I am here to challenge you to work as hard on your mindset and point of view as you do on your physical strength and endurance, to inspire you to stay active so you feel and perform your best through all the stages of our lives.

 

As hard as women work on self-acceptance and body positivity, with each decade, the changes hit active women the hardest. Years of pivoting to stay strong through the Freshman 15, pre- and postpartum, sleep-deprived days with toddlers, balancing work, Ubering kids to playdates and sports… trying to balance life, maintain our health (as well as sanity!) and happiest weight that yields the best performance is no easy feat!  

 

After surviving the terrible teens and college applications, all of a sudden—wham—seemingly overnight, our hormones start going haywire, we start to experience bad sleep, muscle loss, hot flashesbody composition shifts and we start to gain weight

 

By 2025, more than 1 billion women will be experiencing some stage of menopause, so it’s time to break the silence and change the conversation, to feel empowered and more comfortable in the skin we’re in and break the negative cycle.

 

As we face pre-menopause & post-menopause:

 

our body composition changes the average weight gain is about five to eight pounds, but even if we don’t gain weight, we lose muscle and put on fat—and often in places we never had it before since changes in estrogen and stress hormones send fat to our abdominal area.

 

hormone levels swing progesterone and estradiol (E2) decline, so do our levels of serotonin, which is why we can experience mood swings, sleep disturbances, memory loss and brain fog. 

 

managing blood sugar and energy levels is essential for your health and performance. You become more insulin-resistant because it’s harder for your body to use starches and blood sugar and move glucose into your cells as effectively as it used to. The result is fat storage — hello sudden weight gain—as your body pulls that blood sugar into fat cells to get it out of circulation. 

 

How we can fight back:

 

increase metabolic rate heavy lifting increases your metabolism which increases the number of calories we burn just to live which declines as we age.

 

heavy resistance training can help offset the loses in muscle building and function as well as provide the neural stimulation you need to get your muscles’ motors revving and contracting strongly again since you’re reproducing the same kind of muscle stimulation in the muscle cells that used to be handled by estrogen.  

You need to lift heavy enough to send a message to your brain that you have serious work to do.

 

running, biking and aerobic exercise boosts function your mitochondria, the power producers in your cells that turn fuel into energy. The more oxygen you pump into your muscle cells and their mitochondria, the more they adapt to perform faster and better to produce the energy you need for endurance. We can’t slow down, in fact, we need to do the exact opposite, we need to SPRINT!

 

keep your foundation strong with stability and mobility and core strength

 

exercise your microbiome regular exercise promotes a diverse healthy gut microbiome

 

multidirectional stress on your skeleton in the form of plyometrics, is critical in maintaining bone density and the strength of your bones. That’s why it’s important to change your training to overcome what you’re losing when estrogen levels flatline.

 

eat enough to meet your daily energy needs. When you aren’t eating enough food, the body stores all the energy it can to help you survive, conserves energy and lowers your metabolic output, then you lose precious muscle and store more even more fat. Our bodies are hardwired for survival. Training harder and eating less makes matters worse.

 

what to eat? the bulk of your carbs should come from vegetables and fruits. Your body needs fiber and nutrient dense food to maintain your gut microbiome, manage blood sugar, support hormones and supply energy, protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and make the muscle you need, whole grain foods that are minimally processed.

 

sleep well create an environment that promotes deep sleep is when you produce the majority of. one of your body’s greatest performance enhancers, human growth hormone (HGH), which helps you burn fat and stimulate tissue growth to build muscle and recover faster.

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drink enough water Staying hydrated is a key factor in every body function. In order for your cells to perform all of their amazing tasks every second and every hour of the day, they need an aqueous environment.   Help your body by keeping a water bottle with you at all times.   I’m a big fan of Hydromate Motivational Water Bottle on Amazon.  It’s got a tracker on it, a little reminder to chug away!

 

spice it up  Stocking the right healthy spices and herbs in your kitchen make it super easy to add flavor and extra health benefits to your recipes. Spices have been in use for centuries both for culinary and medicinal purposes and not only enhance the flavor, aroma, and color of food and beverages, but they can also protect from acute and chronic diseases and get you FIRED UP to eat healthy.

 

Change Your Training. Go Hard. Rethink Your Relationship With Your Body

 

keep your mojo revving during menopause beat the blahs, let me help you make life-long, sustainable adjustments to your diet, exercise and lifestyle behaviors can help smooth things out. Changing your training, eating and fueling habits can help you balance your blood sugar and energy levels and maintain a healthy weight. 

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