WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

44. Exercise During Perimenopause: 5 Reasons You Are Not Seeing Results and What To Do Instead

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 44

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Struggling with weight loss during perimenopause? You're not alone. On this episode of the Wealthy Generation Podcast, I open up about my personal journey of maintaining weight loss and how it became increasingly challenging with the onset of perimenopause. We'll discuss common missteps women make, like under-eating before workouts, which can actually increase stress and hinder fat loss. Tune in for actionable guidance on pre-workout nutrition that aligns your eating habits with your fitness goals, helping you achieve better results without unnecessary stress.

Ever wondered why your post-workout routine isn't giving you the muscle gains you expected? It might be your nutrition. We stress the importance of consuming high-protein foods within 30 to 45 minutes after exercising to ensure muscle repair and growth. We'll explore the negative impacts of skipping meals and poor sleep habits, which can sabotage your fitness goals and overall health. By understanding and implementing proper nutrition and rest, you can maximize the benefits of your workouts, especially if you're navigating the hormonal shifts of perimenopause.

Finally, discover effective strategies for meal timing and protein balance that can make a significant difference in your fitness journey. I'll share my favorite pre- and post-workout meals, emphasizing the importance of consistent protein intake throughout the day. Learn how balanced meals with adequate protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats can support muscle development and combat the hormonal changes that contribute to unwanted belly fat. This episode is all about adopting new strategies for long-term health and wellness, encouraging patience and consistency to build a lifestyle that fits your current stage of life.

Thank you so much for listening!


Speaker 1:

What up, friends? Welcome back to Wealthy Generation Podcast W-E-L-L-T-H-Y. Let's get straight into it. This is another episode where you might want to re-listen, pay attention, take notes, share with your friends any of those things.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it's something I went through myself in throughout my health and wellness journey for the past um, almost eight years now, and it's a topic that keeps coming up in so many conversations I've been having, especially with women who are in their perimenopausal years. So, let's say, women 35 plus, and at first it's not such a big deal, but then it can turn into so much frustration and it makes me so sad to see, like so many women not getting results they want, choosing actions that are ineffective for the goals that they have, and just being super frustrated for it not working and not knowing what to do Right Sound familiar. So what I'm going to talk about today is the ways in which I was throwing out. I was throwing away all of the hard work that I was doing, um, exercising. I was throwing it out the window because one thing that's so important when we're exercising is what does our eating look like throughout the day, throughout around your exercise? So much of that. So usually the goal, the main goal is to lose weight. Most of the time, it's like to lose weight, to get toned, something like that. Along those lines, I know that that was definitely my goal when I first started my health and wellness journey. It was to lose weight, and I did right. I lost weight. I lost 50 pounds. I kept it off for six years until my body started to change from perimenopause. That's what I believe it is, because I just don't see any other explanation, since I had maintained everything my weight, my clothes, everything for six years. So, granted, I was doing similar workouts, eating similarly and all that.

Speaker 1:

But that did not serve me going into perimenopause, because what I had lost a lot of, I feel like, was muscle or not. That I didn't. Not that I necessarily lost it, but I wasn't strengthening or building any. So, most of the time, what I've been noticing is that the goal is to lose weight, one by losing fat, and not necessarily muscle, building on the muscle. But that is not happening because the actions around the exercise are ineffective actions for those kinds of goals. If you want to lose weight and you're perimenopausal, if you want to gain muscle, if you want to gain muscle, if you want to lose fat. If you want to protect your lean muscle mass, get stronger, get toned, then you also must not only know or be doing specific type of workouts, which I can touch on lightly, but you also must, must, must, have some sort of gauge as to how you are eating.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's what we're going to get into today, and this is coming from my own personal experience of what I was doing, the ineffective actions I was taking, the results I was getting and the new actions I had to switch up. But before I go into that, from my personal experience, what I notice is that, especially when women are 40 plus, they're killing themselves at the gym. They're spending the money, they're spending the time and they're not getting the weight loss results they want. They actually feel stuck or they're actually gaining weight. So these tips and ineffective actions and all that that I'm going to share with you also align with that. You want to be mindful of those things. And, as well, if you are in 35 plus and, even more importantly, 40 plus, and you're like, oh, one of my goals is weight loss and all you're thinking about is I am going to go to the gym or hire a trainer, and you have not given thought to how would your nutrition have to look like to complement your workouts and for it to work together and in conjunction for you to get the results that you want. This is something that you must think about because, again, is going to lead to exactly what I'm going to talk about today is going to be, I don't want to say, is a waste, is never a waste to move your body, but the results you want and the progress you want to see is probably not going to be what you want or what you expect them to be, because you are exercising and you are training.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's, let's dive right into it. Um, all right. So first I'm going to talk about the ineffective actions I was taking throughout the time that I was working out before, let's say, age 37, I'm 38 now, so 37 that were no longer effective for the goals I wanted. The number one thing, number one across the board, that affected me and everybody I talked to, is that they're not eating enough. Number one we're not eating enough. And to start off with number one, I was working out fasted. I was going into these intense trainings with super heavy weights, with cardio, all this fasted, all right, and that causes havoc on perimenopausal hormones, because going into a workout fasted is going to increase and drive up the stress in your body, the cortisol, and when we are stressed out and when our body feels stressed, there is no way it lets go of fat because that is a protective mechanism. It is not going to do that. The math does not math in the body when it feels stressed out and you are adding on to the stress with the workout and your body feels so unsafe.

Speaker 1:

Now the first thing that I always hear is like but Naomi, I cannot eat and work out, I feel like I'm going to throw up, I feel like I'm going to my stomach hurts and all that and all that is valid, right, all that is valid is more of finding what's not going to cause that. And also, I think that the expectation a lot of times is that you need to have like a big meal, like steak and potatoes or something like that, and that's definitely not it. It's something super small, something light, super small, something light and I'll go into that in what my new actions are or even a liquid, and possibly it means waking up a little bit beforehand. Something I do now is I eat right before I leave my house and the gym is about a 10 minute drive, or sometimes I even eat in the car on my way to the gym because I'm just running late, which I probably shouldn't be doing, that I should give my body a little bit more time, but I figured that having that is better than nothing, okay? So under the umbrella of we're not eating enough number one, we're going in fasted to a bad-ass workout and your body is so stressed AF it doesn't have any safety around it and it just is ineffective. Actions for growing muscle, for strengthening muscle, for losing weight all of those goals you have when you do that out the window, okay, goals you have when you do that out the window, okay.

Speaker 1:

Number two is not eating after you work out. So you hit whatever class you're hitting right, and then you go home, you shower, you check your email, you scroll through social media and now it's been an hour or two after you've exercised and you still have not had something to eat. The open window for women's muscles to actually repair and introduce nutrients and energy. And all that is 30 to 45 minutes max after exercising. Men can go two to three hours, women not too long. So it is extremely important to eat especially high protein, because that is what your muscles need to start repairing about 30, no more, if you can, 30 minutes after you exercise. Again, cue in mind drama. That's so fast. I need to shower, I'm busy, I'm jumping straight into work and all that. But the truth is that the busiest of my busiest clients they're doing this. The busiest of my busiest clients, they're doing this, they're doing this. They are busy too. They are moms, they are running companies, they are entrepreneurs, they have a lot of stuff going on and they're still doing this, and it is what is going to lead you to the goals that you want.

Speaker 1:

So you don't eat before, you don't eat after and your body is not pendeja Like. Your body is going to get what it needs when it needs it from somewhere, right. So what starts to happen is that your muscles start to kind of decompose. You start to lose your muscle mass because your body's like oh, I need energy, I need stuff. So your muscles start to kind of dwindle away. And here you are thinking that you're losing weight, but you're losing your muscle, or you're not losing weight at all. You're staying stuck with the fat because your body is so stressed. So we want to make sure that we are feeding our muscles so that they can strengthen and grow, instead of your body self-deprecating itself because it's not getting the fuel that it needs Because one.

Speaker 1:

You probably don't know this because I I mean not because I didn't know this, but it's just because there's it's not popular information that's just out here floating around. You really have to look at very specific, limited research for women who are active to find information like this. Everything else is yeah, workout fasted is great. Yeah, cut your calories is great. But guess what? If you're in perimenopause, that is the opposite advice as to what you should be doing and you're probably experiencing the opposite results of what you actually want. All right, so down the line of not eating enough.

Speaker 1:

Number three is you're not eating enough throughout the day, especially protein, so the day gets out of your hands and now you've worked out, fasted, you didn't eat. Afterwards You're probably eating the leftovers from your kid's plate or something you found on the counter or the little cookie that's here or over there, and still your body does not have what it needs to repair. It doesn't have what it needs to help you balance out your blood sugar. It doesn't have a lot of what it needs to be stable. And now you feel tired and you feel fatigued and you feel like you can't focus and concentrate. Boom El cafecito, right. You just reach for that second cup of coffee. Third cup of coffee. You can tell I'm from New York, right? Coffee, yes, the coffee, all right. That is not the solution, okay. The solution is that you're not eating. You haven't eaten anything throughout this whole day and you've put your body through so much, okay.

Speaker 1:

So then the fourth ineffective action is that you go to snacking and you're like oh no, I'm a snacker. I have these chips and I have these cookies and I have a cheese stick and I have, you know, whatever, whatever you find in your house, you have a piece of fruit and it's like I'm the snagger. The snagger identity gets to me, you, you, there is no. If you snacking all the time is because you're not feeding yourself properly. All right, it's okay to have a snack, and they're actually needed, especially on these days that you are exercising hard, but the snack is in addition to your three meals, to your meals and getting the appropriate amount of protein in, and the snack should be something that is also nutrient, dense and protein forward, right? So you are just snacking and then you're always hungry. And then you get frustrated because it's like but I just ate something. Why am I hungry? All right, I just ate something. Why am I hungry? Let me have these snacks, let me have these cookies. Am I hungry? Let me have these snacks, Let me have these cookies.

Speaker 1:

And then number five ineffective action is that we're go to sleep super late. Okay, we go to sleep super late, haciendo yo no se que, and you hopefully have dinner by now, like that's the one meal that you have because you're not running around. But guess what? Then you need that bedtime snack. You need the bedtime snack because you haven't eaten throughout the day. Your body clearly is low on energy. Now you are super tired and instead of going to bed now, you also stay up later, and sometimes we need to. Let's be real, sometimes we have to stay up later, but other times we don't, and we're just caught up in in Ineffective sleep habits. That's another one. Like. That's another story for another day.

Speaker 1:

But if you relating it back to how your workouts are going to waste when you're not sleeping is because this is when most of the repair happens. This is when most of the healing happens. This is when your body is tending to themselves. And if we know anything about exercise, when we're exercising and part of um let's say I'll call it like the perimenopause protocol, or the exercises that are recommended when we're in perimenopause, is strength training, progressive weight overload. We are causing stress and micro tears in our muscles and they need to the space and time to heal, and most of that happens in our sleep. Okay so, but when we are sleeping, it's the time for that to happen, and we're not going to sleep, and we're not going to sleep for long enough. So sometimes we're sleeping six hours, five hours.

Speaker 1:

We're not sleeping long enough, and most of the time when we are in bed, let's say, you're like, oh no, I'm in bed for 10 hours. Well, how much of those 10 hours were actual proper rest? And how much of those 10 hours were you just in bed? Right, because it might be too long of a time too, and that also might be making you tired because you're not actually resting, you're just in bed, which are two different things. How many times are you waking up at night? How many times is your mind just ruminating? Are all these cup of coffees? Because you are not giving your body energy through food is now affecting your sleep, okay, and then here we go on this loop again. Then the lack of sleep affects your morning. Your body's stressed out, your blood sugars are all over the place. You reach for that cup of coffee. Here goes your cortisol level shooting back up again. Maybe you go get a workout or not. So all of these are.

Speaker 1:

And if your life looks like this and you are not getting results, this is exactly why, right, um and again, we don't know what we don't know. It's just that now, with what I know, I just see it so clearly and I want to shout it from the rooftops because I see so many women be so frustrated and I'm like, best friend, like if you just had some more food, you would feel better. And then, whenever I say that, the first reaction is like but that's a lot. And I'm like what you mean is a lot, you're having nothing. You're having nothing. What you mean is a lot. What you mean is a lot. It feels like a lot. It looks like a lot because we've been taught that to lose weight or to get whatever results we want with our health, you need to control your mouth, right, that's what, everything, but it's not always of uh.

Speaker 1:

The solution is not always eat less. The solution is know what to eat, when to eat, how to eat it, the quality of your food. That is the secret. That is the secret is not eat less. That is not always the solution. All right, so ineffective actions. You're working out fasted. You're not eating after you exercise within at least 30 minutes. You're not eating throughout the day, especially no protein, especially no protein. You are just snacky, snack, snack, grazing around. Our jobs is not to graze or to snack, snack, snack, and it becomes frustrating. You think it's fun, but then it's not, because you're consistently hungry and annoyed and tired and you're not even going to bed or sleeping or getting quality sleep.

Speaker 1:

So what kind of results does that lead to? What kind of results did I get? Because, y'all, I was doing all of these things. So I'm out here talking to myself Um, these, this was the results that created for me. It was increased stress on my body. You feel like you're working out and you're doing all these things and you should be stronger and you should be able to be more resilient, or something like that, and you feel that you don't. You feel like you're just dragging. Well, your body is under a lot more stress because it's not getting what it needs to properly repair. And now you are adding stress with the exercise, and a body under stress is not going to respond the way you were expecting it to respond. If you're always in fight or flight, there is no way that your body is going to release any fat or anything at all. It is under stress, so it clenches, it tightens up. It is not going to give you the results you want.

Speaker 1:

The number two result is that you're more tired during the day because you're under fueled, right, you're not eating enough. There is something called low energy availability, where you are not even meeting the amount of energy that it takes for your body just to be, for your heart to pump, for your lungs to breathe, for your blood to circulate, for your brain to think. Can you imagine your body needs so much energy to just do what it needs to do that we take for granted? To blink, to talk, to think, to write, to stand up, sit down, use the bathroom. We need energy for every single function. So we are just so tired. We feel like we need a gazillion naps and a lot of sugar and a lot of caffeine, but it's because you're not even eating boo. We need to eat protein forward always.

Speaker 1:

Then also, what happens is that the workouts are harder to complete. You're like, oh, is that the workouts are harder to complete? You're like, oh, I'm not getting stronger. This is so hard I can't breathe, I'm struggling, but I'm still showing up because you're probably under fueled and you're probably not hydrated well enough. Right, we always go to these things like sugar and caffeine, when what our body actually need is real food and hydration. You don't even know the little perk. You know if you're a coffee drinker and you drink some coffee and like that first hit of caffeine and you feel like your eyes pop open. You're like, oh, like a little perky flower. That's exactly what it feels like when you're properly hydrated. I promise you and this is actually something that happened to me recently because summertime came, I started using the sauna. Obviously, I like my coffee and that dehydrates you, and I'm going hard at the gym and I didn't even notice that I was under hydrated. My workouts felt very hard Once I caught on, because my back started cramping up and I'm like why am I getting a charley horse on my shoulder when I did nothing but lift up my arm, I'm like, oh, that's a sign of dehydration. I took care of that. Then, after that, my workouts feel so good. I feel that energy just through hydration. All right.

Speaker 1:

The fourth result that you get from ineffective actions is your soreness will be out of control. They'll be longer and stronger because you're not giving your muscles nutrients to repair. They are going to take longer to repair, so you're going to feel sore for a stronger soreness and for longer. Now there are other things that help with soreness, like active recovery, stretching, mobility, walking, yoga, recovery, stretching, mobility, walking, yoga, swimming, things like that that help with the soreness foam rolling. But one thing that is not taking it into consideration is fueling your muscles so they are not as sore when you complete your workouts, because that can be a very big deterrent when you feel like I always say like the soreness level is you need to give yourself extra time to go to the bathroom because you can't sit down in the toilet fast enough Cause you're going to pee on yourself because you're so sore.

Speaker 1:

Um, you know, you just want to manage your soreness level and not let it get so, so bad that you're like dang. I don't want to go back to the gym because this feels awful. I've been there. I used to be sore for a whole week, a whole week. It was so freaking painful I couldn't go up and down the stairs. It would wake me up when I was sleeping. It was just really rough and it was because I didn't know all of these things.

Speaker 1:

I was just starting out, I was just starting out and then the number five result is the frustration. The frustration of you putting in the money and the time and the effort and probably showing up without wanting to, and months and months go by and you don't see any results. They're the opposite of what you were expecting. You've probably gained weight. You're probably don't see any toning. Your energy is not it. You feel extra tired and it's hard to stay motivated because you're just not seeing what you want to see the results. And you feel like you're doing the right, like I'm putting quotes up, like the right thing, which you are. But now we have to complement it with proper hydration and fueling through food so that can look like you're not gaining muscle, you're not losing weight. There's just so many things that can happen. Like I mentioned, that is just not fun to see after you're putting in so much effort.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's move into the new actions. Right, like, what can you do when you're putting in all this work to exercise even when you're not exercising? Right, like, these are just good tips, you should just still be eating, and all of that. But this is for my ladies who are just like at the brim of frustration, um, frustration because things are just not working for them, and one of my current clients this was exactly. Her experience is not based on her. The podcast is more on like my own experience with all of these ineffective actions, the results and the new actions and how they actually worked for a while, but they were ineffective. As I head into perimenopause, I had to switch and be very intentional to what I'm going to share with you now to actually get the results I want.

Speaker 1:

And I have a client who's in her early forties and this was kind of her story too and she has a wonderful personal trainer. She goes two times a week, she does all of the movements and everything. She's a mom, she's a career woman and all that. And when she came to me, she was so extremely frustrated because she was actually gaining weight and and that's frustrating because, again, you're putting in all this time, work, money, all of that and I think we've been working together for a little bit over three months and she's kept up her personal training, everything. We've just worked a lot, a lot, a lot on food and fueling and making sure she's creating safety in her body food and fueling and making sure she's creating safety in her body and boom, when her personal trainer measured her, she was a whole inch down. You know how much it takes to lose a whole inch, a whole inch.

Speaker 1:

It takes a lot of work and, as a woman in your early forties, because she started aligning with these new actions that I'm going to talk about, it happened for her. She started actually seeing the results that she desired and was working so hard. For Not only that, her confidence is up. She's feeling good in her clothes, all of her communities are noticing the shift and she has this new boast or boost, or whatever you call it, of confidence where she's doing things for herself. She is feeling it and there is nothing better than that. When the confidence comes from within, you trust yourself, you're seeing the results. Confidence comes from within. You trust yourself, you're seeing the results, you're putting the work and you trust yourself enough to go after the result or the support that you need to get those results. Anyway, let's go into the new actions.

Speaker 1:

So, as I already mentioned, number one is eating before you go exercise, and it's nothing crazy, y'all. I first started and this is something that I always tell my clients and I did with myself to test and see what's going to work best for you. So when I first started eating something before my workouts, it was a slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter, and that worked for a little while. But I was like oh, I want to be even more intentional. I need to get my protein up, and there's a formula to calculate, um, approximately how much protein you will need for the day when you are actively exercising, especially strength training and all that. Dm me for it. I'm not going to mention it here, but there is something like that. So of course, I want to make sure that my pre-workouts are protein, forward a little bit of carbohydrate here and there. So at first I started with a toast with peanut butter. Then I tried my protein shake before exercise. I did not like that. I tried cottage cheese. I did not like that, as before, a pre-workout.

Speaker 1:

So what has been working really well for me it's easy, I don't feel bogged down, it sits well in my stomach is Greek yogurt with berries, so it's usually blueberries. This week it has been raspberries, but I have at least, let's say, 17 to 20 grams of protein via yogurt and I add some berries on top. Sometimes I'll add some granola. That's not full of crappy ingredients, but that has worked really well. One of my friends she does a protein shake before. I can't handle that much liquid in my belly to go work out. I can't handle that much liquid in my belly to go work out. So that doesn't quite work for me and that's okay. And my friend does the opposite. She has her protein shake first and then afterwards she'll have like yogurt or cottage cheese or something like that. But the point is to get at least I like to say, 16 to 20 grams of protein before and then after I try and meet at least 30 grams of protein. And I do that through my protein shake.

Speaker 1:

Because this is tips one and two. Here they're tag teaming. We need to bookend our workouts eating before exercise tip number one or your new actions, tip number two high protein after exercise. So what I normally do because I go to a local gym that's about 10 minutes away is I know, as soon as I step foot in my house, I'm going to be distracted. I'm going to run to the bathroom and shower like a bunch of stuff. So what I do is I take my protein powder like a bunch of stuff. So what I do is I take my protein powder and a separate water bottle with water, and as I get into my car, I put water in the protein shake and drink that on my way home.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't do any fancy shakes is not my thing. I don't like using a blender. I'm not putting extra things in there. I just find that I just rather eat real food instead of like, drink a meal. That's me personally, um, but it can be super effective for other people. So that's just the easiest thing for me Water with the powder in a cup and creatine. I do use creatine as well. It's great for muscles, it's great for the brain. Just a lot of positive benefits, especially for women in perimenopause. You might want to Google it or research it or something like that.

Speaker 1:

And I'm on my way home, and by the time I'm home, I already had about 30 grams of protein in my protein shake. I already had about 30 grams of protein in my protein shake, 16 to 20 in my yogurt, and it doesn't mean I necessarily skip breakfast, but they're all lighter meals so I might. When I come home, I'll shower and I'll prep some things and then I'll have something light to eat as well. Usually three eggs, which is not a big serving of protein. People hear three eggs and they're like, oh my God, but three eggs is just 18 grams of protein, that's it. It's not even hitting 20 grams and obviously I'm not going to eat like five eggs. So I usually have something else on the side or in it, like, let's say, pieces of sausage on the side or pieces of deli meat or whatever in my eggs to boost up the protein and something on the side. So we want to start building this, but because I've already sprinkled protein throughout, I've already sprinkled protein throughout.

Speaker 1:

Sure, I might need to meet a protein goal for myself by the end of the day, but I am introducing them throughout my day, in the morning, little by little right, little by little throughout the day, and I cannot tell you how big of a difference that makes in the way you feel, in the way that you start to see your muscles developing, in the way that you start to get stronger, in the way that you start losing fat hopefully like getting that definition that you want and really protecting that body composition, your distribution of fat, because sometimes what happens in perimenopause is not necessarily that you're gaining or losing weight, but the distribution of fat starts to shift because our hormones are shifting and then we start to see more belly fat. Like that's what we don't want, right? At least I don't want that. That was one of the reasons why I started getting curious and making changes. I'm like where is all this belly fat coming from? Like no, we need to do something about it. And again, it wasn't drastic. Everything was, like, backed up by science and things that I know work, but we have to stay consistent and diligent around these things.

Speaker 1:

Tip number three is we need to eat more. In general, we need to eat If you just ate more of appropriate things, right, not just anything. Good quality, high protein meals with and reducing the snacking. Like I said, sometimes we do need the snack, depending on how hard we worked out that day or what we're doing physically, um, but the point is to at least have your three balanced meals a day and by that I mean your meal including 30 to 40 grams of protein on your plate, accompanied by a really good, complex, carbohydrate vegetables and some fat right, and I'll give you an example. Let's get a good Caribbean food example. So let's say you have pollo guisado stewed chicken approximately ish 30 to 40 grams. With meat you get to have smaller amounts and the protein count is higher. So let's say you have some stewed chicken, you have more added proteins.

Speaker 1:

With the beans. Let's say you're doing rice and beans, so you have some of the rice. I usually enjoy brown rice, just because it's a little bit higher in fiber, but you can choose right. So the beans have protein inside. They're also have carbohydrates inside. The rice is a carbohydrate. If you're adding maduros to your plate, just know that that also counts as a carbohydrate. I love maduros, so sometimes I'll do some rice and maduros because I also want to be mindful of how much carbohydrates I'm intaking at once. But we're making a balance, so it's all good.

Speaker 1:

And then I like to add some vegetable to that and this is where it gets like a little bit out of what we traditionally see, because usually we see the salad as a garnish or a vegetable, as like we're gonna skip that. But this is what you don't want to skip so often. If I'm having, let's say, stew chicken pollo guisado with rice and beans, I'll have a serving of broccoli or a serving of, let's say what chicken pollo guisado with rice and beans. I'll have a serving of broccoli or a serving of, let's say what's my other one favorite one green beans. I love green beans. Or a nice portion of salad, not just the garnish. Um, or it can be something super simple, like avocado with tomatoes and cucumber and some onions, or something like this.

Speaker 1:

So, as you can see, we're adding to it. And if you're the type of person that adds a good amount of peppers and onions and other veggies to your stew chicken, there you go. Right, that's what I'm talking about a meal. So you want to have at least your three meals. Or if you're working out and you're bookending your exercises with smaller meals and protein, but you still want to have your other meals throughout the day as well, okay, eating more does not mean you gain weight. The math don't math right. It depends what you're eating. It really, really, really depends what you're eating. It really, really, really depends what you're eating, how you're eating, when you're eating.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the fifth action or no? The fourth new action that I started taking and I also coach my clients on, is the sleep hygiene. As I mentioned at first. It's so important to have quality sleep and to have enough sleep so that our bodies can repair, and sometimes it's really hard to create these sleep routines and I know it's hard for me because I'd be the first one breaking those rules. I'd be the first one scrolling through my phone without my blue glasses on or doing some sort of thing that I'm not supposed to be doing. But at least I know I'm doing that Right and I try my best to course correct often and to, let's say, get some sunlight into my eyes or dim the lights in my home. I always try and do something and go to bed at a decent time for me, especially depending on balancing when I need to wake up, right, like maybe I'll stay up a little later, but it's because I'm waking up a little later. But we also don't want to shift the bedtimes and the wake times too too much, because it messes with our circadian rhythm, right, our sleep weight cycles, and that also has huge impacts on our hormones. And when it comes to exercise, we want to make sure that we have good sleep hygiene because we want to give our body the space and the time that it needs to repair, to repair All right. And then the fifth action that I had to take to get the actual results that I wanted and making sure my exercise were effective. It was managing my mind right. My exercise were effective. It was managing my mind right, managing my mind on I need to eat more, because I definitely had to increase how much I was eating and I need to get y'all.

Speaker 1:

I need to get close to 200 grams of protein a day to maintain my beautiful body and muscles, to maintain my beautiful body and muscles. Okay, and that can feel hard sometimes because that's a lot of freaking protein to get in and, depending on my day and how busy it is, then I'm eating less or I'm not eating complete meals. Something like that, like today, is one of those days for me where it's just less protein. But I try. You know, what you don't wanna do is try and make up all this protein at nighttime. So this is why it's important to eat throughout the day, because, also, if you're eating super late in the day, number one your your hormones are hella dysregulated. Throughout the day, you're hungry, you're cranky, you're probably not being able to focus well, so you definitely don't want to do that and protein takes a while to digest. So if you're eating super late at night and you're eating high protein on top of that very close to bedtime, then it's going to be harder to sleep and to stay asleep and to sleep well, because your body's trying to sleep and it's over here working, trying to digest all this food that you just put in there, right? So that's another thing not being like minding your mind about not eating more, about why you need to go to bed earlier, or build a routine around that. Minding your mind around frustration right, because sometimes we might get frustrated.

Speaker 1:

We've been trying to do certain things for a good amount of time and when you start doing these actions, like these new actions, I feel like almost it's starting over, because you're using this new strategy, you're giving your body different input. So also is like being patient. This is a long-term game, trust me. This is for myself, too. This is a long, longer term, long-term game. I just find that it's a forever thing because I always want to protect my body. I always want to make sure that I am keeping an encouraging lean muscle mass, that my joints are strong, that my tendons and my ligaments are all strong and, due to perimenopause and then postmenopause, all of those things start to suffer with the shifts in our hormones. So it's so important. This is why these new actions are so important, because they give your body the external input that it needs and push to create these results that you want.

Speaker 1:

That probably came easier before a certain age, or you thought that was the result that you wanted. Like me, I'm like I lost 50 pounds, great. But when now looking back, I'm like, oh man, but I wasn't even really building my muscles, I wasn't even really strengthening them. How much more ahead or well could I have been now if I had known that in my early thirties when I started my journey? So I'm not beating myself up because of it, because I don't know what I didn't know. I'm just glad that when I found out, I applied. When I found out, I took action. And our bodies are very resilient. They are very open to change, as long as we give it the input that it needs to create the change that you want. Okay, that is about it. So I hope this was helpful in the way that you won't throw your workouts out the window anymore. You will put them to good use by actually providing your body what it needs.

Speaker 1:

Work, exercise and food go hand in hand. Do not pin them against each other, do not make them frenemies. They give each other a hand. It's important to understand both sides and it's important to understand how they work together. Okay, it is so important. So, if you find yourself just stuck in these ineffective actions and you have so much mind drama about eating you don't know what to eat you want to really align your lifestyle and your food and your exercise and your mind to one that it's aligned with where you are in your season of your life right now.

Speaker 1:

Right Like, solving those frustrations, solving for being in perimenopause years or heading towards there, because you can really start to do this at any age and it'll be super effective for you. Like, we want to start paying attention to these things. So just know that you can really, really, really like not be frustrated as much as you are right now when you start to implement these actions and if you need support in that area, right Like? Trust me, I've had so much support, either by buying certifications and courses that I teach on forward and I'm sharing information right now, or in I hired my personal trainer. I have my friend who's an athlete, and another health coach. Like I haven't also realized or done all these changes on my own. I've also had to overcome my mind and my resistance to taking different actions and using new tools to help me get the results that I want and give my body what it needs so that it is safe, it is strong, it is well. As I age, I've also needed the support right.

Speaker 1:

So, if you find that you need that support not only the support for creating this lifestyle, but one that is more culturally aligned for you, right Like, can you eat what you like? Yes, ma'am Then I invite you to book a consultation call. Let's get on the phone, not the phone Zoom. Let's get on, zoom. Let's discuss what your ineffective actions are, let's discuss what your challenges have been and where you want to be, and let's create this plan for you. Let's create this lifestyle rooted in wellness, where you get to heal, where you get to tend to your hormones through food and lifestyle. All right, I'll leave you with that no more ineffective workouts, no more throwing all your hard work away. Let's get to eating. That's my favorite part, isn't it yours? Talk to y'all next week. Bye.