from osteoporosis at some pointin their life, wouldn't, don't
you wanna.
To help to reduce that, right?
So we can do that when we buildstronger muscles through
(14:50):
resistance Training stronger ormuscle also helps us to have
better balance and reduces ourinjury risk, not just from
falling, but from running.
Running is a very repetitivehigh impact activity and when
you don't have enough muscle,your tendons, your joints, they
absorb more of that stress whenyour muscles are stronger.
(15:13):
They help to absorb some of theforces that come into your body
through running, and theyprotect your joints and your
tendons, so you have a reducedrisk of running injury as well.
And when I was in the clinic asa physical therapist, I gave
everyone exercises.
This is what we do.
I know a lot of people thinkthat PT is just about massage
and electric stimulation andultrasound and those tools.
(15:35):
Have a very limited place in pt.
The main thing that you do in PTis exercise.
You do stretching and mobilitywork and strengthening exercise,
because the truth is you needmuscle.
You need muscle to improve yourbalance.
You need muscle to both rehaband prevent injury.
When you have stronger muscles,you also have better posture.
(15:55):
You have more power.
You have improved runningeconomy.
When you have improved runningeconomy, that means that.
You use less energy to do thesame thing, so running the same
pace, running the same distance,you're using less energy when
your economy is better becauseyou're wasting less energy.
So that's beautiful because thatmeans you have more energy to
(16:16):
actually do what you wanna do.
When it comes to speed orendurance, running longer,
running faster, all of that iseasier when you have more
muscle.
So when we look at buildingmuscle, it's not just about
lifting.
a lot of people think that,okay, in order to build muscle,
I have to, I just have to liftweights.
But that is not the full pictureeither.
(16:37):
It's also about recovery andfuel, because like I mentioned
earlier, when you train, whetherit's running or lifting, when
you're doing something hard andchallenging your body.
That's actually breaking yourbody down.
And during rest and recovery,that's when your body has time
and resources to actuallyrebuild your muscle.
(16:58):
So if you're working out andyou're lifting heavy and you're
quote unquote, doing all thethings that you're supposed to
be doing in your exerciseroutine, but you're.
Skimping on recovery.
You're not getting enough sleep,you're not giving your body
enough protein, you're not goingto build the muscle because
protein is the building block ofmuscle.
So we have to make sure thatwe're getting enough protein.
(17:21):
We have to make sure we'regetting enough carbohydrates
because carbohydrates areactually fuel for your training
sessions, and we have to getenough sleep and recovery,
especially in between thoseharder sessions so that our
muscle actually has time torebuild.
Because the truth is as we getolder and as these hormone
shifts happens, it takes alittle bit longer to build
(17:42):
muscle in between sessions aswell.
So it's not just about liftingweights and doing resistance
training.
Yes, that is important, but it'salso about combining that with
rest, sleep, and protein so thatyour muscles will actually get
stronger.
Now all of this is also rootedin nervous system regulation
because stress plays a huge rolein your body's ability to
(18:05):
actually sleep and recover andbuild that muscle as well.
I forget where I heard this, butsomewhere I heard someone make
this distinction of when you'retraining, you could either be
accumulating stress.
Or adapting to stress and thegoal is adaptation.
Okay, so the whole idea oftraining is that you are doing
(18:28):
something in your training,whether that's running, trying
to run faster, or trying to runlonger, or lifting heavier
weights.
And you want your body to adaptbecause when you place a stress
on the body, if the body is notstrong enough to handle that
stress, then there's all theseneural pathways and muscular
pathways that happen, andbasically your body gets the
(18:49):
message of, oh, that load was alittle too much, and so your
body wants to be prepared.
So during the rest period, itbuilds back stronger than it was
so that when your bodyencounters that load again, now
it is more able.
To handle that load.
So that is what's calledadaptation, and that is the
whole point of training, right?
(19:09):
You do a little bit, yourecover, you do a little bit
more, you recover.
You push your body to the edgeor a little bit over the edge,
and then you allow your bodytime to recover.
And that is what allows you toget stronger.
That's what allows you to runlonger.
So if you're training for amarathon.
It's not like you just go outand run 26.2 miles.
Most people would be completelywrecked or wouldn't even be able
(19:31):
to complete that if they justwent out and tried to do it.
So during training, we pushourselves a little bit more.
So say you're starting andcurrently you can run five
miles, then.
Maybe your long run over theweekend is six miles, and then
you've got some shorter runsduring the week, and then the
following week you're at eightmiles and then you pull back a
little bit and then maybe youpull back to six miles after
(19:52):
that eight.
Because you, we always wannagive our body time to recover in
between.
We don't wanna just continuouslybuild up.
Again, that's one of thosemistakes that.
A lot of generic training plansmake a lot of runners that
don't, aren't following atraining plan.
They just think, oh, I'll justkeep adding a mile every week,
and that'll get to get me towhere I wanna go.
And that is a very outdated wayof training.
So please don't do that.
(20:12):
You have to have pullback weeks,in there to allow adaptation
versus just accumulation of morestress, right?
So keep that in mind.
We want adaptation, notaccumulation.
And this really goes back toagain, this whole idea of I want
to be strong versus I wanna beskinny.
We have to start shifting theway that we're thinking about
(20:34):
ourselves instead of justthinking about the size of our
body instead of just thinkingabout a number on the scale.
Why do you want, I would eveninvite you to just ask yourself,
why do you even wanna loseweight?
what is it about a smallernumber on the scale that you
think you want?
And a lot of people say, I wannafit back into my clothes.
then ask, why does that matterto you?
(20:54):
I wanna feel good in my skin.
why does that matter to you?
And does the number on the scaleactually make you feel good
about yourself or make you giveyou that confidence that you're
looking for?
How would you feel if you werestronger?
If you knew that you were ableto go out and run the distance
that you wanted, or the speedthat you wanted, or whatever
your goal is?
(21:15):
How would that feel?
Isn't that really what you'regoing for?
Because a lot of peopleassociate body size or weight
with allowing them to achieve aspecific goal.
Because you don't actually careabout the number on this scale.
You care about what you thinkthat number is going to mean or
what you, how you think you'regoing to feel when you achieve
(21:37):
that number.
So I'd love to invite you justto ask yourself that question,
like, how do I, how would thatmake me feel?
if my goal is to lose weight,what do I think that will give
me?
And then make that the goal tocelebrate what your body can do.
Not just how it looks and tochoose to feel confident, to
choose to feel strong, to reallyfocus in.
On being strong and makingsustainable changes to your
(22:01):
training, not just trying tolose weight quickly in six weeks
and then go right back to youwhere you were just a couple
months later.
We wanna be starting to shiftthe way that we look at our body
shift, the way that we'relooking about what we can do and
who we are, and really adoptthis mindset of wanting to be
strong versus just wanting asmaller body.
(22:23):
So now that you understand whymuscle is so important, the
question then is, how do I buildit?
How do I actually train and fuelto build muscle?
Number one, strength training.
Okay.
Strength training isnon-negotiable after the age of
40.
I think after the age of 30, Ithink every woman should be
strength training, no matterwhat age you are, because
(22:44):
strength training is veryimportant for so many reasons.
So it definitely becomesnon-negotiable after 40.
So you have to focus onresistance training, and we also
have to start lifting heavier.
Now be careful when I say thisbecause.
There's always a caveat.
If you've never strength trainedbefore, don't just jump into the
gym and start lifting heavyweights.
(23:05):
That's a great way to hurtyourself, and I don't want that
for you.
You have to meet yourself whereyou are.
You have to figure out like whatyou're currently capable of
that's not going to wreck youfor a week.
Because a lot of people, they goin and maybe that first session
they're like, okay, this washard, but like I could do it.
But then.
They're sore for a weekafterwards.
Okay, that was too much.
(23:25):
So we have to figure out whereyou are, meet yourself where you
are, and then gently andprogressively overload the body
from there with a focus onprogressive overload like I just
mentioned, which means like agradual increase in the load
that you're placing on the body.
In a very intelligent way with afocus on your form with these
exercises so that you don't hurtyourself.
(23:47):
And a focus on recovery becauseagain, during recovery and rest,
that's when your musclesactually get stronger.
So you need to be strengthtraining at least two, two times
a week as minimum, I wouldsuggest two to three times,
depending on who you are andwhat your goal is.
Second thing you have to do isfuel your body, right?
And this.
Is where protein becomes apriority.
(24:08):
We as women need to be eatingmore protein.
Most women aren't getting enoughprotein, which is make what
makes it harder for women tobuild muscle in this phase of
life as well.
And it becomes very important tonot only get the right amount of
protein, but also time out yourprotein too.
So especially like before andafter your runs or before and
(24:28):
after your training sessions,it's important to fuel your body
to both give yourself energythrough the carbohydrates and
then give your body enoughprotein so that your body's able
to build the muscle.
So the new recommendations arethat we should be aiming for
about one gram.
Of protein per pound of idealbody weight.
So if you, if your goal is toweigh 130 pounds, you should be
(24:51):
aiming for 130 grams of proteinper day.
And I know that sounds like alot, it's much more than a lot
of women are eating right now.
So if you realize that you'renot eating enough protein,
again, start where you are.
Don't try to go from 60 grams ofprotein a day to 130 grams of
protein a day, because that'sgonna be very difficult and hard
to sustain.
But just.
(25:11):
Gently start to increase howmuch protein you're eating
throughout the day.
And again, if you want moreguidance on this, we go through
all of this stuff in a greatamount of detail inside of
Running Reconnected, which isthe step-by-step program that
will help lead you through allof these things.
Okay?
Then the third thing that wewanna focus on when it comes to
building muscle is what's calledpolarized training.
(25:32):
And we went through this conceptin one of our recent podcasts.
Let's see, I think it wasepisode number.
3 98, if you wanna go back andcheck that one out.
polarized training means thatnot all of your runs need to
feel the same.
You have to have a combinationof easy days and hard days.
If you want to build strength,build speed, build muscle, build
(25:55):
endurance, whatever it is thatyou're trying to improve upon.
We have to focus on making surethat our easy days actually feel
easy, and then we have to have acouple hard days in there as
well.
Because doing hard things isimportant.
It is important to challengeourselves, but we can't be
pushing hard all day every dayon every single training session
(26:15):
because that's a great way toget injured or burn the body
out.
I don't want that for you, and Iknow that you don't want that.
So let's, instead of, continuingto think about just pushing
harder and doing more, we haveto make sure we are doing
polarized training, avoidingthat moderate effort level,
which is where so many runnersfind themselves.
(26:37):
When I ask this question to mostrunners, I say, okay, on a scale
of one to 10, how hard are mostof your runs?
I'll answer that question rightnow for yourself.
So when you go out on yournormal run, on a scale of one to
10, how hard is your normal run?
And if you're like a lot ofrunners that I talk to, most
runners before they find thepodcast and join our program,
(26:59):
they're somewhere in the rangeof five to eight out of 10.
And this is one of the reasonsthat they stop seeing progress
because they're just in thisgray zone of constantly pushing
but never recovering and askingtheir body to.
More, do more.
And again, just accumulatingstress on the body.
And when they start to shiftover to easy days, easy, hard
(27:22):
days, hard.
Number one, they start feelingbetter almost instantly.
Like they enjoy their runsagain, their body's not sore.
They have more energy.
And then.
A lot of our clients really lovegoing hard on hard days then,
because they're not wiped outall the time, so they have more
energy to push harder, andthey're hitting speeds on their
(27:43):
hard days that they have maybenever even seen ever in their
lives, or maybe they haven'tseen them in years.
And that's the true way that youstart to see actual progress.
Now, going back to this wholeidea of stress and accumulation,
this is where the nervous systemcomes in, and this is why.
Stress regulation matters andnervous system regulation
matters because when your bodyis constantly stressed out, it
(28:06):
stays in that state ofsympathetic activation or
survival mode where your body isliterally breaking down muscle
and storing fat, which is theopposite of what you want,
right?
I think.
Anyone listening to thispodcast, if I ask you, would you
like to burn muscle or burn fat?
They would probably say, I'dlike to burn fat, please.
And I say, would you like tobuild muscle or build fat?
(28:30):
They'd probably say, I wannabuild muscle.
But when you're stuck insympathetic stress mode.
Survival mode.
Your body's doing the oppositeof what you want.
It's burning your muscle,breaking down your muscle, and
breaking down your bone andstoring fat.
So recovery and nervous systemregulation is where true change
happens.
(28:50):
And this is one of those areasthat not a lot of people
understand and not a lot ofpeople are talking about.
And so that's why you're gonnahear me talking about it a lot
because we need to get thismessage out there.
It's not just about thetraining.
Yes, your training matters.
Yes, your nutrition matters.
All of those things matter.
But if you are constantlystressed out, if you are eating
on the go, if you are stressedout about the food that you're
(29:14):
eating, if you're stressed outabout your training, I.
Your body like the hormones inyour body.
They don't know the differencebetween physical stress and
emotional stress.
Stress is stress.
The same hormones are released.
Cortisol is still being releasedregardless of what kind of
stress you're under.
And so once you start tounderstand how to regulate your
stress and how to recover.
That's when you really startseeing the change, and again,
(29:37):
this goes back to how you'rethinking about your body, really
understanding the proper way totrain in a different strategy
that you need to start usingwhen it comes to building
muscle, improving your running,not feeling exhausted all the
time.
We need to stop trying to fixthings.
(29:58):
Stop trying to fix your body.
Your body is amazing.
Start honoring your body.
Start supporting your body likean athlete.
Nothing is wrong with you.
Nothing is broken.
You are just.
Most likely, if you're notseeing the results that you
want, you're most likely underfueling, over training and under
(30:19):
recovering.
Those are the three biggestmistakes that I often see.
Or again, thinking that you'rebroken, thinking that there's
something to fix here.
We just need to start shiftingand supporting our body and
starting to ask ourselves, okay,what can I do here to support my
body?
What can I do to get stronger?
(30:40):
As a little recap.
Yes, it's normal that all thisbecomes harder after 40 because
of the physiological changesthat are happening in the body.
But that doesn't mean you'rebroken.
It just means that you need anew strategy.
And muscle is really the key toyour metabolism, to your
vitality, and to your fat loss.
And so is nervous systemregulation because without a
(31:02):
regulated nervous system.
You're not gonna be able to burnmuscle.
Your body's gonna be breaking itdown.
So you need to traindifferently, fuel differently,
and recover.
Prioritize recovery now.
And that is a very empoweringplace to be because I want you
to understand it's not your age.
It's not that you're.
Anything's wrong here.
We just have to start changingup the way we do things, okay?
(31:23):
And that's exactly what we teachinside of Running Reconnected.
So if you want more informationabout that program, you can head
over to our website, real liferunners.com/reconnect.
We're running a special rightnow, so you can check that out.
If you want to go into moredetail in my training, I've got
a couple free trainings comingup.
You can join my free class.
You can check that outover@realliferunners.com slash
(31:46):
strong.
If you wanna join my free classor catch the replay of it, you
can get all that, all thoselinks there.
And then exciting announcement,we've got our five day challenge
coming up at in May.
Okay?
So stay tuned, to all of yourreal life runners channels so
that you can find out all thedetails on the five day
Challenge coming up.
So again.
(32:06):
This season of life is not aboutshrinking.
It's about stepping into yourpower as a woman over 40, as a
strong woman over 40 that isbuilding sustainable habits,
sustainable fitness, so that youcan be strong both now and for
decades to come.
So if you loved this episode, Iwould love to invite you to
write a review on Apple Podcastsor on Spotify, and let us know.
(32:29):
What you gained or to share thisepisode with a friend.
And as always, thanks forjoining us.
This has been The Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
405.
Now, get out there and run yourlife.
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