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Feel like you’re going through a mid-life crisis? Is life just hitting hard lately? If you’re in your 40’s or 50’s chances are you’ve been through a few life storms (or maybe you’re smack dab in the middle of one right now) and you may have found that your self care has become non-existent.

Maybe you’re carrying extra weight, feel tired all the time, have no energy and constantly feel stressed. I’m sure you don’t want to live like that but don’t know how to get out of the health rut you find yourself in.  Hormone changes are making you a crazy woman and the idea of exercise makes you want to go drink a glass of wine…make that another glass of wine!

Join Deb Atkinson and I as we bust through some of the most pervasive health myths out there regarding hormones, exercise, weight loss and menopause for women in their 40’s, 50’s and beyond.

    [Tweet ““Just because you’re going through menopause doesn’t mean you’re going to get fat” ~ Deb Atkinson”]

Tune in!

In this episode, you will…

  • Discover how cortisol + insulin are wreaking havoc on your body and how you can change that!
  • Be amazed at how easy it really is to get more fit, create more energy and feel better now than you did when you were 30
  • Learn the biggest lie women tell themselves and how it keeps them stuck in the yo-yo dieting cycle
  • Amazing hormones that could be totally influencing your fat and where it gets deposited on your body.
  • Finally understand how to close the gap between the things you do and the things you *know* you should be doing to feel healthier

This is one conversation you don’t want to miss!

Episode Resources:

Shocking Truths About Hormones, Menopause & Fitness [Full Text]

Jen: Welcome. You guys, I am so excited to have Deb on the podcast today. Hi, it’s so nice to have you. I’ve already shared how amazing you are, but what I think I’d like to have you do Deb is share why you are so passionate about doing the work that you’re doing.

I met you more than a year ago now and totally felt this amazing energy from you. We clicked instantly and I’m sure you need to share that.

Debra: Likewise Jen. I’m so glad to be here. That was just so funny when the world happens to bring people together who light up around each other. Why am I so passionate? I’ve been doing this for a long time. That’s not the reason I’m so passionate.

I think the reason I fell in love with it, as a 20 year old, was I never knew I could feel that way. I started seeing fitness professionals. That was when we were just babies. We were infants in this industry and I thought, “I can do that better.” I thought, “I know what it’s like to stand in the back of the room, and I think I can relate to those people and I think I can do this as well or maybe better than some.”

I think it’s all that. When you feel like you have the ability to do something, then I think you have the responsibility to do it. I was drawn to it. It’s one of those things where I keep reading memes. I’m sure you all do that. It’s that thing that you can’t not do. You’re just drawn to it. If you weren’t paid to do it, you didn’t have to do it, but you would still be doing it.

Jen: Totally, that’s the epitome of passion. You can make it work? Why not?

Debra: Yes. Why I’m really drawn to working with women who are kind of approaching menopause and it seems to be that 50-something, thus flipping 50, or they’ve turned the corner and they’re into the menopause. It’s because of course, selfishly, I am. I turned my world upside down at 49.

I kind of had a mid-life crisis and now being on the other side, I would highly recommend it. I wouldn’t have said that at the moment, but it’s been such a learning experience. Like you, I love endurance activities. While I was going through that I was just starting working for myself and my 60 hour flexible work week became 80.

The boss was a bitch. Can I say that?

Jen: Yes, I think so. I’m not friendly with my language sometimes on this show, so we’ll make sure that’s noted.

Debra: It’s an adult show. So I had so much less time to exercise. What I found was, I was just as fit, maybe more so, trying to sneak in 20 minutes a day most days as I was when I was training for 17 hour activities.

Jen: Let me just pause right there because this something really important and why, if you’re tuning in right now, to learn about this. If you’re a women in your 40s, 50s, 60s, whatever, what Deb and I are going to be really diving into is, how do we get efficient, strong, deal with the hormonal surges and fluctuations that some of you may be going through and still feel you fittest and at your best?

I know so many of you out there. I feel like, me, I was in my mid-30s thinking, “Oh my God. I’m frumpy at 30.” My clients will say, “I’m feeling frumpy at 40.” or “I’m feeling frumpy at 50 and that’s just how I see myself on the inside, I don’t know what to do. Exercise terrifies me.” That or they’re cardio junkies.

Tune into this, because throughout the interview you’re going to be getting a lot of really practical tips from Deb in terms of to be in awesome shape without killing yourself and without having to sweat it out or pound it out for hours and hours a week. That, if you’re busy, is exhausting. It’s exhausting to think about it.

Debra: Yes, exhausting and you think, “Okay, I don’t have an hour so forget it. It’s not worth it.” That’s so not true.

Jen: Yes, exactly. This is going to be so good. You were talking about what you realized with your struggle and your crisis and I love that you share that. You and I work with a very similar clientele where there is some sort of a wake-up call happening or life hits hard in some way.

Whether that’s divorce, death of parents, children, university, financial crisis, job losses, a lot of stuff can go down in our 40s and 50s and sometimes we’re really not left knowing how to handle it. No one is. I think being able to be as transparent as you and I naturally are, hopefully we’ll be able to inspire and give some hope here, that you can get through it and you can do it in a healthy way.

I’m going to just start off and say two things. Exercise can be a real hunger inducer and it can also make you really tired without seeing any change on the scale, any change in the body, no inches lost and then you think, “Why do it?” There are a lot of women who give up when they don’t get those tangible results that they’re looking for. Let’s dive into that.

Debra: Let’s do. I’m sure you’ve experienced this. I’ve probably turned as many people away or shocked and surprised them. They come to me for exercise advice and expertise. “Give me the workout.” and “How do I get rid of this?” You all probably can acknowledge the idea that you might have been grabbing a body part when you’re saying that. “How do I get rid of this?”

Jen: “Change my size. Change my thighs. Change my waist. Make my stomach disappear.”

Debra: Yes, and it starts so young, but we perpetuate it and it keeps going. We always want this perfection and that’s why we end up using exercise as punishment as opposed to a reward and something we look forward to and love. The problem comes when your hormones are spinning around and so, not to lump them all together.

Let’s talk about which hormones are we talking about? I hate that when we say, “Well, it’s probably an imbalance of hormones.” That’s a black hole. What does that mean?

Jen: Totally, and also what I find too is because we’re not clear about what we’re talking about or we hear experts say that, it can in many ways become a blanket excuse for no change. We’re going to take that away today.

Debra: Yes, you know and it’s not also necessarily telling you, “Okay, you have to go to a doctor to find out your hormones.” Let’s talk signs and symptoms. That’s how we can identify which hormone is going haywire. If this, then that.

There is a sign and a symptom. Then what would we do with that?

Jen: What we can get right here on this to draw people’s attention to this is your scientific approach to this. I think that’s something that I just instantly clicked with you on because we’re both kind of nerds at heart and dig into the research. I’m pretty sure I just saw one of your latest Instagram posts which was, how do you become a critical thinker with articles? How do you know if what you’re being told with this research is really true or if it’s being manipulated?

At least you’re going to know from Deb you’re getting the straight up good on this. Right? Sorry to interrupt.

Debra: Let’s say cortisol. How do you know cortisol is your issue? Here are a couple of signs. You’re not sleeping well at night.

Jen: Describe that. You can’t fall asleep? Do you fall asleep, but wake up? Is it restless? What does that feel like?

Debra: All of the above. It could be, for some person, not being able to fall asleep. It could be waking up frequently during the night. It could be waking up too early. If you’re a 50 year old woman, you probably know this instance. You’ve had a night where you’ve said, “Is it too early to get up yet?”

It may be all of the above. You may have all of those scenarios, or they may come and go. That’s one. What we know about sleep and cortisol is if sleep is down for you, your needs whatever that is, your cortisol is up the next day.

Jen: I need you to give our listeners just a brief description on cortisol and the role of it.

Debra: The role of it, what it’s going to do is it’s going to cause cravings the following day, immediately. One day of sleep deprivation, let’s say last night you had a restless night, chances are greater that this afternoon somewhere between 2:00 and 4:00 you’re going to be more of a victim to the vending machine.

If you’re traveling and you stop at a gas station a lot of things are going to start to look good for you. You’re going to be tempted to things that you aren’t normally tempted to. You can justify it because you have, what we read before as hangry. You know, you’re hungry sort of but not really, and you angry because you’re so tired. That’s kind of the cortisol trick.

Physiologically you probably had a meal more recently than you should be hungry, but it’s a psychological and then just a gnawing kind of “I need something.”

Jen: Would it be fair, because I made it really clear. Obviously you didn’t hear before Deb when I started to record the interview today, but I was actually saying was that I’m not an expert in hormones, but I do know about cortisol from some of my own challenges is that it’s called your stress hormone, if you’re stressed, chronic stress or acute stress.

What you’re bringing up is that sleep deprivation, be it even for one night, can trigger that stress hormone and then the cascade continues. Is that a simple way to look at it?

Debra: That is totally true. Let’s define stress. We’ve thought of stress for years, especially if you’ve turned to corner on 50, we’ve thought of stress emotionally. I’m probably in tears if I’m stressed. That’s what that looks like, but it might be relationship stress. It might be financial stress.

It might be a project at work coming up that’s putting stress and pressure on you. It might be physical stress from exercise. Whether it’s good exercise, just the right amount for you, it’s still stress on your body. Your body likes the couch.

Jen: This is a really important point. If you know my story, and Deb I know you do, but for listeners or viewers of the program, I believed at a point in my life that all I needed to lose weight was to exercise more. I put myself through some punishing workouts when I was not very healthy to begin with.

I did not understand that exercise was a physiological stressor. I hate to admit that I’ve got a Master’s in this people. I had to really put two and two together to start recognizing that stress is stress, emotional, financial, and physiological. Your body senses it.

Debra: Yes. It doesn’t know the difference. The analogy I like to draw is, you’ve got a backpack on and every little stressor you have right now is like putting in another brick in and asking you to walk upstairs. Emotional stress, you have a project. You have a sudden family issue come.

You love exercise. It’s still a stereo. It doesn’t matter if you love it or hate it. How you feel about it is not at peace. If your bod is comfortable at a certain level of calories and you suddenly start taking in fewer calories, that’s stress on your body. It’s operating like a car with gas and it doesn’t have enough, so it thinks.

Dieting can be very stressful and all of those things kind of make you spin on your axis. More cortisol is released.

Jen: Let’s bring this together with this theme. How is it that we can be doing what we think we should be doing with exercise and see no results? What’s going on there?

Debra: You’re probably releasing too much stress. That entire load is called the allostatic load. It’s the whole backpack, essentially, is too much. Even the right dose of exercise at the wrong time is too much.

Jen: This is where I feel like you’re saying to women listening that at some point, and this is what I find. Women will often not give themselves permission to recover in any way, emotionally, to take rest. We wear such a badge of honor around being busy, getting our value and our worth from what we do, not necessarily from who we are. We’ll be exhausted and we’ll just keep going.

Debra: Gosh yes. Women are notorious for that. We’re so good at listening to other people, not to ourselves, not to our body. You’re right. It’s that drive, drive, drive and “I’ve got to get this done.” There is a time when, if you’re crashing, you’re what Dr. Alan Christianson calls ‘wired and tired’.

You’re really exhausted, but you’re the one staring at the ceiling. You cannot sleep or stay asleep. Those are signs that probably you should take an exercise break.

Jen: I remember it. It was wide-eyed, open to me. I went to my first actual functional medicine doctor here in Calgary. It’s not the same in the states a little bit, but one of the very first things she said to me was, “You need to stop all exercise and do half a yoga.” I was thinking, “What?”

First of all, to even have a doctor even address exercise I found amazing.

Debra: True.

Jen: Then to recognize that what my blood panel was showing were all the signs of complete depletion and that exercise was continuing to tap me out.

So, how do you figure this out then? You’re listening to the show right now. I’m 50. I’ve got early signs of menopause or I’ve maybe gone through it and I don’t like my weight. I don’t like how my body looks. I’ve got this stomach that I don’t feel good in a t-shirt in. These are the complaints I hear from my clients.

What do I do? How do I start to trade off calories? How do I start of create some sort of balance with this?

Debra: That’s a great science. One of the signs that I look for with people, as they’re losing the guilt, first of all because they all feel guilty that they’re not exercising enough and that must be it. We innately think that there is something wrong with us. We’re not doing enough. “It must be me.” I don’t know why, but that’s our default. Females for sure.

Identifying what you’re actually feeling guilty about may actually not even be what you need to be doing. Learning to be a little let go of that. One example is, if you are exercising and you’re still at that belief of “This is what I need.” even if it’s, and I recognize I do this, exercise is a stress negator. You know it is how I deal with stress. It’s great, but we maybe have to find yoga instead of finding a hit workout.

We may not need those high intervals for a short period of time, and you’ll know if you come away from a workout that used to be “this is comfortable” or you’re thinking, “Yes. That was a great workout. Now I’ve got a ton of energy.” and you come away flat. You don’t have the rebound. It just feels like, “You know, I pushed my way through that. I gave it all even though I felt like I was trying to, and I feel flat, not better. I feel tired not better.”

That’s a sign you need to pull back. The analogy is, we can all deal with writing a check. You know you don’t write a check if you don’t have anything in the account. You’re going in the red. If you try to push, push, push you’re going to go deeper into that digging of the hole. You need to fill up.

Jen: I love that metaphor. Because money is such a tangible thing. I use money examples all the time with fitness and food and calories and whatever because it’s so tangible. We understand money, but where it’s our health and our bodies, that’s bit more nebulous, so that’s a great example.

Listen up. If you’re going into the red, we all have a little bit of overdraft allowed. It’s if you’re constantly trying to withdraw from it that you’re leading to serious depletion.

Debra: Right. You’ve really got to fill that up and feel good.

Jen: Stop there. That’s what I wanted to ask you. How do you start to fill that up? I’m putting you on the spot, but five simple steps to filling up again, filling up the tank, what would you advise?

Debra: You hit the nail on the head when you said rest. Rest and recovery, they are the lost art of exercise. We forget that part. When you’re thinking workouts we usually think cardio and we think strength training. That needs recovery, so between hard exercise there should be an easy exercise.

If you’re walking away from exercise completely for a week, say long, slow exercise. Take walking the dog as your exercise this week. That’s what you have to do. There may be an exercise here to be able to do that. No more heart pounding exercise.

Lock your running shoes up somewhere where you can’t get to them and take long, slow walks. Do stretching. Do some deep breathing. Pay attention to how you’re feeling. It’s learning how to listen. Are you really hungry, or are you thirsty, or are you tired?

Jen: You’re taking me into what my next point or question is around. We’re talking about filling ourselves back up. What are your nutrition recommendations around that? There are so many theories and there is so much stuff out there. We’re part of a 64-billion dollar industry. There is a lot of stuff that plays on a woman’s emotions for dieting and food.

Let’s hear some gospel here, some of the truth.

Debra: We have to say, how much time do we have?

Jen: I know. I know.

Debra: It’s like a bomb. There are some basics and then there are few. One of the things that I do with my programming is I like to walk people through a blue print for finding their own. Co-create with me a program that’s you. There’s not a one diet book. There’s not one exercise book. It’s all pretty unique.

Now we know that health is unique to each individual, at the moment. Two months with less stress or more stress your gut health may change. Your nutrition needs, therefore, may change. There are some basics. For women notoriously who get to me were not eating enough protein.

Jen: Could you say that again?

Debra: We’re not eating enough protein.

Jen: If you find that if they are it’s not spread throughout the day? That parts important.

Debra: Yes, very much so. We need to make sure three or four, depending on who you are and your energy needs, three to four meals. I like to give an amount. I also want to say that I am not a registered dietician. I am simply research educated and have this vehicle that I’ve been researching for a little while.

The research since 2008 is really saying our RDAs are way behind the times and 25 to 30 grams at most meals, in face 35 at breakfast set you up for holding onto your lean tissue. Combine that with fiber at each meal to kill cravings. If you want to lose that sugar sweet tooth this is the way to do it.

Crowd it out. I call that crowd sourcing. Don’t think about all of the things you can’t have, but think about the things you need to have and then see if you’re hungry for those things anyway. You may lose your desire altogether for them.

Jen: I can’t drive this point home hard enough and just so echo your recommendation around protein. What about liquids? Tell me a little bit about your take on, not just water, but decaffeinated stuff, sugar stuff and alcohol stuff.

Debra: Sugar stuff, no, just no. I love this one and I may offend someone who is into fermentation, but kombucha is borderline sugar. You’re still kind of craving that sweet and you’re looking for a place to put it in, so temporarily I would leave that alone as a substitute.

Infused water, put some watermelon and grapes in your water if you need some flavor. Put some lemon slices and a little stevia if you really have to walk away from pop and you can’t do it cold turkey, that’s probably a safer way to get a substitute in, but tons of liquids.

Again, that’s personal, so I think you have to play with eight ounce glasses and start where you’re at and typically add an extra glass for your quota every day for this week. Let your body adapt to it so you don’t have to be in the bathroom and then next week do it again.

Jen: On that note, the body is so amazing. I love the word ‘adapt’ because basically when you do consume more water, you do stress the urinary system and it adapts. If you start to have to go to the bathroom a little bit more in the beginning, don’t feel like you’re going to have to do that forever. It is just as your body is going through that adaptation process.

Debra: That’s so true. There is probably not one thing more economical, more simple or more accessible to becoming healthier. It improves your digestion, your skin, every bit of you.

Jen: Deb, I have a tangent thought here so I’m going to follow it. The things that people like you and I talk about are such simple things. Do a little bit less, but do it more often. Get exercise more, rest more, drink some more water, eat a little bit more protein and yet we have this crisis of obesity in North America.

I’m sure if I could poll 10 people off the street right now and ask them what they could do to improve their health they would say these things. What’s the gap? How do we close the gap between what we know we should be doing, but don’t do? What gets in the way there? Two questions. What gets in the way? How do we close the gap?

Debra: I think one of the things that gets in the way, I do think for women I work with, I think you’re optimistic. I’m not sure if you polled 10 women off the street they would be able to say these things. I think there is a little habit gravity that still tells them eat less and exercise more.

Jen: That’s true. Okay, yes, I would agree with that.

Debra: I think there is still, you know, low fat, no fat is much better and we’ve learned so much more with science about eat more fat, probably be more slim and be more satisfied. Your skin, your eyes, your hair are going to love you for it and so will your hips. It’s hard to believe that after 30 to 40 years of believing something else.

This comes to how do we get over that? I think it is accountability. Women need to surround themselves with you and someone who is whispering in their ear the counter to, I’m going to say it again, the little bitch in here that says “Don’t do that.” She’s telling you things that she believes from habit gravity.

I learned this once and I’ve lived by it so many times.

Jen: Often people don’t know another way and that’s why I love the work you do, the programs you designed, how you’re sharing your message. Often we want the solution, but we have to sometimes have that mentor or role model or someone who comes into our life who allows us to open up a new way of thinking so we can learn.

It’s like, if I keep hanging on to my idea, I will stay stuck.

Debra: Didn’t you post something the other day with a trainer. We all need that accountability because your mind will go back to default. “This is where I need to be working, but this is kind of where I’m comfortable working.”

Jen: You saw it. It was a Facebook Live post for anyone listening or watching and I wanted to be really clear and say that sometimes the belief out there is for people like you or me who are familiar with exercise and comfortable, dare say like it, love it that it’s easy for us. I am a trainer. I don’t do that as my profession, but I certainly know how to work out.

When I am low in energy or I have lacked commitment or accountability or consistency, I need help. I know myself well enough now to reach out and get it, whereas before that little bitch in my head would have been like, “I can’t believe you’re going to waste your money on that. You should know better Jen. I can’t believe that. What’s wrong with you?”

Debra: That is so right.

Jen: Then I go eat cookie dough.

Debra: “I should be able to do this myself.”

Jen: Yes.

Debra: Why? I mean, why? We didn’t wake up in the morning getting these tools. We really didn’t. All of us need that, either push to the next level or we default to our comfort zones. It’s really easy to go back to do the same habit, the same routine that you’ve been doing. That I think is another threshold.

You’ve crossed a different threshold. You have new hormones. You have different hormones, a different set of things you need to work with, but you’re still using the things you did when you learned at 20 and 30 and that’s not a good match.

Jen: Deb, can we circle back to hormones? Sometimes I’m a little jumpy. We talked about cortisol. What else do listeners need to know about?

Debra: We need to know the growth hormone. That’s another one. We’re talking about sleep. We’re talking about sleep, too little of it, increases your cortisol sky high, but it also decreases growth hormones. One of the things women are complaining about during menopause, and it happens with the hormone shift more so, faster, partially because of the sleep loss.

It’s not that because you go through menopause you’re going to get fat. That is not a rule.

Jen: Can you say that again?

Debra: Nowhere is it written that because you’re going through menopause you’re going to get fat. It’s not. You don’t have to carry the belly fat. It may be easier to deposit, but here’s why.

Jen: Listen in to this because I hear this all the time.

Debra: Those things were happening. We were too busy to notice and when we go through hormone changes everything is amplified. We were making small errors, it’s just amplified. What it’s really doing is giving you a chance to think, “Wow, here’s my wake up call. I need to change what I’m doing.” That’s all and you can. It’s not there forever.

Belly fat, shall we talk about that?

Jen: Yes. Can we talk about that? I’ve got friends who are doctors. Yes I need you to talk about it. She says, most of her patients come to her complaining of belly fat. I’m even hearing people buy into this belief that all the hormones are going to make it impossible for these women at 50 to lose weight, so they just need to learn how to be happy and be overweight and in clothes they don’t like.

I say bullshit. That is just not true.

Debra: We’re calling bullshit here people.

Jen: Go right into that because we need to hear it loud and clear.

Debra: That brings up another hormone. That is cortisol, but cortisol is not the only bully. When cortisol teams up with insulin, the two of them put it right in the belly. If we did not know cortisol otherwise and hate it, we would think, “What a superhero.” Cortisol has the ability to take fat from elsewhere and relocate it to your belly. It has the ability to take baby fat cells and make them big cells and has the ability once it teams up with insulin to put it there and make it harder for you to burn off.

That’s pretty incredible. Your body is really amazing. Even if it’s doing things we don’t like, it’s powerful. So how do we avoid that? When you have those cravings, unfortunately they’re not for kale and salmon. They tend to be for sugar or things that turn to sugar rapidly.

Jen: Yes, sugar and salt, like chips. I’m thinking of what people crave, like chocolate.

Debra: Chips, carbs, wine. When you want to lose weight ladies, wine is not your best friend. Even though there are some great properties and we’ll want to research them because we want to find the good stuff in it, it’s still not going to be your best ally. You’ve got to walk away from that for a bit.

Jen: Can we talk about that just quickly? I have a lot of clients who say, “I will do anything, but don’t take away my wine.” I have a feeling that you and I are going to be on the same page. If you’re feeling that strongly about something that you’re using to comfort and numb, there is something else going on deep in your life that is more significant than just you wanting to lose weight.

Debra: Yes. That’s very true. I do a 28-day kick start. At the beginning of the pre-program, first week call we always get to that in a few moments and I wait for the question. “So, can we have vodka? Is that the best thing to have?” There is so much wrong with that question. I am not even going there.

Jen: It doesn’t mean you can’t drink it again ever, but it’s understanding the impact of your choices. If you want to lose weight and you want to keep drinking wine, you’ve got choices that are at odds with each other.

Debra: So true. Once we get your stress under control and you’re in a different circumstance. You know, having a glass of wine with a meal to enjoy with family. It’s completely different. You’re in France, okay enjoy it, love it, savor it, but don’t do it at the end of the day because you’ve used will power up the rest of the day. That’s a big difference.

Depositing, when cortisol and insulin team together, cortisol gives you the cravings. You give into the craving and eat, then we have an insulin spike because of the sugar. That halts all fat metabolism, but makes storage much easier.

Jen: I describe insulin as little mini snow plows in your bloodstream that push all of that sugar molecules into your fat cells basically. Isn’t that like a fair description?

Debra: That is a fair description. For someone who hates winter that’s perfect. That’s what happens with cortisol and insulin. You may deposit it elsewhere. There’s the belly fat and then there’s the other side and sometimes then you get a two for one. Women will either say, “I’ve got this, my belly fat, my muffin top or kind of a barrel.” or “I’ve got this.”

Jen: For anybody listening to the podcast, Deb’s grabbing underneath her arms there where your triceps wave goodbye.

Debra: That second wave goodbye. You stop. It keeps going. Right. There’s a difference too in how to burn those off, or how to lose those. They deposit differently. This ironically…

Jen: That tricep fat basically?

Debra: The tricep Fat or the pinch an inch fat, and that even can happen in the belly. There’s a difference between those who get kind of an apple shape and really it’s tight and taught in the belly fat versus the pinch an inch kind.

Jen: It’s the mushy kind.

Debra: Yes.

Jen: I’m pinching my own inches here right now.

Debra: Any pinch an inch kind anywhere is more resistant to exercise. It doesn’t respond as well.

Jen: So what do you do?

Debra: Tighten up the diet.

Jen: Okay.

Debra: Unfortunately you do not have recreational calories to spend. You’ve got to tighten up a little bit more. Fewer of those kinds of carbohydrates that we don’t need. You’ve really got to focus on, it’s quinoa and it’s sweet potatoes and it’s the right time of day, not the wrong time of day. Your extra-curricular calories really need to come from places like fat in nuts or protein sources as opposed to being from carbohydrates.

Jen: That’s totally awesome advice and where I want to take some of our last little bit of time here is I really want you to give our listeners and viewers your best exercise recommendations for the conditions that we’re describing.

A woman who is maybe between 45 and 55, is carrying that belly fat, has that somewhat squishy under arm fat, knows logically that she’s probably using wine a little bit more often then she needs to as a bit of a coping and stress reducer. Where does that woman start with exercise? What kind? What type? How often? How much? Let’s get your best wisdom on this.

Debra: Okay great. First listen, acknowledge. You need to make sure you’re in a spot where you know that you’re ready for exercise. You’re rested. You’re not depleted and you feel like, “Okay, I’m good. My energy is good. I’m sleeping well and I am ready to start.”

I like to do three things. I treat everyone like an athlete, you’ll get this. We want to do an interval training session, at least once a week. For starters that’s enough. At some point you may add a second and then a long slow exercise day.

Jen: What I want to tell people listening right now is you don’t have to think of Insanity like you’ve seen and think, “Oh my God, that’s going to be so intense.” Literally your first interval session could be 20 seconds. I could be just that push. I know when I’ve not trained, the intervals I can versus trained and detrained are very different.

Debra: Right.

Jen: If the person has not been an avid exerciser or a HIIT, high intensity interval trained individual before, what would you recommend for something that they could go in to today as intervals?

Debra: One of my favorites, this is a simple 20 minute exercise session.

Jen: I love that you said 20, not 60. This is perfect.

Debra: Yes, and shorter is better. The higher your intensity, the shorter. It’s like a teeter totter. Where we get burned out is we tend to think more is better. “That’s going to burn fat. I need to do more.” That’s where you burn out not burn fat. 20 minutes warming up progressively.

Let’s use walking, because most of us are able to walk, but this could be an elliptical, a bicycle or in a swimming pool. It doesn’t matter. We’re walking and we’re going to gradually walk a little faster every minute just to bump it up a little bit so that we’re warming up progressively without our body really knowing what we’re doing.

Then we’re going to take a minute or we’re going to take 30 seconds. Let’s go simply with a minute work and a minute recovery. We’re going to take a minute and walk as fast as we possibly can, or we’re going to find one big hill and walk up that. You can’t conveniently find it, but if you’re on your treadmill you can find a minute worth of hill or incline,

Then you recover for a minute. What goes up must come down. You’re going to really let yourself recover, and this is something that we’re not good at. We kind of start clouding the whole workout together. We don’t get up if we don’t get down. Work as hard as you possibly can and be extremely breathless, be done and then recover for a minute ready to go at the end of that minute say, “I can do that again.” That’s how good you feel.

Jen: What you’re talking about here is what I’m experience is breathlessness.

Debra: Yes.

Jen: My heart rate being jacked up.

Debra: Yes.

Jen: Possibly some discomfort in my muscles, maybe even in my chest if I’m not used to this, but if I can hang on for that minute I’m going to let those same things come down. My breathing is going to slow. My heart rate is going to slow. The tension, or the lactate that I might be generating, which is a byproduct, that’s going to dissipate and then I’ll be able to do it again a minute later.

Debra: Exactly.

Jen: Awesome.

Debra: Exactly and it’s relative. Let’s say you’re going to do it. I’m going to do it. Our viewers and our listeners are going to do it. It’s on your scale of one to ten. If you’re a beginner, what is an eight or a nine for you now is going to be very different than it is in six months, but that’s okay. You’re just looking for your eight or nine.

It’s that place where you get really breathless. It’s all breathing through your mouth. You can barely talk one or two words and you’re going to want to know, ”How much longer am I going to do this?” That’s important to you. You’re in the right spot.

Jen: How many intervals would you suggest a new exerciser try to do in one 20 minute exercise session?

Debra: You’re only going to do five boughts of that. You’re going to do it for 10 minutes and you’re going to cool down at the end to flush out that lactate and start recovering already before you are done.

Jen: Awesome. When I think about stuff in my head I think, “I can do anything for a minute. I can anything for 40 seconds. I can do anything for 30 seconds.” I’ll talk myself through it sometimes.

Debra: Exactly. It’s great music in here sometimes helps.

Jen: Interval training one session a week, what else would someone want to be doing?

Debra: Then you want to do at least one long slow session. If you’re a beginner, your long may not be relative. You haven’t been walking at all, so start with a 30 minute slow session. Nice and light, something that you feel comfortable with and you stop because time is up, not because you’re out of breath or exhausted. It’s just stopping. Stop feeling good. It’s okay to end not exhausted.

Jen: Thanks for such a good message. You’re so awesome. Women have had such punishing experiences with exercise that there’s a real fear of not wanting to feel crappy. That life is hard already. It’s busy already. “I’m tired already. Why would I do that so I can feel worse?” instead of focusing on the joy of moving our bodies and being able to do these things.

Debra: So true. The third is that this is like a little potluck. You’re going to go through and rather than the whole pie you’re just going to take a little from each. The third one is more of a moderate. It’s not like your all day pass, like the long slow. It’s not your intervals. It’s one that for me it’s the hardest one to do. There’s got to be a little bit of a carrot out there. You have to have something to look forward to.

Someone may be keeping you honest, or sometimes a treadmill or a bike helps because you can see your speed and if you’re slowing down you’ll know. You want to stay at that place where you think, “I definitely know I’m exercising. I could do this for 25 to 30 minutes and yet I’m going to be glad when I’m done, not exhausted.”

That’s kind of moderate intensity and moderate duration out together. You’re using all of your fuel systems just a little bit better than any one of those modes every day all week. That’s what we tend to do as females. Some of us want to do intensity all the time. Some of us just want to go for a walk all the time. We need to mix it up.

Jen: That’s just so true. I joke that I’m like the cardio junkie, like the gym junkie, like the yoga junkie. At times we get so rooted in our one preferred mode of exercise we forget that fitness is really about being well rounded in all of the different areas and that the more that we do that, the better we’ll feel.

You are a wealth of information. Clearly both inspiring and motivational. People need to know how to find you. Let’s make sure we know about your free gift, your website and how to get ahold of you.

Debra: I would love to have people. I would love to give them a gift in exchange for their question. We’re doing the Flipping 50 TV show. At Flipping50TV.com they can give me their question right now and in exchange get my Muscles in Minutes guide.

Jen: I love that.

Debra: There are 40 illustrations, pictures of here’s how to start. Here’s how to finish. Here’s how the modification for about 20 exercises.

Jen: That’s so cool. We’re going to have all of the links in the show notes and in the description underneath the video if you’re watching this. Don’t worry if you’re listening and didn’t get a chance to write something down. You’ll see it in the blog and you can get access to Deb there.

Let’s just say it one more time. Your website is ForeverFitAndFab.com, but Flipping50TV.com is where they’ll find you. This is where they’ll find your Muscle in Minutes book.

Debra: Right.

Jen: So cool. There are probably some great on there to watch and to learn from you as well.

Debra: Hope so.

Jen: I know so. Debra, thank you so much for being on Energy To Thrive. Energy in my world stands for exercise, nutrition, emotions, relationships, goals and you the recovery piece. I’m so glad we got to talk about both the exercise piece and the recovery piece because often that part is neglected.

Debra: So much.

Jen: Hopefully, listeners, if you are that woman who you’re carrying extra belly fat and you’re frustrated and you’re starting to lose hope a little bit, I am sure that this will reignite that spark possibility and for you to know that you’re not trapped in your body. Little changes can create big results.

Debra, thank you so much for joining me on my show today.

Debra: Thanks so much for having me.

Jen: Yay, it’s been fun. You all, tune back in for another episode next week. Bye for now.