Fitness After 40: Menopause Strategies with Expert Kim Schlag

So welcome to fit meter fitness Podcast. I'm honored to have amazing guest personal trainer and nutrition coach, Kim slug, who has helped hundreds of Freeman over 40 teams, in my opinion, one of the best coaches for women over 40 losing fat. So now this is the kind of part that we have to pretend that we didn't set just before But welcome, welcome to my soul. And please introduce to my audience a little bit, who you are, what you're doing. And well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me on. It's such an honor, it's always, it's always nice to have other coaches say that they want to talk to me and they respect what I have to say, I really appreciate that Turo, thrilled to be here. So I am a woman over 40 I'm actually over 50. Now I just turned 51. I came to fitness very late in life. I struggled with my weight all I say I struggled in my 20s. but honest to goodness, I was not overweight in my 20s. But ladies, you'll probably recognize this, I always wanted to lose five pounds. And my 20s was always trying to do it. Never really successful and lose it, put it back on. And then in my 30s, when I started having kids, I had three kids. And every time I got pregnant, I gained 50 pounds, and I never would fully lose it before I have the next kid. And so by my late 30s, I was struggling with obesity. I was very unhealthy. And I was really confused about how to lose this weight, nothing I did would permanently work. And I would lose and gain and lose and gain and try all the diets. And by my early 40s, I finally got my act together and learned about some basic nutrition science. And also one of the biggest changes I made was learning how to lift weights, I'd never lifted weights in all those years in any structured way. And it completely reshaped my body in conjunction with finally understanding about energy balance. And once I did that in my early 40s and saw this massive change and saw it was not as complicated as I always and mysterious. I always thought it was so mysterious. I started helping other women do it. And I've been at that for a good bunch of years now I coach online. Just because I've struggled with menopause. I kind of ended up teaching and coaching women who are in perimenopause and menopause. And that's what I do now. Yeah, so how people can find you and work with you. Obviously, like I said, Honestly, I think you are one of the best and so if you don't know who he miss, what is he doing? So please take her out. But tell yourself what is the best way to find you and if somebody is most active is on Instagram. You can find me at Kim Schlag fitness. I'll spell my last name, S C H Laj. So Kim slog fitness. On Instagram, I have a podcast called the fitness simplified podcast. Those are the best places to locate me. Awesome. Awesome. So that was kind of you shared a little bit interesting story how you how you decided that you you start to coach only for women who are over 40. Like, what? This isn't it honest, funny started because I was just coaching whoever would come to me, right? I can peep clients from all over the world. I had young women, I had men, I had boys. And at the same time I was in my late 40s. And on my Instagram stories I share about my daily life. And I started sharing a lot about the perimenopause symptoms I was having to struggle I was having I started not being able to sleep because it's hot flashes. And then I shared my entire journey of getting started on hormone replacement therapy, menopausal hormone therapy. And the struggle I had, you know, talking with my doctor about it. And as I did this, I did women would reach out to me and be like me, too. This is what's happening to me. I'm having these symptoms, and I'm struggling with this and what are you doing? And so those women started coming to me and eventually I just I ended up having all women over 40 or at least not all, but 90% of my clients were in that age range. And I decided you know what, this is what I'm going to focus on. This is what I'm passionate about, because this is this is my lived experience. Awesome. I love it. So what is that use? You mentioned about your symptoms, what you had classes, what, what you personally had and what your clients usually have when you are hitting menopause and you have any tips how to overcome from them? Yes, absolutely. Well, I think the first thing that most women probably don't know is that we become symptomatic or we can become symptomatic. Long before we actually hit menopause. You know, menopause. The average age of menopause is 51, which I am right now I'm still not fully in menopause because a woman is not fully menopausal until they've been out without their cycle for an entire year. All the years leading up to that transition. They're called perimenopause. And it's often when the symptoms are worse. It's often when people aren't struggling with things like hot flashes. For me, my very first symptom happened in my early 40s. I had no idea that it was perimenopause till years later, and it was vertigo, I actually ended up in the emergency room multiple times with really bad vertigo. I then started having, like temperature control problems, these vasomotor symptom problems, it wasn't hot flashes, that's when I finally realized it's probably menopause. Because hot flashes is a thing that everybody knows about, right? But I was having other problems, I was having problems with my hands getting extremely cold, and then getting extremely hot to the point that I was, I was having to wear gloves inside my house. And so I was trying to like type on my computer and my hands were icy cold. And I'm trying to like type wearing gloves. So those are some of my early symptoms. And then another one that happened was anxiety, increased anxiety, whether you're a person who struggled with anxiety in the past, or whether you never have can really ramp up in the menopause transition. So for me and perimenopause, like I'd struggled with anxiety earlier in life, and I've been medicated for it. And eventually, you know, really developed coping skills for my anxiety. And wow, it came rushing back in my mid to late 40s. So increased anxieties. I got seasonal allergies for the first time never had allergies in my life. I was stunned to find out that was also connected to perimenopause. So many systems of our body are affected by this loss of estrogen that is happening. And so generally, I was just feeling terrible, right? I'm feeling tired. I'm then the big one hit for me. When the hot flashes started in, they were coming at night. During the day hot flashes are not comfortable. Like you can be standing there and doing your job. And all of a sudden, like you're on fire, and it's hard to concentrate. And that's not great. But at nighttime, when they happen, it can really disrupt your entire life. They started happening to me just like one and then two. And eventually it was dozens a night and I'm up and I'm boiling hot and I'm wet. Like I'm dripping in sweat. And so I'm changing my clothes multiple times a night. What is this lead to it leads to terrible sleep. So then I'm tired all day, I'm grumpy. And at that point, is when most women realize like, hey, something's something's out. But it can be yours have all of these other things with or without the hot flashes? Is there how how you were able to overcome those classes? Or is there? Is there some what are your tips if somebody is struggling from so so for me the right answer was menopause hormone therapy. So estrogen and progesterone, it's not the right choice for everybody. It's something there's more and more information out there about it today. There was not as much out there a couple of years ago when I was when I was really struggling with it. You know, back in the 90s, the Women's Health Initiative study that came out it was severely misinterpreted, very, you know, confusing for women, and got this connection in people's brains that menopause hormone therapy equals breast cancer. It's not true. at all, it's not true. We're not even using those same types of hormones these days. And so a lot of women are just scared and a lot of doctors are still hesitant to prescribe it. Yet the quality of life a woman can experience can be terrible, with hot flashes. And so menopause hormone therapy is the best available like first line treatment we have for hot flashes. And for somebody who is really struggling with them like me, it's definitely an area to explore with your doctor. I did I was able to get on menopause hormone therapy after three months of hardly sleeping at all because that what I described that constant waking up and the constant sweating and changing my clothes. That happened from February through May several years ago. I got my prescription, the very end of May beginning of June and a month later, my hot flashes were completely under control. Menopause hormone therapy is very good at that. It's not a magic pill for all of a woman's symptoms. And there's still a lot that I deal with today because of perimenopause, brain fog being one of the worst ones I am ladies. It's scary. I feel like sometimes I'm like do I have early onset Alzheimer's like what is wrong with my brain? I can't remember so many things. And the menopause hormone therapy doesn't do anything for that but if you're a person who's struggling with your sleep due to hot flashes, wow it's life changing. Yeah. Is there is there some any other like unnatural ways if you if somebody doesn't want to do like, what do you are like obviously you are not qualified to do some hormone therapy but yeah, but as a as a as a coach, how you are how you are helping people with over 40 Like what is their what is the is there something you can do to relieve those symptoms or so here's the here's how it works for me as a coach and how I help women. There is little that I as a coach can do to help with those types of things show if people reduce their alcohol or reduce their caffeine, they might find that their hot flashes are better like that they have fewer of them or the severity isn't as intense they might not I'm not a pro Listen, whoever has I never drink alcohol. So I that was not a possibility for me, right, and I didn't have a lot of caffeine. So there's not a ton that I as a coach can help with those symptoms, what I do, if you can imagine, let's say you're a woman and you're in your 40s, and you want to lose weight, and you're going through something similar to what I went through, everybody's symptoms are different. So maybe your whole cluster is a little bit different. But overall, you're not feeling great, you're not sleeping well. What does this lead to, if you're trying to lose weight, it often leads to difficulty adhering to your weight loss plan, because you're low on sleep, which means your your cravings are usually ramped up, you're spontaneously not moving as much, our bodies are super smart, they're going to down regulate all the little movements you do throughout the day, so you're not moving as much, you're craving things. And if you're getting into those cravings, you're eating more calories. And so you're probably not as interested in hitting it hard in the gym. So what I do is I help women manage this, these hurdles, and we come up with a plan for Okay, first of all, I do encourage them to speak with their doctor, I run a menopause weight loss course. And in my course, I have one of the best doctors around she runs the menopause clinic up in Boston up at Harvard University, at Brigham and Women's and she talks to them about their symptoms and how to manage them. Because I can't do that I'm not a medical professional. So I encourage them to get information about managing their symptoms that way. And then what my job is, is to help them manage their hurdles, whether they're being treated by a doctor, or whether because frankly, sometimes people are working to get their symptoms treated, and it's just not working that well. And if they still want to lose weight, because like I said, this can last for a decade, or we get to put off looking and feeling how we want to look for 10 years, until you know this has passed. Most women don't want to do that. And so we work on things from Okay, how are we going? What's our perspective going to be about this? And then we work on things like, alright, if I can't get my sleep under control, how can I still manage the cravings? How can I help myself move more? How can I still hit the gym hard? What do I do to actually get through these hurdles? That's where I come in. That's what I help women do. Yeah, I see a lot of this with my clients too. Over Over for like that. It's, it's, but what is what you would say if it's it? What is the most common reason? Is there a lot of people who are struggling with hormones, or is there was ice a lot of that you are kind of blaming your hormones or blaming that you are over 40? And then that's kind of reason that it's just not possible? You know, it's how it is. That dates? So yeah. Are you saying as far as weight gain? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, from what we know, it's not that menopause causes weight gain, right? It doesn't cause weight gain, we definitely see that women in menopause, typically gain weight. So it's also you know, there was the new study this summer that came out Ponsor at all talking about aging, and our metabolism and all this idea we've all had for many, many years that our metabolism is slowing substantially as we age turns out no, no, no, it's not, not what the research. Science is showing. Yeah, it was like it was how, like, how many calories was like a minimum up to 60? You basically you don't your metabolism is not slowing down? Right. Yep, up to say up to age 60. Right, our metabolism is not actually selling. And I know a lot of women heard this, and they were like, What the heck, that can't be right. Like I see it happening. I feel like that's the answer. But if this is actually really good news, ladies, like if our metabolism isn't slowing, that's fantastic news, then, what are you going to do if your metabolism is slowing? So if that's not the answer, where do we look? And so this cluster of symptoms that comes along with menopause, then we think about what's happening as we're aging, can't work. We've got kids, you might be really busy. Like, I'm always busy with my teenage kids. I've got three kids. We're doing really well on our careers. So we're busier there, we're not walking around play. It's not like when we were younger, we're like walking across the college campus are playing with our toddlers. What are we doing? Most of the day, we're doing a lot of what I'm doing right now, which is sitting on my butt at my desk working hard, right? So we're not moving as much as we once were, we're really busy. Maybe we've had a history of yo yo dieting, and that makes it all much harder. And so when what it comes down to is getting our total calories in under control, moving more throughout our day, which is not, doesn't come super naturally to a lot of people. But it's not hard. Once we come up with a plan to help you figure out how do I get more movement in? And ladies, I'm not talking about going for a 30 minute jog. I'm talking about literally, how do we help you across all the hours of your day, move more throughout your day? And how do we help you start strength training in a sensible, progressive way so that you can actually have the benefit of having more muscle on your frame. It's going to help you with your aging. It's going to help you look more the way you want to look. Those are the places where you can we need to let you know. I know women say like it's my metabolism or it's my hormones. We don't need to accept that this is just how it is. There's so much you can do There are so many women in their 40s and 50s, who look and feel amazing, despite being older and being in menopause, you can absolutely do it. And, like you are the best example, I can tell from my experience, like I have had several clients who actually after 40, or after even 50, you feel and look better than in your 20s. So it's not, it's obviously it's a lot harder, but it's not impossible. It's not impossible. And you know, there's just one of the biggest struggles actually is getting women to believe that they can do it. Because when we don't think something can happen. We, here's the reality of it. Fat Loss is friggin hard, it is hard to lose weight, it's not complicated. A lot of people make it out to be super complicated, mysterious, it's really not. But the day in and day out the behaviors, you need to do what you need to change in your life that may be really long held bad habits, it's hard to do those things. And so it's really easy to mix up. This is challenging with my body just can't do this because of age or because of hormones. And so actually making that change and saying to yourself, it's not my hormones, and it's not my age, it is the things I am doing or not doing. And I can get better at those things. I can practice being a person who moves more, I can practice being a person who eats vegetables and eats protein, and manages stress without you know, eating cookies like I can practice being that person. And then we start to see a change in how we look and how we feel. Ya know, was that's that's what what we talked I talked also before and I what I love to say always to my clients do that is that is the thing you'd like that because there is all in or nothing attitude, that's so huge, or that's so huge problem. So many and and if you think that if you work out five times a week, or four times a week, and you can't help it every meal, think what is that what I love to say the thinking for this, the simplest thing you can do each day, some days it's drinking glass of water before your meal to get in your four or 5000 steps. If there is nothing else you can do, get at least those things. And and ultimately, if you think that it's it's like now usually at this time, it's December. So it's the hardest month of the year. It's a holiday season Christmas coming. And people are really struggling with motivation. But as its you don't have to be perfect at this time. But you compare yourself think about where you were here before what you did at this time a year ago or two years ago, five years ago. And then compare if you are improving if you are doing instead of zero workouts. You do one one workout in a week. That's that's the progress. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that all or nothing mentality can really be people's downfall. It goes from you know, I ate too many Christmas cookies Friday night, which honest to goodness, if you just like moved back on to what you were typically doing what you were typically supposed to be eating, how you're typically supposed to moving, that's not going to really do much for your long term progress, where people kind of go wrong is they they do that and then they have that Oscar that mentality because I already messed up. So now I'm going to eat the stack of pancakes at breakfast instead of the eggs and fruit I was going to eat and I'm not going for my walk. And you know what now I'm having more cookies, right? And so it's this like, switch in our mind where we either have to be perfect, or we're not doing it at all, and it doesn't serve us well. And so, practicing being a person who can say, alright, I overindulged. What's my next best choice? What will I do now? All right, well, it's nine o'clock at night. I'm just gonna stop eating cookies. You know, even though I'm going to be wait three more hours and I've already had 20 cookies, it doesn't mean the night is gone. I'm going to stop eating the cookies now. And then the next morning when I wake up, I'm going to get right back to what I was supposed to be doing how I'm supposed to be eating, and I'm going to plan in a cookie tomorrow, I'm going to have a cookie because the idea that now we can't have cookies because we had too many. It keeps us bouncing back and forth between restriction and over indulging restriction and over and building and so letting ourselves enjoy all the yummy things and heal at Christmas time. Maybe it's not the best time for you to lose weight. It works really well for some people I have certainly helped clients lose weight in December I've lost weight in December. For many people a better plan this month is learning how to maintain their weight during the holiday season. If you're listening in you're like I've never maintained my weight in December. That would be an amazing goal like maybe let's not have the goal be weight loss but let's see how can you get through the holiday season enjoying all the delicious treats and the time with your family and finding a way to maintain your weight Yeah, no was that is that's actually what I what I just posted a little post about this question for diet breaks like there are so many women like if you are if you're listening to this and you have been in a calorie deficit or dieting I know women have been decades or or several years and never taking some diet break. That's that's that Some points you have to take and a learning like you said learning to eat and a maintenance and, and if the goal is just to maybe if you are if you have time during your workouts and to see how you how much difference you will feel when you are able to eat more and at the same time enjoying this Christmas, it's not Christmas, it's, it's every year, it's one time in a year, and it's not the end of the world if you are not able to lose your progress at this time, or you lose weight in December. Yeah, I think it's a great month to practice these. Because sometimes people are like, okay, if I'm not going to lose weight this month, then what does it matter? I'll start in January, and there's nothing Look, I'm a big fan of New Year's resolutions. It's a fantastic time to that fresh start effect, right here I go. But that doesn't mean we have to give up right now. So what if you just picked a couple of things to work out? What if you're like, you know what, I'm gonna go for a walk every single day, I'm gonna get 7500 steps in every day for the month of December, or I'm gonna eat vegetables twice a day for the month of December. It's definitely a different approach. We don't have to just give up give up in December. But we can say like, okay, my goal is maintenance, or my goal is weight loss, whichever you want, we want to have, and what I'm going to do this month to achieve that it's not going to be super restrictive, I'm going to still enjoy some cookies, I'm going to enjoy the, the, the Christmas Wassell. And I'm gonna eat vegetables every day this month. Yeah, it's it's like, just keep always doing something you don't have to instead to be perfect, just go a bit lower on those your expectations, like instead of losing some amount of weight or hitting your calorie goals go higher with your calorie goals. Or if it's if you don't want to count calories don't like you said get great ways to try to eat protein at every meal or two salads per day. And those are all things or drinking a glass of water. So you can always go down with your what you are aiming for. And it's if it's if you can do work out consistently, because that's the that's the, for most people at this time. They are just like you said, giving up as in the dollar. Okay, it's gonna be it's, it's this time, I can't do anything anyway. So I will restart everything in January. So so instead of doing that, if you you can't make a full hour workout, do five minutes, aim to do that getting that habit over this time, it's a lot easier to add more things in January than then trying to trying to start all over. Absolutely. I so agree with that. How great would it be to get to January and already have some good habits in place? Right? Yeah, well, that's absolutely like it's just basically doing more, it's just like going if it's from scale one to 10. And in general, you are probably at nine or 10. At this time. If you are maybe two, maybe one, maybe it's three, but always aiming for something. So I want us to ask them what is the reason is that fat loss is different in menopause or how fat loss is working? Is there some something what is what is difference? So the big differences for women in menopause one, as I talked about, we have more hurdles to overcome. So if you're not sleeping, if you're having cravings, if you generally don't feel well. So it's additional hurdles to manage that people not in menopause don't have to worry about. So that's one big difference. The other big difference is that because of the change in our estrogen levels, we shift where we are, we can not everybody does, but a lot of women shift where they tend to store their excess fat, and it moves to our belly regions. And that's not something that women are super jazzed about, you know, the menopause belly is a real thing. The important thing to remember there, there's two things about it. One, this is a shift in where you store excess fat, it is not causing you to gain excess fat. If you have excess fat, you might notice that you store more of it in your belly region, you are not destined to have excess fat, it is not causing excess fat. And then the second important thing to know is you will lose that belly fat in menopause. The same way you lose fat anywhere else on your body. It is a dedicated calorie deficit over time. That's how you will lose that fat. There's no special menopause belly fat protocol. It can just feel really discouraging because you look down you're like where did that come from? Like what's wrong with me? Know that you can lose it? It might you might lose fat everywhere else first. We can't choose where we lose the fat on our body but there's zero reason you can't lose that menopause belly fat. Those are the big differences. So so you don't have any any belly fat exercise. I know that a lot. I'm sure I could make one up and make a lot of money like a lot of people do and I wish there I really wish there was some special pill lotion An exercise that I could give you, but really it comes down to eating in a calorie deficit over time. Sure, you can do ab exercises just like you can do bicep exercises, right? And so, if under the belly fat, like we get your nice strong abs one, it's just healthy for you to have nice strong abs. And to Yeah, you can train those ad muscles. It's not the key, like doing 100 crunches a day or 1000 crunches a day or a 10 minute plank, not the answer to menopause, belly fat. It's really your nutrition, staying in a calorie deficit over time, losing body fat all over. And then we do some ab workouts, you know, within our regular training program, you can do some a few exercises for your abs on your upper body day, your lower body day, your full body day. It's nothing extreme. You don't need a dedicated AB class 30 minute ab class or, or anything like that. So what about your metabolism? Is there some senses like, like you said earlier that when you are eating, it's not sensing? But is it is your metaphor is different in menopause or? No, that's not I mean, that Ponsor study included plenty of women in the over 48 range, you know, we're not different in that way. It is not our metabolism. One of the things that can happen, ladies is that we're just not moving as much because again, we don't feel well, right? We're we're stressed we have a lot going on. We're taking care of our teenagers and our aging parents, and so we're not moving as much. And so when it comes to that piece of your metabolism, people don't often think about what can I do across my day to increase what's known as our NEET or non exercise Activity Thermogenesis. This is all the activity we get outside of the gym. There's a whole lot of time in your day, way more than you could possibly get at the gym. Even if you're a person who's like I work out an hour a day, seven days a week, which most of us don't do. But even if you did think about how many hours that leaves in a day. It's a lot more outside of the gym time than inside of the gym time. And so one of the things you can really do is focus on getting more movement in across your day. I really liked step trackers for this step trackers are not great for showing you how many calories you burn. Ignore that. But they're really good at showing you the trend. How much you're actually moving. So get a cheap step tracker. It doesn't have to be an Apple watch, you can get like a regular old cheap pedometer, you can order them on Amazon for like 13 bucks, pop that thing on. Just move how much you usually move. Do that for a week and see like what are my daily average steps, you're likely going to be surprised when I went from being an in person personal trainer in my mid 40s, to being a personal trainer online. I started jacking my steps and I was getting 3000 a day as a trainer like I was paying 3000 today and I worked out an hour a day, six days a week. I was like 3000 steps, that's nothing like that's nothing that's that's fairly sedentary. So I had to work to make an effort to get those steps up. There are so many ways to do it. That becomes second nature and you just feel good doing them. So you could do things like add in a walk after every meal. Even if it's a quick one, you can do things like every time you're on the phone, you walk while you're on the phone, you can add in a walk first thing in the morning and or last thing at night, you can pace around your house, you know you can set a timer to get up and walk for two minutes every hour in your office. There are so many strategies and you're gonna need to personalize it to you but getting your steps up for general health everyone should be around 7500 or more. Okay, that's what we see as far as all cause mortality. Declining declines weigh up to 7500 past that point when we're talking weight loss, I find that somewhere between 70 512,000 steps is a really good sweet spot. Keep working on those steps till you're up in that 10 to 12,000 a day. It can really help with your weight loss and with weight maintenance eventually. And if you get I have to add that if you get fresh there if you get at least those 10 minutes outside it's for your mental health to like that is that's a huge like I'm I was also like when I started as a coach like it was like a walking or this walking like when you are a bit younger you think that walk needs not even exercise it doesn't count. But now when you see like all benefits like it's it's the simplest way easiest way to move and it's not difficult to do. Obviously do it's not always nice weather outside but if you get if you have chance to get even five minutes sunlight and walk that's your day you will feel so much better and once you once you've built that habit that you are you are actually doing if you say that you don't have time if you are sitting in office or doing having a desk job, but I guarantee like that if you take the 10 minutes to go for a walk you are a lot more effective into your work and you You're doing at least same amount with the 50 minutes what you have left in out and you would just sit that 60 minutes in front of your desk. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. There are so many benefits to getting outside for a walk. And you improving your mood is one of them. I really and for gosh, for those of us who are in perimenopause, that's a really big help. Because our moods can be all over the place. And so getting outside getting that fresh air getting away from people, just being by yourself, all of that just it helps immeasurably. Yeah, yeah. So is there is there some what tips you have for somebody who is struggling at the moment with the menopause and losing weight? So where were you get started, like you said that you have those all hurdles, what you might have, like sleep is for sure one thing, but variable to variable to get started and what kind of like, the first thing I would suggest you do is take stock of where you're at. Okay, so spend a little bit of time make a list like what are the biggest hurdles you're facing because of menopause? And just because of where you're at in your life stage? Like if it's time, like, if a time is the big issue for you? If it is your hot flashes make a big list of like, what are all the hurdles I'm facing in order to lose weight? Then start seeing like, what do I need to do to manage those hurdles? Is there a medical component like do should I go see a medical professional to help with some of these symptoms? That's a big piece of the puzzle. And then let's look at that. So the main thing you need to lose weight is getting in a calorie deficit. So what do we need to do to help you do that? One you might not know like, how many calories is that? Like I don't even know get some get some professional advice about that. I'm sure Turo has some some good content on that. I certainly do. I have a free five day fat loss crash course you can find it at the link in my bio and Instagram. You can find it on my website, comm slash fitness. And I walk you through here's how to set up a sustainable, manageable calorie deficit. And then start trying, you know, track your calories for a week. Just write out everything you eat. Either in a tracker like My Fitness Pal, that's how I prefer if you're old school wanted to pen and paper you can even doing that, get an awareness of how much you're eating, you're likely going to be really surprised. If you are not losing weight, you're eating way more than you think. Even if you're a person and you're like I don't eat that much because I remember being that person. I was that person. I'm like, I don't even eat that much. And my problem was I didn't eat that much most of the day. But then I was in my like snack cover all night. Right. And so I lived on air all day. And then no dug into the snacks at night and it doesn't feel like a lot of food but the calories were adding up. So figure out where you're at with your calories. Figure out where you're at with your movement, like I said, get a step tracker, let's see where you're at with your movement. And then the other thing I would suggest is getting going with strength training. It is a game changer for anybody specifically for women over 40 we need to do that for our bone health. For our aging Wow. Like if you want to not be a lady who's like not able to get off the toilet when you're in your 70s We got to get some muscle on your body you're losing muscle right now if you're not strength training, we started losing muscle in our 30s If we're not strength training and so we want to have you strength train, move your body get your calories under control and then let's work on figuring out which of your symptoms are really holding you back as far as your weight loss and coming up with a plan to manage those symptoms. Oh I love it. Those are everything basically what you have to do if you are like when I when I talk with the people, I say that I eat healthy but I'm not losing weight and lipid like that. So that was a great point what you said it's it's if you are not eating healthy and eating in a calorie deficit are not the same thing that you before you are blaming that it's not about my diet. They be sir that you are tracking accurately you are you are actually writing every piece of snack what you are eating and see how many calories you are actually eating and not thinking just because we are so good to think to think that but I eat healthy I have my salad. But then all I had that bite there from my kids or I had some snacks and those could make whole difference or if you are even if you are dragging you are using some portion sizes and say that you take a teaspoon of your peanut butter or Nutella and that the peanut it says that it has 50 calories but the honest truth is that you might have just took two and a half of them even you totally took one. So measuring it correctly. And what you didn't mention is protein like that is still Yeah, makes life so much easier. That's 100% So let me before we can talk about protein what you just said her is super duper important. People don't realize that I get so many women coming to me. There's usually two categories. One is people like I was we were eating terribly we're eating too much snack but we still doesn't feel like because like it You go to Starbucks and get your big ol fancy coffee, and then you go to McDonald's and you get your burger and your fries doesn't feel like a lot of food. But wow, you just added up the calories. So that's kind of one person that comes to me. And then the other person is what you described is I eat really healthy, I How am I not losing weight, I'm eating healthy, because we have this mix up that healthy equals weight loss friendly. And it's not, they can be the same thing. And there's a way to make them the same thing. But they're not inherently the same thing. And there are many healthy foods that are filled with calories. And when we overeat them, we don't lose weight, we don't lose weight, doesn't matter how healthy the food is, I just ran another round of my menopause weight loss course. And there were a couple of ladies in there. And this was just the light bulb moment, they had no idea because they were trying to get their protein which we can talk about here a second, nuts and seeds and beans, and couldn't believe how much when she was when she had her calories from me. And she was trying to eat those calories. She's like, I don't even know how to do that. And what she realized is, she needed to step out the amount of hemp seed and flax seed because she was just pouring it on, you know, and all these different things, and it's healthy and eat those things, and I eat those things, we have to still manage total calories. And that can be a real eye opener for people who have really gotten into the habit of eating healthy food. Frankly, I do think for those of you who fall in that category, it's going to be easier for you to switch up your diet, because you already eat plenty of vegetables and fruits. So we just had to change the amount of the of those calorie dense, healthy foods, get those portions under control, and you're golden, but it's the knowledge that that's the issue. That's a big problem. And then yeah, I totally missed that other big. One of those other big pillars for health and weight loss, which is getting in enough protein, you're not gonna be able to build muscle without it, it's just not going to happen. And in a calorie deficit, you're going to be way hungrier if you don't have enough protein, huge switch for most women, most women come to me, and they're eating like 50 grams of protein, 40 grams of protein. And that's just not anywhere near enough like we should be getting point eight to one gram per pound of our lean body weight. If and when I say that, ladies, it's for optimal body composition, that number we hear here in the United States from the RDA, like 50 grams of protein per day, that's the amount you should be getting to not have health issues. That's the amount you can have to like prevent disease. That's not like for optimal body composition, to look good to feel good to look like somebody who's toned, that's not going to come from 50 grams of protein. And so finding a way to increase your protein, one of the best places I have women start is just shooting for 100 grams a day, because that's often double what they're eating, it's still likely going to need to be bumped up over time. But shooting for a goal of 100 grams a day spreading that out summit each meal is a great first goal. Yeah, no, it was that that's what I love it, that's a that's a great one, I love to use those. So like that if you are this person, like I would say 90% of people who come to me they start with a protein. And and if you are if you are eating 40 grams of protein per day, it's not, it's not realistically possible that you ideally you would have 130 140 grams, you won't get it overnight. But if you aren't getting trying to get at least 100. And building one day perfect, like, what I what I actually I got it from you that did to do so thank you for that. That's all tracking your protein a hit, like one day ahead, planning only your protein sources and putting 1010 to your tracking app. And then you have an idea a little bit what you're going to have for you. If you eat protein breakfast, what you're going to have, you're going to have some Greek yogurt, some one or 2x, how much protein you have had your breakfast, what's going to be your lunch, you have some decompress that night, whatever you want to have some do now you want to have streams, what is your how much you're going to eat, you will see how much protein you're getting. So that's the great way and also the best way if you have been dragging best day to learn where to get more protein, go to your previous days and look where you bought you have had what you and ask yourself if you could could you be eating more of those foods? Like that's the easiest way to get more? Yeah, I really do think that's the smart approach. A lot of times people are just like looking for different ways to get protein in and they're looking for other sources of protein. And I think it can get really overcomplicated and so coming back to like just make a list of like, what are the top 10 foods you eat that have that you enjoy that have protein like Okay, I like chicken. I like salmon. I like shrimp. I like Greek yogurt, make those and then do what you said like the night before planning your day? What's my protein for breakfast? Okay, I'm gonna get 30 grams of it. There are 35 grams out there and pick like one main protein source. Don't use peanut butter people you're never getting the fat to protein content is just the calorie of protein content is not there stop trying to use nut butters as a source of protein that are a source of fat that has some protein and so you can eat them, but don't plant them in is your main protein source. It's a way to get a little extra protein but not as a main one. But yeah, we don't need to overcomplicate it with like protein balls and protein cookies. Using protein fluff, like literally just think of 10 Basic sources of protein you love, put one at each meal and just up that portion size till you get it to a good amount of protein. A lot of times women are like well I ate protein that my male ate some chicken and it was like two ounces of chicken. Okay, eat for eat four ounces of chicken. And yes, you will have to adjust your calories from your fats and your carbs to make room for those calories from your protein. Put those protein calories in first and then see like what do I have leftover from my carbs and fats? Awesome. One last question. Because what we what I wanted to touch a little bit still is about sleep. So if somebody is struggling with sleep over 40 You have some symptoms. If you you are not you don't want to go for some therapy or something. Is there some natural race what what race you are recommending to improve your sleep as that's so close to like you said it's leading to everything. It's it's how much you are moving. sweet cravings, food cravings, you are just eating more if you sleep too little your workout quality sucks. Life quality sucks. You are moody. So what what, what you are, what you call for this like to improve and it really is going to come down to what's the what's the cause of the lack of sleep and for women in perimenopause and menopause. It's usually one of two things, either insomnia or hot flashes, insomnia, if that's the issue, and that does come as one of our other struggles and perimenopause is just start up insomnia. And so looking to see what can I do to manage this insomnia? Getting your sleep hygiene in order. That's a big one like coming up with a nighttime routine. A couple of weeks ago, couple months ago, I had an amazing sleep doctor on my podcasts where are you should get her on yours. Her name is sleep doc Shelby on Instagram, super smart woman. And she was talking to me about how good sleep at night actually starts first thing in the morning. So getting up in the morning getting some sunlight like Turo and I were talking about like getting some sunlight on your face first thing in the morning. Getting that morning routine in order is actually a really good place to start to sleep better at night. It's really important. So get up, get get outside, get some sunshine on your face, get moving. At nighttime. Are you sitting there with your phone scrolling on tick tock, right. Don't do that and come up with a good nighttime routine. If you're waking at night, and it's not hot flashes, or for whatever reason it is one of the best things you can do. And I did learn this from sleep doc Shelby is get out of your bed. Don't lay in your bed stressing about going back to sleep, right? We don't go back to sleep when we're sitting there stressing about like, I can't sleep, I can't sleep. So get up out of your bed, go somewhere dim light. Don't turn on your phone, you could read a book in low light, you can listen to meditation in low light. do a brain dump on paper in the low light of all the things you're worried about. When you start to feel sleepy again, we're basically we're looking for a way for you to pass the time out of your bed so you're not associated a bed with stress and not falling asleep. Go and go back to your bed and work on going back to sleep once you actually feel tired again. But really working on that sleep hygiene starting first thing in the morning coming up with a good night routine. Getting rid of that blue light, light close to sleep. There's a lot of debate about how long before we go to bed we should limit our blue light. Some people say 30 minutes and these are reputable places I can't remember like the Sleep Foundation and United States Sleep Foundation. Different people say different things. Some people say 30 Some people say an hour some people say two hours. Start with where you are. If you're like there's no friggin way. I'm going to stop watching TV and scrolling on my phone two hours before I go to bed. Start with 15 minutes, can we get you 15 minutes of blue light free before you go to bed? Let's see does that help. Another thing you can do and you can talk to your doctor about this is supplementing with magnesium that can help. It's certainly something that helped me that can help with going to sleep and staying asleep. So you can talk to your doctor about a supplement like that. If the problem is in fact, hot flashes, number one treatment, like I said is going to be menopause hormone therapy. It's yeah, I don't have any natural solutions for that one that really is talking to your doctor about that. Yes, there are products as far as like sling sheets and things like that. None of that stuff like put a dent in what I was struggling with. There was no kind of cooling sheet that was gonna help me it literally felt like like I had flames shooting out of my body. And so for me the answer for that was menopause hormone therapy. That was for me, I gotta say that for me to improving my sleep was like, first of all, like having same routine like every day. It doesn't matter if it's just obviously won't be possible every day as you go out but during the week when you have kind of that same routine, same time, every time every day and then you sleep so much better and if you have problems to go to sleep you are watching your phone started at 10 minutes Every day or not every day, aim for 15 minutes earlier it don't, you won't be able to go two hours before just by overnight, it won't happen. But if you it's a practicing going 15 minutes then once that start to be routine then add another 15 minutes so so those are those are things and investing for my mattress and pillows those those things my my quality and and for all pain, neck pain, back problems, help button, right? Those investing, like obviously those are things like do you think that this is where to fit, there's so much things to do, but you are you're sleeping, you're sleeping 1/3 of your life. So, you know, for many of us women, if those of us who are moms, you think back to what you did when your kids were little before they got ready for bed like we didn't just throw our kids in bed, there was always some kind of bedtime routine. And some people like I had a really elaborate one of my friends thought I was nuts like we would, we would get a little glass of milk and then we would read books. And then we would sing a song and brush our teeth and like say a prayer. And it was like it was like a 2530 minute nighttime routine. And then I had other friends it was much more streamlined, but it was still a routine. And yet we don't do that with ourselves, right when we're trying to train our toddlers to sleep while we have these nice routines that help settle them down and get their body ready to go to bed. And then with us. It's just like, we're running around the house doing things and we're watching TV we're playing on tick tock and then we just get in bed and expect sleep to happen. And so coming up with a really quieting calming routine can can be such a big help. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, Tim for your time. And make make sure you follow Kim and Kim slug fitness. In Instagram. I think you are doing tick tock to great podcast. And the me starting in January new course. Yeah, if you want to tell a little bit. I'm changing the name of my course in my course has been the menopause weight loss course I've run two rounds of it. Actually, like 150 Women have gone through it in the past three quarters of a year changing the name it's going to be under the name fitter after 40. And the reason I did that is because I realize so many women in their early 40s are not even identifying as a woman and perimenopause because they don't know they don't know that that's what's going on with them yet and I realized I gotta get menopause out of the title because they don't even know that they're facing perimenopause yet so fitter after 40 is my eight week course I walk you through everything that you need to know about how to lose weight, how to get in shape how to feel good after 40 Awesome. Thank you so much Kim and thank you for listening and if this episode was helping you make sure you share it with your friend and I would love to have if this was helping five star reviews are helping so much and and talk to you soon. Thank you for listening. Bye