Episode 159: Everything You Need to Know About Cardio in Menopause

There's a lot of fear mongering out there when it comes to cardio in menopause. 

Here's the truth: what's helpful, what's harmful, and how to maximize your workouts.

If you prefer video, you can watch these podcast episodes on YouTube as well: https://www.youtube.com/@mindstrongfitness2541

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong: 159: What You Need to Know About Cardio in Menopause

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Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of mind strong, where we have been helping Peri and postmenopausal women not just lose weight, not just heal their metabolism, but have what I call the keys to the kingdom, the tools to do this for life, meaning, on the other side of this, you don't need me or anyone else, because you have been educated and you are in the driver's seat of your health. That is what we're here to do. I did an earlier podcast episode about what is the best workout in menopause, and I want to niche that down a little bit today and talk specifically about cardio in menopause. Cardio is one of those things on social media that there's a lot of fear mongering. I've had people come up to me and be like, Rachel, I'm afraid to walk my dog at this point, because everyone's telling me, Don't do cardio in menopause. Is there truth to that? So today, we're going to dive into all things you need to know about cardio in menopause. Check it out. You

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Rachel,

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welcome to the becoming mind strong podcast, the official podcast of mind strong fitness. My name is Rachel, and I'm the CEO of mind strong and we are here for two things. We're here for hope in a stage of life where it feels like we are doing everything right, and nothing is working. I am here to tell you you are not broken. This is fixable, and I promise there is hope. And number two, we are here for truth in an industry that is designed to keep us confused with shake systems and point systems and frozen meals. I promise you it doesn't have to be that difficult. Someone can teach you the skill of riding a bike, someone can teach you the skill of knitting, and I can teach you to master the skill of nutrition. So are you ready? Let's rock and roll. You

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as mentioned in the intro, I just see so much fear mongering online when it comes to the topic of cardio in a menopausal body, it is a true statement that I've had women come to me like, can I go for an after dinner walk with my spouse? Can I take my dog for a walk? Because everything I'm seeing on social media says, Don't do cardio. So so today I want to clear the air. I want to dive deep into what we I don't even like the word should or shouldn't. What's the most benefit for us when it comes to cardio and what would benefit benefit us to watch out for? If you've listened to past episodes, specifically the one called What's the best workout in menopause, you know that it is a capital T truth that the most bang for your buck, this is true of any human being. The most bang for your buck is weight training over cardio that truth becomes tenfold in a menopausal body. So I'm going to do a quick recap. Not going to get too deep in the weeds, because there's past episodes on it, and it's an important frame for this conversation.

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When it comes to our metabolism, it is a rule of human biology that the more muscle mass on our body, the faster our metabolism runs. What's the most efficient way to build muscle mass, weight training, specifically pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do, which we call progressive overload. So when it comes to the most bang for your buck. It is true of every human that weight training, specifically progressive overload, pushing your muscle to what they can't yet do, is going to be the most bang for your buck over cardio. In addition, the reason that's tenfold in menopause. Menopause is a time of life where we naturally lose both bone density and lean muscle mass at a pretty alarming rate. So the two best ways to counteract that are, number one, nutrition, that is an absolute capital M must, and progressive overload. Weight training, pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do. All that said, that's the most bang for your buck, right when it comes to our metabolisms. What that does not mean is that cardio is bad for you. Cardio is great for us. Cardio is great for our lungs. Cardio is great for our heart. It can burn some calories. If we're looking to burn calories, the thing we need to be cautious of is this real quickly before we keep going in this episode, we are talking a lot about metabolisms in menopause in today's episode. So I want to offer you a chance to deepen your knowledge. If you haven't yet checked out my free workshop, how to fire up your metabolism in menopause and beyond. It is one of my go to favorite pieces of content that I have out here in the interwebs. You can use the link in the show notes below, or go to mind strong fitness.com and you'll get a cute little pop up that'll get you straight into the workshop. Now let's get back to the show. Menopause is a time of life where one of the big themes of menopause is that our estrogen naturally drops with that one of estrogens main roles in the body is to control cortisol. So it is a truth of a menopausal body that as our estrogen drops, our cortisol.

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Naturally spikes. So one of the big names of the game in menopause is, how do I control my cortisol? There's lots of ways to control cortisol, right? Deep breathing, putting our feet in the grass, meditation, fueling our body correctly, which is why I harp so much on nutrition, gratitude practices and doing high intensity cardio in a menopausal body that's not being fueled properly is driving those cortisol levels higher and higher. And here's where this conversation kind of splits into two. If you're someone who's not under eating, and I'm going to, I'm going to go down the rabbit hole in a second here, but let's say for ease of conversation, you're someone who comes to us. We have every woman that we ever work with ever will start the same way eat as you normally. Pop your food into a nap for five days. Do not use their goals. We emphasize that we just want to see average 30,000 foot bird's eye view in a typical week of eating. What does that look like if we see, I'm just going to throw out arbitrary numbers that you're eating 3000 calories a day and not and not losing weight, you don't need what we call a healing stage. I have lots of past episodes on a healing stage. Well, we're about to talk about it right now, but for ease of conversation, if you're eating more calories than your body needs right now, you can go do HIIT workouts, you can do boot camps, you can do these higher intensity cardio workouts, and still going to spike some cortisol. But I'm not as worried about it, because your body is at least fueled. In this case, you're eating more calories in your body needs so it's got gas in the tank. It is true that progressive overload weight training is still the most bang for your buck, but I'm not as worried about high cortisol levels if you're fueling your body correctly, where we need to really be cautious. And this is why I said the conversation split into two, is if you fall into the other quote, unquote category. Again, if you've listened to this podcast, I talk about what we call healing stage, quite a bit. About 80 to 90% of the women that we work with, in mind strong and we only work with Perry and post menopause. We've been doing this almost a decade. We have seen 1000s of them. About 80 to 90% of the menopausal women we work with, they are not overeating. They are not eating more calories in their body needs. They're actually under eating. They're coming to us at 1000 calories a day, 1200 calories a day. I've seen as low as 500 calories a day, in which case they need what we call a healing stage, tons of episodes, including a five part series on that in past episodes,

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with that said, Here's my favorite analogy. It's super cheesy, but it's the most accurate I have. Okay, let's say I go out and probably heard me use this before. It's my favorite. I go out and buy this big, fancy sports car, and I'm all excited to slam on the gas and make that scary engine noise that dudes love to make for some reason. So I slam on the gas but there's no gas in the car. Do we think I'm putting more or less stress on the car by slamming on a gas pedal with no gas in the car.

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Calories, cheesy as it sounds, are literally our body's fuel. So if we're already under fueling our body, that means that our cortisol levels are already naturally spiked. And remember, we're already living in a menopausal body where they're already naturally spiked. So under fueling our body is a sure fire way to spike those cortisol levels even higher. Now on top of that, so we've got high cortisol levels because our estrogen has dropped. We've got higher cortisol levels because we're under fueling our body. Now on top of that, if we go and add in boot camps, CrossFit high intensity workouts, marathon training in an under fueled body, just like that cheesy sports car analogy, are we adding more or less stress to your body? That does not mean don't do cardio. I'm going to I'm going to add a little caveat to this in a second. So let me pause here and do some bullet points. Number one, it is true of every human, especially in menopause, that progressive overload weight training, pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do that is the most bang for your buck. Number two, if you are not fuel, if you are fueling your body correctly, if you're eating enough calories, enough grams of carbs, fat, protein for your body, I'm not as worried about what kind of cardio you're doing. Number three, if you are under eating as most of the menopausal women we work with are, then I become more concerned about what kind of cardio you're doing. Blanket statement for everyone, go for a walk, walk your dog. It's actually great for your body to go for a 10 minute walk after dinner. It helps with blood sugar and if you're under eating. We want to be cautious of these high intensity workouts. Now here's the caveat. I'm going to tell a story that I talk a lot about. So if you've heard it before, here it is again. Back in the day when mind strong was a one woman show, I had an Ignite member who, when I say she was a marathon runner, this lady used to run like 10 to 12 marathons a day, or a day, that would be insane a year, 10 to 12 marathons a year.

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If there's someone out there running that a day, they got some good time management. When this lady came to me, and I had her do whatever single woman does, right, easy, normally, track your food for five days, she was eating about 600 calories a day, and my jaw was on the floor. I was like, what a testament to the human body, because you are running that many marathons a year, not a day, and you are under eating to that level. The fact that your body is still surviving, that you're still standing up, that is what a testament to our body strength. What I was not going to do is tell her, you have to stop marathon running, right? Anyone who's a runner knows that is, that is your mental health. For her, that was her self identity, and that would be awful for her. If I was like, Look, until we got enough calories in you, you got to stop running. So we had a conversation about it. I told her, honestly, yeah, like your cortisol levels are through the roof with what you're doing your body right now, and let's start fixing it. I'm not going to ask you to stop let's start getting your nutrition in check. And my favorite part of the story is the way that some runners will shave off like five seconds, 15 seconds of their run. She was shaving off like five minutes, 10 minutes, 12 minutes. Because crazy. What happens when you start fueling your body correctly? So I share that story to say if you are someone who enjoys you've been going to CrossFit for years, you have a boot camp community that you love, you're a marathon runner, and you suspect you're under eating. You don't need to stop what you're doing. Right? Everything in life, we talk about this a lot here has light with the dark, so we can say, Okay, I know this isn't the best thing for my cortisol levels, and I need it for my mental health, so I'm not going to stop what I'm doing, and I'm going to focus on getting my nutrition in check, and lo and behold, you're going to feel incredible because you're you're putting gas in the car, so to speak. So yes, it is true that high intensity

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cardio can raise cortisol levels, and that doesn't mean you have to stop. If you are someone who's doing that, and you're willing to transition to weight training is going to be the most bang for your buck, because the more muscle we have in our body, the faster our metabolism runs. Walk your dog, go for an after dinner, walk with your spouse, if that's something that feels good for you. Again, everything in life, I believe it comes down to balancing the light with the dark and flowing with our personal lifestyle. I'm never going to tell someone you have to do this. You can't do this. It's let's look at the biology of what's going on, and let's make informed decisions for what works for you and your personal body.

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For more information on mind strong fitness, or to apply for a free one to one strategy session with my incredible all female team. Visit www, dot mindstrong fitness.com, you.

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