What Every Menopausal Women Needs To Know About Strength Training

Today, I really want to dive into the world of menopausal workouts. Yep. You know, many of you like me, you might have started to see some subtle or not so subtle body changes, and maybe you chalked it up being over 40, life stress, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. And you know, many of you listening to me, you have been working out for forever. 

 
Most of the women that who listen to this podcast, working out, that’s our jam. That’s what we do. Working out is it’s simple for us working out is easy for us. And so, when we get to this perimenopausal stage menopausal stage, and our hormones are doing Macarena, and you ain’t about the line dances, here’s where we all struggle.
 
Because we all want to go back to doing what we did. I used to go to the gym, six days a week, two hours. And if I wasn’t at that gym, at minimum, 90 minutes, it wasn’t a workout. If I wasn’t like, crushing, struggling, grinding, it wasn’t a workout. Anyone feel me on that?
 
But when my hormones started getting buck wild and in spite of my hard workouts, but body stayed the same I knew something had to change. For my hormonally challenge magic makers out there, I’m about to unravel the secrets that are gonna help you stay on this fabulous journey without feeling like you’re going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.  I felt crazy for a really, really, really long time. Before we dive into workouts, I gotta do do some background stuff here.
 
Because step one, it becomes a mindset shift, right? The old ways will not open new doors. And that is a line that I must say to myself all the time. Because I I’ve been doing this training for over 20 plus years. I kept telling myself I gotta go back to doing what I was doing. Because it feels good. It feels comfortable. I’m resisting doing new things because I want to nail it. I want to do so beeping good at it. And I’m afraid that if I do something different, I won’t want the be amazing at. Which leans hard into my need for control. I’m also a recovering control freak. So, for those of you out there, I got you I too am a recovering perfectionist control freak.
 
Your old ways aren’t going to cut it anymore. Your body is so used to you beating it into submission. No guilt or shame as that was what we were told would give you the body of your dreams. I remember the very first workout I did it was all about no pain, no gain.  Does any remember the company that was their slogan. I bought into that hook link and sinker!!  I’m all in, sign me up. torture me. I’m here I want to struggle. And that was the messages that we got. And so back in the day, no matter how much sleep I got, I dragged my ass in the gym at 530 in the morning, because back then I was working a nine to five job. And my boss was very famous for dropping shit on my desk at four o’clock and saying it had to be done by tomorrow morning.
 
So, my visions of dreams of going to gym, just evaporated right there. At the time my personal trainer said to me So Kim, what keeps you from going to the gym in the morning? His logic was if you know the same thing happens regularly why not work around it? Sometimes you need someone else to be a second set of eyes.
 
This is where I really stared to do planning.  At this time I was started going to the gym 2/week at 6am so that if (correction) when my boss dropped this bomb in my lap I’d not have to be pissed about missed a workout.
 
The other thing I want you to think about when it comes to workouts, is that I used to push to the exhaustion like a superhero. And if anyone feels me on this one, right, I was grinding my way through the workouts just to check that damn box. Just to be like I did it. I did it pick me I get the perfect pace. Please give me the right pace for you. There was no perfect pace. So, I don’t know about you, but my workouts were my identity. I ran myself into a brick wall to maintain that identity. So when tell me you work out two hours a day and you don’t take rest days. I’m also gonna be like girlfriend. I’m gonna tell you how that story is gonna end. You can listen to me right now. Or you can be me and call me in a couple of years when your body’s giving you’re the finger.
 
A lot of the clients that I trained for a long time were fitness competitors. And I know when I first started, you know, training, started doing fitness competitions, back in the mid 2000s, the training protocols were really hardcore. And so, one of the women that I still train, and she’s in her late 50s and she is still still competing God love her. But she really was like, I, you know, I need to go to the gym six days a week, workout seem to be two hours, I need to be doing drop sets, I need to be lifting this I need I need I need I need. When I was looking at her overall picture, right, looking at her sleep, you know, she was in a really stressful job. And because she was in a stressful job, she wasn’t sleeping that much, because she wasn’t sleeping that much. Her digestion, as we get older, our digestion changes our hormone shake out, as she was not eating as much to build muscle.
 
She kept complaining I’m not putting on putting on the muscle that I want to put on to do the show. And I was like, for her it was a never-ending story of her sleep and her stress. And it was a bit of a little bit of a wrestling match for her to finally come to Jesus that it was not about going hard anymore. She grew up in the era of bodybuilding that I did, and back then it was like all about getting the lifting done and having that post protein shake. That was like really what we were was drilled into our heads when we first started back in the bodybuilding world. But as we’ve evolved, like, there’s more research that’s come out more, you know, you become a little bit more savvy and no longer responding to Bro talk, you are looking for the real science, people have been researching and testing this.
 
And so, one of the things I challenge you if you’re stuck in that way, ask yourself, when was the last time you saw your body change? Ask yourself, how much longer can you keep up those workouts? How many workouts are you missing? Because you tell yourself it has to be a certain period of time? How many workouts are you missing? Because, you know, you couldn’t do all the things right? Because I’m saying this because that was me.
 
If I put in check my cardio and my lifting, why go to the gym? And you know, now, you know, hindsight being 20/20 I’m like, that was just so fucking stupid Kim. Why would you just not go to the gym, because you could only go to the gym for 30 minutes? The one thing I know that I am all about, if something is better than nothing. You can always do something.
 
On the flip side, you know, I have another client who loves to walk but she’s very sporadic about going to the gym. However, you know, she will always say, my body isn’t changing. Where I would say you’re not working out your just walking. Her counter to me was my old coach told me I could walk all the time. My counter was I’m never going to take walk in from anyone, I am never going to take that if that is how you manage your stress, I’m never going to take it away. However, if you’re looking for body composition change, you have to lift weights, and those weights have to lift heavy weights.
 
So I’m telling you these two stories, because they are like the far end of the spectrum, when it comes to the women that I work with. I have women who are like, I must work out and it must be hard, it must be dragging my knuckles on the ground, barely able to wash my hair.
 
And then I have people on the other side of the spectrum, who are like, oh, you know, I have so much going on in my life. I am the main breadwinner for my family, I need to make sure that work comes first. And the only thing I have time for us to take a walk.
 
And as you are listening, you can identify with one of those two women. I wanted to give you concrete examples because I know you, you’re here because you want more. You want to lose weight, you want to reshape your body or you just want to just get some frickin extra energy. I’m here for you. But hold up before we get a little probably get deeper into the program. Before you want to go all Hulk on your workouts.
 
Let’s talk about sleep insurance,
 
The one thing I will always ask my people every single week I will always ask them about their sleep and their stress because they are the unsung heroes of this hormone about battle. If you’re stressed like a mofo, you’re not sleeping. You can’t overcompensate with lifting at the gym. You can’t overcompensate. with, chicken and broccoli. It’s important to figure out how to better manage your stress and sleep, so that you can start to see the changes in your body. These two things I want you to think about, like, every night, you plug in your cell phone. Now imagine if you thought plugged in but it wasn’t fully, plugged the connector into your phone. But you gotta have half plugged it in. And so, the phone didn’t get as much of a charge as it needed that sleep is stress. Sadly our body’s don’t flash a  low battery mode, where it’s like, you gotta conserve this energy, so that I can keep your brain thinking, keep you breathing, and keep your heartbeat, right, those are my three main functions, that’s your body fix. Those are my three main functions.
 
So, it systematically goes through all of the other systems that your body is working. And it says, Okay, I don’t have enough energy for this. So, I’m gonna start to shut things down, that don’t aren’t necessary for keeping you alive. All right. So, what you start to think about, that’s why I’m such a pain in the rump shaker about sleep and stress now, and then we’re going to talk about nutrition, right? Because if I, break out how this all plays into the grand scheme of life, nutrition is about 60% of the game, right? And that’s like, looking at your nutrition, and then one on one. And then sleep and stress are coming in at about 20%. And then we have our workouts right, so it’s like, the bulk of my change is going to happen nutritionally. And so that’s really, you know, today’s all about workouts. You know, I have a whole other podcast talking about nutrition. And I actually talk mostly about nutrition. But we have another podcast talking about nutrition.  And if you have specific questions, you may favorite reach out to me in the socials. And that way can help me shape an upcoming Fit Girl Magic podcast.
 
I know that for many of you, like sweating it out is your therapy, right? It is your like, but here’s, here’s the thing that I just always want to keep in your mind. If your body is already like, imagine you’re sitting outside and you’re in front of one of those fire fire pits. That’s sort of what people are. You see outside and just feel so good, and you feel so cozy. And then you throw another log on it. That is what your body is, like, if you’re in stressful, my body is already on fire. And I’m like, I’m gonna work out another log on to that bonfire. And the fire kind of flares up, and then it starts to calm down. That’s what it’s like when your body’s in stress mode. If aren’t sure if your body is in stress mode, I want you to take a look at yourself in the mirror. And I want you to like look at your body, like do you look like you’re filled with fluid? Do you feel easily bloated? Do you feel like your joints always hurt? Does this always feel like puffy? That is a sign of a stress response in your body. Your body is filled with fluid that could give your body this easy energy to run from saber toothed Tiger because even though we’ve evolved from living in caves, the mind is still thinks like that. We have this reptilian brain that still is like stress equals danger. And danger for us in the modern world is, not meeting a deadline, worrying about parents or children or any other situation that you find stressful. We still have the same response as if down the road. I saw a saber-toothed Tiger coming for you, it’s that you to run for my life.
 
Okay. So that’s why I really want to go through this preamble before we get into the meat of the subject. But let’s get real here, right? During perimenopause and menopause, your hormones are about as reliable as a friend who never shows up on time. We all have that friend who will be like, “Hey, let’s meet at five.” And you know, home girl is not rolling in until at least 515 530. Right? We all have that friend. Love them as much as we do. We want to choke them out sometimes because they can’t get their ass there on time. Estrogen and progesterone aren’t your friends at this time. They are that friend who never shows up on time. And you know, I’ve mentioned this multiple times its up to up to 10-year journey, living in perimenopause.
 
And so, this is where strength training becomes the belle of the ball.  Because it helps you to fill in the gaps that those two hormones are leaving you hanging. And so here’s where everybody needs to get serious about strength training. So, here’s I’m gonna just tell you why. The strength training is really really important. What strength training does as it helps us to blood sugar, so if I have any sort of blood sugar imbalance, it helps muscles say hey we’re lifting here and I need some glucose. So blood glucose is the sugar in your body, hey, I need some glucose to really fuel these muscles to help me, you know, lift whatever it is.
 
I’m lifting osteoporosis, you know, estrogen is such a protective, a hormone. And that what I when I start to get, you know, estrogen starts to, you know, wig out on me, I need that protection in my body so that I have strong bones. And how do I get strong bones by lifting weights? Well, if you think about it, my bones attached to my muscle. And so, the heavier I lift a weight, the more it has to pull on that bone. The stronger the muscle pulls on the bone, the stronger the bone becomes.
 
Also, just muscle tone so many of you will say you’ll look in the mirror and you’ll be like Kim, you know, you’ll point something upright, something many, for many people, what you’re pinching and prodding isn’t fat, muscle doesn’t turn to fat. Let me just tell you that right now, muscle does not turn to fat, what you’re seeing is a muscle that lacks tone. So, whenever it says I want to build, I want to be toned. You’re telling me you want to put on muscle. And in order to put on muscle, I must lift heavy. So, I need to say goodbye to those low weights, those two pound pink dumbbells, doing 400 reps, I need to say goodbye. It feels good. Because it burns. Right? Well, anything burns like I could, like, I’m not a runner, but I could try to run an ultra-marathon at some point my body’s gonna burn. Because I’ve doing endurance.
 
I’ve done it a repeated something for so much that my muscle like oh shit, like kill me now. That’s why we see in those low rep those low weight high rep workouts. So, if I want to enact change, I want to start to get some type of metabolic response, a typical amount, hormonal response, I must lift heavy, heavy is relative, right? So, I want us to think about what heavy is and you’re lifting like six reps like heavy reps.
 
And you’re you know; you’re focusing also on adding power into your workout. As well as follow up in a periodized workout. Yeah, all of this sounds really scientific up in here, but hang with me, I’m gonna break it down and explain it to you.
 
Before I do that, everyone’s like, Okay, I’ve written down what I need to do for strength training, got to check cardio, what I need to do for cardio, so my cardio queens, some of us need to scale that back, we need to bring that back. And for those people who are like, cardio, it’s really time to start focusing in on HITT. And so now HITT has been this bastardize word for decades. And what I what I’m saying is I’m not talking about these 30-to-45-minute classes, that you’re just going hard. It’s not about going hard. It is like can you go like full on BEAST MODE 20 to 40 seconds, taking a breather, and diving back in and this is repeated for about 15 minutes, that’s HITT. You see so many workouts labeled, HITT. And that’s not what HITT is. If I’m going 30 plus minutes, that’s hard as cardio, right? There’s a difference between a hard ass cardio and going as hard as I possibly can.
 
And so, for many of you, you know, we’re attached to data. If I’m not closing my circles on an Apple watch, I’m not hitting my 10,000 steps or whatever other device you might be using. And I’m all for data, but I don’t want us to obsess about data. Right now, as we’re starting to make this shift into our workout. I’d rather you start to say to yourself, alright, how does my body feel? Right? And so, there’s a scale that’s called the Borg rating of perceived exertion. So RPE Alright, so some of you might have seen that someplace. But most of the time you hear it, you seen RPE.
 
Basically, it’s a subjective way for you, you personally, to gauge how hard you feel your body is working during any physical activity, right? It’s a way to kind of really kind of put numbers on it. You know, I know if there were a god to a hospital, and they asked you like, a new year like, okay, like, on a scale of one to 10 How much pain are you in? This is the same thing right on a scale of one to 10 being the highest one being, you know, the lowest it’s like a scale of one to 10 how hard you perceive that workout. A big 10 being like, I’m dying, one being like, I could do that all night long. So it’s like really looking at, when you get into those cardio periods being that seven plus right, you’re running so hard that you need that rescue. If you’re like sprinting, and then you know that 20-30 seconds comes up, and you could go again, without taking a break. Go harder, go harder, go harder, right. That’s what we’re trying to achieve in those. Those trainings. And you know, when I was training my girls to do fitness competitions, one of the things that I would train them for, if you’re someone who is really looking to lean out your legs, someone who’s really looking to just get muscular legs, ladies sprinting, and when I say sprinting, I am not talking about on the treadmill, I’m talking about in a group fitness room, or in your driveway or out in, out in your street.
 
You are going for 20 to 30 seconds, and then walking back, catch your breath doing that multiple times, that is like a crusher, if you are looking to really embrace this new way of working out in this peri/menopausal state. In my Fit Girl Magic, once a year, I should do it more often. But once a year, we have what I call sprint month, and it’s a way making sure you’re adding it sprints into your workout.
 
And when you hear the word sprint, you think to yourself, oh, God, I can’t be as fast you can. Remember, we talked about the perceived exertion scale. Sprinting is you’re just feeling dead. I sprinted. And I’m like, I can’t take another step. Perfect. Done. I’m resting. So, it was not filming a porno, I was just catching my breath, right. And then I walked myself back, and I sprint, I do this in my driveway. And I’m sure my neighbors think I am crazy. But that’s, that’s one of the ways that I get it done.
 
Now, before we before we really get into the meat of the show, I know many of you are thinking you might be too old to build muscle or, you know, building muscle, I might get bulky or Nope. No, no, no, you still need to build muscle over 40. And so, when most people will say, well, they want to get toned, Tone is muscle, right? It’s just vocabulary. And you know, a big on making sure we’re always clear on our vocabulary. Muscle is tone, muscle tone. When you say tone, I want to be huge! It’s impossible unless you have some type of testosterone levels that are rivaling that of a man, you can’t get bulky. You can’t get bulky unless you have some type of genetic disorder that you will add on muscle some astronomical rate. Most women will be fortunate if they can add in one to two pounds of muscle a year.
 
Do you hear that’s one to two pounds of muscle a year, they would be lucky to do that. So, if you think you’re going to be gaining, you know, 10-20 pounds of muscle, and you’re going to be like ripping out of your shirt. Yeah, sorry, not sorry, that’s not going to happen. The other thing I want to bring up, there’s a woman Her name is Train with Joan. And I follow her on social media and she’s in her 70s. Now, she was training until her 60s. And she looks absolutely fantastic. And so, if you’re someone who is like, I can’t look to her for inspiration.  
 
Once you get over 35 our muscle starts to you start to lose muscle. And this is just a biological fact. t? So you’re losing anywhere from one to 3% of your muscle each decade or se. Hormones are going crazy, blood sugar’s getting out of whack. And now’s the time that strength training is paramount. So, if you’ve dabbled in strength training, this is the time to do it.
 
As I mentioned earlier you see older folks, and everything’s jiggling, maybe you see it on yourself. And you think that it’s you’ve your muscle is turned the fat. Muscle cannot turn the fat. What you’re seeing is a muscle that doesn’t have any muscle tone. That’s exactly what you’re seeing. And so, if that you feel like that’s in your body, then hey girl hey, start to strength train. And you know that muscle needs a pep talk. And so that pep talk is that heavy resistance that we were talking about.
 
We talk about going heavy for 6 reps –the last one, two reps should feel challenging, but we still have good form going there. And you want to do that for about two to three times a week,
 
And I want you to think about heavy is relative, 20 pounds could be heavy based on the exercise for someone else 10 pounds could be heavy it’s relative. So, I don’t want you to start being like, well, you know, I can only lift five pounds. No, let’s focus on when you get to those six reps, do you feel like you could do more reps.
 
I still teach live classes a couple days a week. Every woman knows who’s in there, I will always be like, if you immediately grabbed that eight pound, that 10 pound dumbbell, we’re doing lower body weights, I’m coming to find you. Right, because everybody here is stronger than we say we have this perceived notion they can’t lift heavy.  
 
You always want good form, form is always going to be what is going to limit you because who wants injuries, injuries suck, and injuries can take us out of the game, right. And so, when I’m what doing these workouts, I want to choose big body parts body parts that are going to deliver me the biggest bang for the buck body parts that are going to really demand my body to go out and find that glucose to really pump into my muscles.
 
So that’s squats, deadlifts, chest presses, overhead presses, lunges, bent over rows, pull ups. Those are the main exercises that I want to use to build my workout. It’s less about the circus workouts where you’re doing like a bicep curl into a jumping squat into a burpee. No, it’s like, how can we maximize these reps? How can we just like burn the shit out in our muscles,
 
So it’s not about muscle confusion, is looking at create a great periodized workout, right, and so appeared as workout random workout you found out on a Pinterest page or some YouTube channel, or some app on your phone or work at the head of strategic approach, right organizing the program so that you’re going to maximize your gains, and prevent plateaus risking the risk of burnout and injuries.
 
During this a periodized workout, you are varying the intensity of the workout, you’re also varied the volume. So that means intensity means like, you know how the means like how hard the workout is, right? Volume is how many reps and sets you’re doing. And then also minimizes the plateaus.
 
If you have been doing the same workout, since you can’t remember. And you haven’t been, systematically adding weight. How often should we be adding weight. Again, it’s all relative, you know, I, somebody parts accelerate faster than others. But if again, we look with the six reps, if I get to six reps, and I still feel like the last reps, you know, I worked to get that last rep. Great, I stay there. Now if I get to six reps, and I’m like, you know, five and six felt pretty good. I could play with adding on from there. So, let’s just use this round number. So, say I was at, I was using 10 pounds for that. And I got to five and six. I’m The next set that I do, what if I tried the 12 and I got to like three reps before I felt really like oh, I can’t lift anymore then I would go back to 10 and I would finish 4,5,6.
 
I want you to think about I don’t necessarily have to go fully the full six reps, I can do one or two at a higher weight and just gotta introduce my body to that heavier volume. And if that doesn’t make sense, do me a favor reach out to me, and I will further explain it to you because it my Fit Girl Magic Society. it’s my group membership and every single month I add in a new workout and it builds off of the old one. So, we’re playing volume you know some sometimes I’ll give you, you’re gonna choose anywhere from six to 10 reps, right, and you choose the rep range. I will play with sets, I will play with, you know, using the same big exercise I labeled earlier. But maybe the chest presses on an incline, maybe the chest presses on a decline, maybe instead of a chest press, we’re doing a bodyweight push up, right, maybe we’re using the TRX.
 
It’s the same exercise, but adding just a little bit of a spin to it so that we can a little bit different muscles stimuli from that, right. And so that’s what, when you follow a periodized workout, it allows you for gradually adjust the training variables. So, you challenge your muscles, and you challenge your energy systems, in separate ways allowed for you to see consistent progress, progress, and reducing the risk of burnout.
 
I know some of you will say I get bored with my workouts if I’m bored, am I challenging myself with the increasing of the weight? Or am I just going into the workout says this, I’m just going to do the same ways I’ve been doing all along. Back in the day, I had this little paper notebook before you could be on your phone. And I would write down what the workouts that I was doing. And I’d be like, Okay, last time I looked at 10 pounds, and if I’d been listing 10 pounds for the last four weeks, I’d see if I could I lift? 12? Could I do that. And so that’s how I was able to challenge myself with those type of workouts.
 
You’re probably wondering, how long does this workout lasts? Well, guess what. We don’t need those 60 Plus minute workouts anymore, right. One of my biggest takeaways from CrossFit, we could, have a great debate on CrossFit, but one of my biggest takeaways from CrossFit is how efficient they’ve been able to be with their workouts, most of the workouts last like 20 minutes. They’ve shrunk it down to about 20 minutes, where I can get like a great, intense, challenging workout in less time. And if I have a full hour then the rest of the time that I could devote to mobility, to like skill development or I could be like call it a workout at 30 minutes where I have a five-minute warm up 20-minute workout five minute cooldown. And I’m out. I can do that.
 
One of the biggest reasons I hear why you can’t be consistent with your workouts is time. I’m solving that for you right now. Let’s start let’s stop saying I need to work out for 90 minutes. Can you give me 15-20 minutes? And we talked about sprinting so that sprinting was about 15 minutes of work. So, can I do a 15-minute sprint? And that’s my workout. And I could do that outside and not have to drive to the gym, not have to get a babysitter. Could I do that for 15 minutes?
 
Because that’d be my Sunday. And on Monday, could I get in that 30 minute, you know, intense workout. Maybe Tuesday’s my rest day, maybe Wednesday, I can do another sprint. Maybe we could do sprint, and all lift on the same day on Wednesday. Maybe Thursday is another rest day. Right? And maybe that’s my week. Maybe, you know, Friday, I can do a sprint. But do you see what I’m saying? We’re taking it we’re being smarter about our workouts versus harder. And, you know, let’s just face it. We don’t have the time anymore. Or the mental capacity anymore.
 
I had to stop feeling like a workout needed to look a certain way in order for it to count. I spent so much fucking time trying to figure out how I was gonna get in my 90 minute workouts. Now my workouts are maybe an hour, and much more consistent with them.
 
I can do these workouts on vacation and not be like, I need to drag this and bring that, Google where the nearest gym is? I don’t want to do that anymore. Because a lot of the workouts I know I can do in a hotel room, right in an Airbnb without a whole lot of stuff.  
 
So, if you’re someone who is currently working out like 60 plus minutes, and you’re like, Oh, Kim, like, you know, a girl. I don’t know. I was that girl. I know. I know how hard it is to like, change. I know how hard it is for you to be like, this is the way. I hear you but I just want you to look at your results. Right, this is that’s that was what was my driving factor, I had a look at my results.
 
Was my body changing? And my body was changing. So, I took pictures. And I took measurements. And I chose a pair of tight pants, and I gave it 30 days. And I did I change them; I gave it 30 days. And if I saw no change, it was a sign that something had to change.
 
Something had to change, either my nutrition needed to change my workout schedule change, my stress management, my sleep, something had to change.
 
So let’s talk cardio, you know, kind of give you like a quick overview. But let’s get a little deeper here. So, I talked about sprinting, right. This is more about intensity, right? It’s like, how can I go hard. This is straight up. I’m running, like I’d be chased by a saber-toothed Tiger. Okay. And this is, this is a couple times a week, right? This is two to three times a week. And one of the reasons why I highly recommend sprinting. I talked about how it’s great for changing your lower body. That’s one. But to one of the reasons why sprinting is that as we get older, we lose our power. Power is what keeps us more mobile keeps us more adaptive, adaptive, not only with just agility, and most people think agility you think I’m not an athlete.
 
When I think agility, I think like I’m out in the world and something drops on the floor. Can I get out of the way? Agility is I’m walking in out around? And could I like, catch my own feet? If I trip right, so this is like, how do I keep up with my proprioception? How do I like to mitigate trips and falls? How do I use my balance in motion? That’s what I mean by agility that in that’s using it in a real in the real world. I’m so I’m sure someone has come up with a word for it. But that’s what I mean, when agility.
 
Second thing about sprinting is that it helps us increase blood flow, right? Because all of a sudden, your body’s like, holy shit, we’re doing something really challenging. Everything, everybody get on board, right, let’s get this done. Let’s get out of the way. And so, it’s a way to get our bodies going back and forth. Burning fats and making you better at burning fats and using it using glucose.
So we’re going back and forth between being a sugar burner and being a fat burner. And so for those of you who are like but you know, my heart needs the cardio, your hearts getting the cardio because you’re literally like called on your heart to just pump as efficiently as it possibly can. Because you’re sprinting. So, for many of you, you know, you’re you’ve been told zone two is your fat burning zone.
 
Well, for us women we’re really good at endurance were built for that, you know, we are built for the long run, you know, we’re we were the we were the gatherers, we had to go out and forage through the forest and pick stuff while the men folk went off and chase the saber toothed Tiger. We were the one who you know, had to walk to get the water and you know, walk everywhere. So, we’re built endurance we have our that mitochondria that’s like already, like a nice little powerhouse for us. And so while I’m never going to take away and things people love, I want us to look at our priorities. That’s the biggest thing. And what is us to be smarter about it if you love walking, and you know, I mentioned that client earlier, I’m never going to take walking away from her.
 
However, if she tells me her priority is that she wants to put on muscle tone. We need to figure out how we could fit in at least two to three days of strength training into her walks if that’s her goal, right? So, it’s always like, what is your goal? How much time do you have for that goal? When I was a trainer at the gym, and I remember, you know, I would sit down with a new client I’m like, okay, you know, Susie Sunshine.
 
I see your goal is you know; you want to lose 20 pounds. Great. How many days a week do you have to support this goal? Oh, girl, seven days, I could do seven days a week. Okay. All right, let’s just kind of like back into this. Do you have a job? Yeah. And I said, okay, how much time you have for their job commuting kids. Other you know, responsibilities and all of a sudden that 7 days dwindles down quickly.
 
It’s like three or four days. So, here’s where you have to be honest with yourself say, this is my goal, and this is how much time I have. So that way we can start to say, okay here, here’s where we need to say, here’s where you need to prioritize your time, so that you get the biggest bang for your buck. And strength training is that one way ticket to land muscle mass and power we’re working in on your goals because one of the things as we seem to age, we start to lose our balance. And you know, one of the biggest reasons that takes you know, women out of the game in their 70s is a fall.
 
Because of the reduced estrogen we have brittle bones, we have brittle bones, because we weren’t strength training, we have brittle bones we’re strengthening, and we also are estrogen is what is one of our vital drivers for bone health. So, we have to really start thinking about looking at the bigger picture.
So now that you know, we look at the bigger picture, how do you sort of sprinkle in the walks the zone, the zone to into your world, given that you’ve tried to change your body composition, right. And so, the same thing was said about your classes. I know people love going to the classes, the accountability, the music, it could be the instructor could be like you don’t know what to do on your own, I get you?
 
Well, I want you to kind of say, let’s prioritize the classes that you go to, we really want to make sure that we’re hitting those classes that are asking me to lift the heavy, heavy weights, right, versus the light weights remember heavy is relative, you know that six reps? Can that seventh or eighth rep be, you know, a maxed out at that. How do we fit those in? Or it also goes to the classes? Excuse me? Am I going to the am I going just going through the motions, I see it all the time, I see women just going through the motions that I mentioned, you know, if you’re in my class, and I’m like, Hey, girl, hey, I’m like you got 10 pounds me? What are you doing over there, I looked like you could do more, right? And, you know, I get the eye rolls. And I will always get the eye rolls because I know how important strength training is for women.
 
My parents live in Florida. And, you know, throw shade at me if you if not every time I go to Florida I look around and I see men and women who could benefit from even just one to two days of strength training, how it could just their acts of daily living, getting out of a fucking chair, right, getting out of a chair, not needing a walker, like my number one goal in my life. That’s for me. My personal goal is I don’t want to use a walker, I want to be so strong and fit and healthy in my, into my 90s into my hundreds my grandpa’s knocking on the door of 102. I want to be that and still be able to walk on my own. Right? That’s my goal.
 
That’s what drives me to get my ass to the gym. That’s what drives me to not just reach for the eight-pound dumbbells, because I want my acts of daily living to be easy, right? I don’t want to I see it; I see them struggle to get out of a dark dim chair, you know, I see that to walk they have to hold on to somebody, I don’t want that I wouldn’t be able to have that same strength, that same balance that I have right now. Right?
 
So during the pandemic, this woman and her son had a baby during the pandemic, many of us weren’t traveling anywhere. When she finally felt comfortable getting on a plane, she started working with a personal trainer so she could lift her grand kid. She was like working her darndest to be able to lift her 15-pound grandchild. So a lot of times when I am you know, women are like, Oh, I can’t lift that heavy. I’m like, the average toddler weighs you know, 20 to 40 pounds. The average dog weighs 100 pounds. You know, the average bag of kitty litter weighs like 70 pounds. So I’m always throwing these like life things at you so that you start to realize how have you how much stronger you are.
 
You know, I had a girl in my class you know, it was like on one of my like soapboxes about lifting heavy shit. A few months ago big storm blow through New England, and women came into my class telling me it knocked down some trees in her yard. And she was picking them up and dragging them and she’s like, you know what she’s like, this is what Kim said. I need this right to be able to drag these trees, right? So, imagine if you didn’t with heavy weights like dragging those trees. Yeah, it did suck, but it would have sucked even more has she not been strength training.
 
So to get back to the woman, so shoot that was for training. So for like six months she was training to be able to lift her grandchild she called I’m so excited. I can’t wait to hug my first grandchild. And the sons like, Ah, I got some bad news for you. And she’s like, the baby put on another pound. Sigh….
 
I want you to think about how do you translate this to your life? Right? How can you think about what I’m in these classes when I’m in the gym? That it’s not about, you know, fitting into our pants? Of course, obviously, yes, we all want that. But it’s like acts of daily living. And I want you to think project 20 years predict 20 years that like, can you still grab all those fucking groceries and walk up a flight of stairs? You know, because that’s, that’s, you know what my biggest thing is like, no one takes the groceries and like one at a time. You’re like you grab the all of them and like you walk in your house. 
I had five stairs that I gotta climb to get into my back door. Right? I want to be able to do that. All right.
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So, two things I want to touch on in, in today’s show, is fasted training. Right. You know, when I again, going back to bodybuilding, this was such bro science. It was like, you gotta have fasted cardio first thing in the morning. That was that was how you’re going to burn more fat? Well, there have been there’s been research on that. Research show that it’s negligible and for us peri/menopausal ladies need something in our stomachs before we train.
 
So here’s where I tell you, you know, if you’re someone who works out first thing in the morning, know your hunger hormones, they deserve more, you know, if I work out fasted my hunger our hunger hormones, my ghrelin and leptin are going to get all like, wonky, because I’m suppressing them. That’s not to mention your thyroid. And, you know, we know our thyroid is that master controller,  and I did a whole podcast on that, and I’ll link to a link to that in the show notes. But it all in that we’re also pushing up that cortisol, right, so all the things that we been trying to say like we don’t want, we don’t want doing fasted training, be it cardio or lifting. But let’s, let’s, let’s quiet that noise. So, if you’re someone who is hitting the gym, first thing in the morning, you want to grab at least 100 calories of foods. So that means we’re doing about 20 grams of protein and 30 grams of carbs. And these, this is fast acting. So, it’s like, you know, you’re, you know, having a protein shake, and throwing in some water there. Maybe having like a half of a protein bar. Here are one of my favorite morning You know, these are if you especially if you’re working out first thing in the morning, it’s like little things that aren’t going to you know, hurt your stomach. And if you’re someone who’s like, Oh, I just can’t work out with, you know, something in my stomach. One of the things I always tell people is that, you know, can you drink this while you’re working out especially like a like a whey protein shake, you know, it doesn’t have a lot of stuff in it. One of the things I would do is like a whey protein shake and throw some BCAAs in there. So that way you get like a little bit of like the carb to start your, that Krebs cycle going for you. But you’re also getting a little bit of that protein so that you’re fueling your, your body right fueling the body, especially as we are trying to fight that muscle loss in that 40 plus zone.
 
This is becoming even more paramount, as well as that post workout. And again, we’re looking for something that’s a fast-acting carb and a protein. Right. So ladies, you know, here we are, where we are on the bleeding edge, you know, no one and I’ve said this before No one told us about perimenopause, menopause. No one told us what the workouts should be. No one told us about food. No one told us about this. So here we got. We’re like the pioneers navigating new terrain.
 
Alright, so ladies, welcome to the new terrain, the new frontier, if you will. And it’s time for us to feel you know, feel thriving, you know, be able to thrive in this climate and embrace the changes rock the workouts, you are not alone in this journey. And I’m having a three-day challenge that is coming up next month, and it’s all about helping you thrive in menopause, really focusing in on you know, what do I have to do with my diet so that I don’t feel like I’m going crazy. You know, what are some of the habits I need to start focusing in on to make sure that I create this sustainable lifestyle for myself? And finally, what are the hormones like what the hell is actually happening to my body? I know everyone says hormones, but I have no idea what is happening. So it’s a three day mini course coming your way next month so if you want to be that first person to hear about it, do me a favor in the show notes. I have attached a link to get in on the waitlist.