Are you aware that the health challenges women face after 40 can significantly impact your vitality and well-being? In this enlightening episode of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast, I dive deep into the unique health challenges women encounter as they navigate hormonal changes and declining estrogen levels. With a focus on nutrition for women, I share essential insights on how these shifts affect metabolism and energy levels, particularly for women over 35.
Are you aware that the health challenges women face after 40 can significantly impact your vitality and well-being? In this enlightening episode of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast, I dive deep into the unique health challenges women encounter as they navigate hormonal changes and declining estrogen levels. With a focus on nutrition for women, I share essential insights on how these shifts affect metabolism and energy levels, particularly for women over 35.
Having faced my own sudden health issues, I understand the common struggles many women experience, including food intolerances and anxiety. I want to empower you to take control of your health through smart nutrition. Discover three key strategies that can transform your approach to eating: pairing protein with carbohydrates, incorporating healthy fats and fiber, and maintaining regular eating intervals. This is not just about nutrition for women; it's about creating a sustainable lifestyle that supports your body’s evolving needs.
As we age, adjusting our dietary habits becomes crucial. I encourage you to observe how different foods affect your body, especially during this transformative phase. Starting with the elimination of common irritants like dairy and wheat can pave the way for better overall well-being. Let’s explore how clean eating tips can enhance your mental health and fitness motivation, and how understanding how to eat for muscle can help you preserve lean muscle mass.
Join me as I highlight the importance of a balanced macronutrient intake and how it can support your journey towards strong over 40. Whether you’re looking for workout tips, menopause workouts, or insights on pcos and fitness, this episode is packed with valuable information tailored for midlife women health. Together, we can navigate these changes and discover how to track macros effectively for optimal health after 50.
Remember, you are not alone in this journey. With the right knowledge and support, you can achieve improved health and vitality. Tune in to find out how to cultivate a lifestyle that not only enhances your physical strength but also uplifts your spirit. Let’s embark on this journey towards wellness together!
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00:00:00.520 — 00:00:49.320 · Speaker 1
If you've ever wondered why your old diet tricks don't seem to work anymore, or you've been blindsided by strange health issues like allergies, digestive issues, or mood changes, you're going to find this episode illuminating after 40. It is a whole new world. Estrogen declines, muscle mass naturally dips, and your metabolism doesn't play by the same rules.
But here's the truth smart nutrition can be your greatest tool to stabilize blood sugar, preserve muscle, and keep you in control of your energy and body composition. In this episode, I'm sharing the strategies that I've used with thousands of women to help them eat in a way that supports their holistic health and vitality.
So keep listening.
00:00:56.800 — 00:02:35.410 · Speaker 1
Hello and welcome if you're new, I'm Holly Perkins. I'm so glad that you're here. I will help you improve your body composition to at least 70% lean mass. Why you ask? Because that is the marker where you reduce your risk of disease. Your muscle starts to influence your metabolism more, and body fat levels start to declining.
This is where you become strong and lean and create the body that you need to stay in the game of life and out of the rocking chair. Recently I was looking at my downloads report for this podcast, and there were a few episodes that jumped off the page because they have been downloaded way more than others. Clearly, these are the episodes that really resonated with listeners, and I wanted to make sure that you heard these episodes too.
So today, this episode is the third most downloaded episode of all time, and to no surprise, because so many women in midlife. Start noticing new and weird health issues that really can be very confusing. There is so much truth in the old saying you are what you eat. I truly believe that how and what you eat influences nearly every biological function, and frankly, it influences your entire experience of life.
If you suspect that your nutrition needs an upgrade and you want a holistic approach, you're going to want to hear this episode. And I hope you love this one as much as the rest of the world does.
00:02:40.970 — 00:15:26.080 · Speaker 1
Hello and thank you for being here. If you are new, welcome. I'm Holly Perkins and I help women, mostly over 40, to improve body composition to at least 70% lean muscles so that you can reduce your risk of disease and stay in the game of life and out of the rocking chair in the years ahead and look great while you're doing it.
And I've been in practice now for over 30 years, and one of my favorite things about what I do is hearing the stories of the women who reach out to me for coaching. And while each person really is truly unique, I do see recurring themes in terms of the struggles and the health issues that women are battling today, and more specifically, those issues that they bring to me.
One of the most interesting to me, anyway, is when a woman comes to me and she was going along just fine in her life, not having any major issues and feeling pretty good for the most part. And then one day, out of nowhere, she gets blindsided by a big hurdle, a big health issue. Something like IBS or Crohn's, severe allergies, anxiety, or even crippling fatigue.
She tells me that she's never had these issues before, so she doesn't understand why. Quote unquote. All of a sudden, she can no longer tolerate dairy, grains, alcohol, or even coffee. And I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard this type of story, because it's that common. But no one's talking about it.
In fact, the same thing happened to me at the age of 44, when I was the peak of health and fitness. I came home from the gym one day. It was a Tuesday, around 1110 in the morning, and literally fell to the floor with an anxiety attack that lasted for hours. And this wasn't just the worries of the world. This was a hard core out of nowhere.
Biological earthquake. Keep in mind. Up until then, I had never had a single day of anxiety in my life. In fact, I tend to be the opposite type of personality. Historically, I was more prone to sadness and depression, not anxiety. And I've shared this story in other episodes, so I'm not going to belabor it here.
But my point is to say, if you're a woman over 40 and you're noticing strange symptoms that are new that came out of nowhere, this episode is for you because I'm going to share the smart nutrition strategies that have worked for me and my clients. In this episode, you'll learn three things to look at when you're wanting to experiment with new nutrition strategies so that you can feel better.
An approach to regulating blood sugar that makes things super easy. My simple protocol for what to eat to keep blood sugar stable, and how to mix and match your go to foods so that you can get what I call the minimum effective dose of key macronutrients. If already. You can relate in any way, please know two things.
Number one, your body is not the same is the one that you have lived in for all of the years up until now. The hormonal shifts that happen in midlife are an earthquake to your biology. Some women suffer more than others, but we all have to navigate these waters. And number two, this does not mean that you are in a new reality that's going to continue for the rest of your life.
It simply means that you must adopt new habits to support this new biological environment. I promise you can find your way through to feeling better. And how surprised would you be if you discovered that you could actually have more energy, less hunger, and fewer cravings alongside a reduction in any of those uncomfortable health issues that you might be struggling with, I believe those habits that you thought were working for you in your 20s and 30s actually weren't at the time.
It's just that you were getting along fine because you had more estrogen and therefore less inflammation. What I'm going to share today really is a protocol that I think all humans really should have been following all along. So I'm going to share some of the overarching themes from my nutrition methodology that has worked miracles for the thousands of women who have worked with me.
But keep in mind, I can't fix all of your problems through a public platform like this, because there are just too many variables in each woman's life. And this is why I offer coaching programs like the Body Composition Project, so that we can actually work together to refine your nutrition and habits.
That being said, if you do nothing else, then apply what I'm about to share today. I can nearly guarantee that you will feel better. You'll have more energy, you'll release inflammation, and you'll experience less hunger and fewer cravings. Maybe even eliminate them. The first mistake I want to address is thinking that some foods are good and some foods are bad, and this might surprise you.
Now listen, I'm not saying that drugstore candy is good or that dairy is overtly bad. In fact, I'm actually saying that when we're talking about the foods made by the goddess Mother Nature herself, no foods are good or bad. If they were, they would be toxic and we wouldn't be able to eat them because they would kill us.
Instead, I encourage you to look at them from an objective perspective on their Qualities. So, for example, I personally don't believe that maple sirup is bad. And when I say maple sirup, I'm basically referring to a simple sugar. Now it's not table sugar. It does have a little bit more nutritional value, but there are people out there that will say all sugar is terrible, I don't agree.
I also don't agree that raw vegetables are definitely good. I don't believe that at all. I also don't believe that more protein is the answer to all of your problems, or that carbs are causing you to gain or lose weight. Instead, I encourage a reframe when you consider all of the amazing foods created by our beautiful Earth.
Start to think of them in categories. You've got the obvious categories like fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat, etc. but I want you to take it a step further and start to learn where your go to foods fall in terms of the three macronutrients carbohydrates, protein, and fats. Those are the macronutrients in all foods that we eat that contribute calories in our diet.
Some foods are 100% carbohydrates, like maple sirup or berries, and some are 100% fat like olive oil or butter. Then many foods have two or all three of the macronutrients in them. Nuts is a great example. Nuts have protein, fat, and carbohydrates, each in different amounts. And you might have thought that nuts are a protein.
Or you may think nuts are a fat. The truth is, they have all three macronutrients. Now, every food has one dominant macronutrient. Even nuts. Because while they do have protein and carbs. I know that might be surprising to you. They actually have way more fat caloric compared to protein. So nuts are categorized as a fat even though they are a source of protein.
I'll talk about eating according to macros in a minute so that you can better understand it. But here, I want you to first learn the different categorizations of your go to foods. And of course, I can't go through that exhaustive list here. Maybe on a future episode, but I'm going to task you with looking at your go to foods and saying, is that a protein?
Or wait, is that a carbohydrate or a fat? Start with just the foods that you eat on a regular basis, and of those, which ones are predominantly protein and which ones? Let's say like avocados are predominantly fat, then the fastest way to feel better, have more energy, reduce hunger, and eliminate cravings is to start eating for blood sugar regulation.
This is a common theme in my podcast episodes because it is, hands down one of the most important factors in your overall health, and it should be top priority if you want to feel well and actually be healthy. I will argue that you can't actually be holistically healthy if your blood sugar is dysregulated, and we know this is what leads to insulin resistance, which is when your body cells don't respond properly to insulin, the hormone that helps move glucose, which is the sugar or the carbohydrates from the foods that you eat from your bloodstream into your cells for energy or storage.
So to compensate, your pancreas makes more insulin, which can keep your blood sugar normal for a while, but over time, this system gets strained and it's what leads to diabetes. And don't be thinking it'll never happen to you. Because according to the Ada, 1.4 million Americans get a new diabetes diagnosis each year.
Blood sugar regulation is one of the body's most fundamental survival systems. Every cell in your body needs a steady supply of glucose, but too much or too little can cause immediate problems and long term damage. When it comes to eating for blood sugar regulation, there are basically three key components that you want to be aware of when you get started.
First, and I believe most importantly, is getting into the habit of pairing your protein with carbohydrates every single time that you eat. If you avoid eating protein by itself or carbs by themselves, you will immediately improve your glucose control and improve blood sugar levels. Second. Fat and fiber are helpful because they slow down digestion so as to reduce the blood sugar spike after eating.
Once you get into the habit of pairing protein and carbs, then you can really start to look at ways to incorporate more fiber and the right amount of fat. I'll talk about this more in a minute. And the third thing is eating every 4 to 5 hours religiously. Except, of course, when you're sleeping, if you go longer than five hours between a meal or a snack.
Your blood sugar is going to drop out, and this causes a biological cascade of trouble because your brain is a glucose hog, and it must have its fuel glucose to keep all of your organs operating optimally. The more active you are, this window narrows to 3 to 4 hours in the leaner you are. It narrows even further depending on meal size.
Some of my clients have to eat every three hours to the minute. The smartest thing you can do for holistic health is to get your blood sugar regulated. You'll feel better, and it allows your body to burn fat more efficiently and consistently. So if one of your goals is to become more muscle and less fat and improve your body composition.
This is a super easy way to start burning fat better. Up next, you'll hear more about eating according to macros and how food intolerances could be at play in your health symptoms. But first, I want to share this
00:15:27.200 — 00:17:27.260 · Speaker 1
a high quality, clean protein powder is a great way to ensure that your body gets the building blocks that it needs to regulate blood sugar, build and repair muscle, and eliminate cravings. So I want to tell you about my ride or die equip Prime Protein. What I love about equip is that it's made from grass fed beef protein, and it contains minimal ingredients so that it's easy to digest and doesn't leave me feeling bloated the way that some other protein powders do.
After years of using whey and collagen powders, I gave up. There's some super interesting things about equip prime proteins. Amino acid profile number one. It's technically a complete protein. Equip is made from grass fed beef protein isolate, not pure collagen. And it contains all nine essential amino acids, including tryptophan and cysteine, which are missing or nearly absent from traditional collagen peptides.
This means that it can support muscle protein synthesis in a way that collagen alone can't. It's not the same mistake or way, but it has nearly the same protein as a four ounce filet compared with whey protein equipped contains more glycine, more proline, and two grams of leucine, which is the on switch for muscle protein synthesis.
Equip is a clinically proven, gut friendly alternative to whey prime protein went head to head against whey in a double blind, randomized controlled trial, and after 30 days, users reported 43% less gas and bloating and 39% less belly pain. In my opinion, equip is way better than way and that is why it is my ride or die.
And you can get an exclusive discount at Equip Foods.
00:17:29.700 — 00:17:36.420 · Speaker 1
Go now to take advantage of this because who knows how long this discount will be around equip foods.
00:17:40.220 — 00:28:45.120 · Speaker 1
When it comes to smart nutrition for holistic health, especially for women over 40. The next thing to understand is the power of combining your foods specifically to achieve macronutrient balance each day. It's a mistake to think that it's enough to just eat healthy food items throughout the day. If you're not also keeping an eye on the amount of carbohydrates, protein, and fat that you're getting.
My most successful clients get the best results when they get their blood sugar regulated by strategically pairing their go to foods so that they end the day with a 50 2525 distribution of macros. Now, if this is a new language for you, let me simplify it. Eating according to macros means that you mix and match your food items and serving sizes throughout the day so that you get a specific amount of carbohydrates, protein, and fat.
By the end of the day, it's strategic eating. This might mean that you combine some chicken, which is a protein, with some sweet potatoes, which is a carbohydrate drizzled with olive oil, which is a fat. You strategically adjust the serving sizes for each of those foods so that you achieve a specific numerical target, which is based on the total calories of that meal or snack, or your total daily calories at the end of the day.
Eating according to macros is the easiest, most effective way to improve your health. If you're a woman over 40 and I believe when my book comes out next year, it's going to be the dietary wave of the future. And here is why. When you choose your foods so that you end the day between 40 and 50% of your day's total calories coming from carbohydrates and 25 to 30% of your day's total calories coming from protein and fats.
You, number one, are easily able to get what I call the minimum effective dose for each macronutrient. Provided you're eating sufficient calories for your current energy needs. There's a minimum amount of protein you need in the day, but that also applies to carbohydrates and fat. There's also an upper limit to each of those things.
So it's important to be in this window and in this day and age of protein, protein, protein and carbs are bad. It's quite possible that you are eating the right foods. We just need to adjust the serving sizes and the pairing. Second, when you eat according to macros, you automatically improve blood sugar regulation because you're combining protein, fat, and carbohydrates every time you eat.
When you eat, according to macros, you're also able to eat in the least restrictive way. That's also sustainable and realistic for most people's lives, because it allows you to pick and choose the foods that you prefer, and it really opens up a lot of variety. It also brings balance, because you'll be forced to search out more variety and more food items, and you're actually able to eat some of your favorite treats and indulgences because you'll be incorporating them in a way that's less destructive.
A great example here is alcohol. Having alcohol on an empty stomach is a real problem, but when you pair it, which is a carbohydrate with protein, it makes it a little bit better. And if this is a language that you're already talking, I usually start my clients off with a 50, 25, 25 distribution by the end of the day.
And if you're new to this conversation, here's how you can do it. Start with a diet tracking app so that you can enter what you eat in a normal day. You don't have to make any changes. Just start entering the food items and a close estimate of the serving sizes that you normally eat at the end of the day. Navigate to the Macronutrient Distribution in your tracking app and see where your normal day of food lands the next day.
Simply adjust the food items or serving sizes so that you eventually land at 50, 25, 25 by the end of the day. And oh, by the way, that is a target. I generally say or like my clients to. Somewhere between 40 and 50% carbohydrates by the end of the day. This is not a hard and fast rule. It's really just a target and there is definitely lots of wiggle room.
Once you've got that down, the trick then is start to improve the quality of the foods that help you to achieve that distribution, and then make some adjustments so that you can hit 50, 25, 25 at each meal and snack throughout the day. The last piece of the puzzle in my approach to smart nutrition for holistic health and improved body composition, is observing how the specific foods that you're eating make you feel and reducing or eliminating those that don't work well for your body right now.
This is a big topic, and it's a little tricky, especially in a public forum like this. And at times it's caused some raised eyebrows. And let me tell you, it also works miracles in midlife as all of your hormones shift, there is a related shift in your digestive system your gut. As estrogen decreases, we generally see an increase in inflammation, and inflammation pretty much always starts in your gut, so it's helpful to address any food intolerances that you might have, even if you're unaware of it at this time.
Even if you've never had issues before. In short, some foods do cause more irritation to the gut lining, even if they've never bothered you in the past. This is just one of those wonderful side effects of getting older. The body does change, and you can and often do develop intolerances or irritations, as I like to say, to the foods that most frequently cause issues.
Personally, I believe those foods that cause the most issues are the very foods that you've eaten most frequently across your lifetime, and many of the following foods most people eat on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times per day. So these are often the ones that cause the most trouble. I can't tell you how many women come to me for coaching and discover that, for example, cow's milk that they've always used and loved.
Now causes constipation or allergies, or the oatmeal that they have been eating for 15 years now causes brain fog, or the coffee they've enjoyed since college now causes heartburn. Your body is now different, and therefore you might need to update and adjust your eating so that you can feel better and relieve some of the gut inflammation.
And in truth, I believe that some of these things I'm going to suggest we should have been doing all along anyway. And if you're someone who's pretty healthy and doesn't have any of these symptoms. Everything I've shared in today's episode is going to help you avoid the things that I am talking about. The foods that I have found cause the most trouble, and the ones you'll want to consider adjusting or eliminating are number one.
Cow's milk products like milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese. Number two wheat and all wheat products. Number three corn is a big one. And it's in so many of our foods. Number four in this one might surprise you. Eggs. I'm starting to see more people having more intolerances to eggs than I've ever seen before.
I think it's because they've really been emphasized in popular media as a great source of health, and also a great source of protein, which they can be. And if you're eating two eggs every single day, there's a real tendency to develop an intolerance. Number five, this is a sad one. Coffee and chocolate.
And lastly, all other grains, oats and rice and quinoa, etc. This one is especially relevant if you have any thyroid or autoimmune issues. Now listen, I could go on and on here forever, and it's literally impossible to address all of the different considerations in your nutrition. And you might be sitting there saying, I eat all those foods and I love all those foods.
How dare you suggest I take them out of my diet when they are my diet? And please know that what I'm saying is, if you've got health symptoms or issues that are bothering you like I've talked about, this is a great place to start. That's all I'm suggesting. And that list of six food items is also in a triage start with the first one cow's milk products.
See how you feel if you take that out or reduce it. Then later down the road, eliminate eggs and see how you feel. This is meant to be an experiment so that you can trial and error and feel better after being in practice for 30 years. These are the things that are top of mind to me that I see in my practice, and these are usually the first things that I address when people come to me for coaching when they're suffering.
And let me tell you, when we address these things, nine times out of ten or more, 9.7 out of ten my clients get immediate relief and start feeling better than they have in years. Now I realize everything I shared today might feel like a lot. It's not intended for you to tackle all of these things at once. Pick one little tidbit that really seems to ring true for you and try it out for a month.
Then try out some new change in your habits. It's really quite powerful. And if today's episode rings true for you and you want to feel better and improve your body composition, just know that I promise there is a path to feeling better if you are struggling. There's a reason, and it's not just your age, and it's definitely not a sentencing for the rest of your life, I promise.
This is a new paradigm, and we just have to pull the right nutrition levers so that you can start thriving again or for the first time. I so hope that you enjoyed this episode and found it useful, and I hope you'll stay tuned for another brand new one on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong my friend.
00:28:48.960 — 00:29:10.400 · Speaker 2
Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. I am so happy that you're here and I hope you loved it. If you did, please take a moment to subscribe, share with your friends and leave a review. And if you want more from me, check out my blog and coaching programs over at Holly perkins.com. That's all for now.
I'll see you next week.