When you’re a woman who starts entering menopause, you also start experiencing a load of symptoms you might not be used to, and suddenly, figuring out what habits work best for your body seems impossible.
Women over a certain age know how frustrating it can be to feel like you don’t know your body anymore, after years of developing eating, movement, and self-care habits. However, instead of getting discouraged, it’s best to learn from professionals who know what it takes to stay fit, happy, and healthy, as your body goes through some significant changes. Dr. Stacy Sims, a menopause expert, was a guest on a famous podcast and shared the one exercise she believes “isn’t enough” for women going through it. Read more about what she had to say below.
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Dr. Stacy Sims Shares The One Workout That Isn't 'Enough' For Women Over 40
When women reach the age of 40 and above, they often have to relearn how to take the best care of themselves, given there's so much happening with their bodies and so many changes to be made.
One of the most challenging parts is figuring out the best ways to exercise, as you might find that certain routines and movements that used to work for you don't work anymore. Many health experts have found that this is the age when it's best to re-evaluate your workout routines, considering how much your body is adjusting and how certain internal functions, like your metabolism, change.
Dr. Stacy Sims was recently a guest on the Mel Robbins Podcast, where they talked about self-care over 40, and she expressed how it's not a great idea for women at a certain age to only do this form of exercise - cardio.
"The women who are 40 plus who are doing cardio for the most part, they're going to be what we call skinny fat," she explains in a viral clip from the podcast. "So that means that they're not going to have a lot of quality muscle. There's going to be a lot of fatty tissue within the muscle, and their bones are going to be like chalk."
Dr. Sims expresses how important it is to consider how your body is aging and what it needs before just rushing to do cardio, hoping it's going to keep you slim and strong. If you want to be as healthy as possible and keep your mobility and strength up as you age, as she says, you "need" to do some strength-training.
What Exercise Women Over 40 Should Do Instead
Instead of feeling like there's some super high-intensity workout and diet plan women over 40 should be following, Dr. Sims emphasizes that "small steps" and adjustments make the biggest difference. For one, she always encourages filling your diet with nutritious, wholesome, clean foods and always eating a bit before a workout.
Then, she encourages women to incorporate strength-training into their routines, not too intensely, but just enough to strengthen parts of their bodies that may be weakening with age.
"Let's look at how we are dosing our exercise, what kinds of intensities, let's bring in some strength training, 'cause all of those are going to feed forward to having our lean mass, having really strong bones, having really good neuroplasticity," she says. "So that means how your brain changes in a positive way, so as we age, we don't get dementia. These are all the things that I would rather women focus on."
