The Body Reset: How Women Should Eat & Exercise for Health, Fat Loss, & Energy | Dr. Stacy Sims

it often has felt like to me as I've learned more and more like oh my God wait a minute we've just kind of treated women and our health almost like if you're golfing there's the tea That's further back for the guys and there's the tea that's a little bit like closer for the women and we're just going to treat everybody the same but shrink it a little bit we'll take running shoes or a bicycle all they do is they make it a little bit smaller maybe put some pink on it and say it's a woman's

product we experience things differently as women than men do but that's not ever really explained when we look at the trends of the fasted training don't eat be it's all on maale data if you look at most women who make a point to get up do some training go exercise and after four weeks of following the same kind of training program as their male partner their male partner has gotten leaner fitter better focus all of the things that you want at of fitness and the woman's like how come I'm fatter and tired we have gotten

into a societal idea that we all live in the same kind of temperature we have automatic garage door openers we have created this environment where we don't move and if we're talking about how do we just make one small change to improve our mental health that's exercise hey it's your friend Mel welcome to the Mel Robins podcast I am absolutely thrilled that you're here I am on such a I don't even know what to say it I feel so excited about what we're talking talking about today it is going to be liberating is such an

honor to spend time with you to be together with you but especially when we're going to have a conversation that is going to light you on fire and make you feel both mad and empowered let's freaking go and if you're a new listener I want to take a moment and just welcome you welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast family and boy have you picked a winner of a conversation to listen to because you made the time to listen to this particular episode here's what I already know about you you're the type of person who values

your Health you want the facts you want the science you want results and that's what you deserve and if someone sent this to you that's really cool it's because they care about you and they want you to have the science and the facts and the correct information so that you can take better care of yourself too I cannot wait for you and I to learn from Dr Stacy Sims today now Dr Sims is a globally recognized expert in women's health exercise physiology and nutrition science she has a PHD in exercise physiology and nutrition science she's

on the faculty at Stanford teaching about lifestyle medicine and at Ackland University of Technology teaching sports medicine she is a renowned researcher and has directed research programs at Stanford Auckland University of Technology and the University of yat and she has published check this out7 peer-reviewed research papers which in normal persons speak is a a ton her research has revolutionized how women mhm women approach Fitness especially during menopause and hormone changes she's the author of two groundbreaking books Roar and the next level she also has a daughter and just like me is in her mid-50s juggling

a big career a marriage motherhood and hormone changes she has so much to teach you today and we are going to go straight for the Bro Science we are going to tell you the mistakes and the lies that you've been told we're going to tell you the truth based on the research about what works for women and what doesn't we're going to teach you why the things that you've been doing have been backfiring it's because you have been exercising like a dude and it is time for you to exercise like a woman I am so

fired up for you to be here I am fired up to learn with you and I am fired up for all of the women and the young women in your life that you're going to share this with so please help me welcome Dr Stacy Sims to the melro podcast Dr Stacy Sims I am so thrilled that you're here in our Boston studios I've been waiting a long time to be able to sit down meet you and learn from you I'm just thrilled that you're here oh thanks for having me I'm excited have lots of fun

and we have a lot to dig into and so here's where I want to start could you speak directly to the person that's listening and this is somebody who doesn't have a lot of time but they made the time yep to be here to learn from you okay what could that person expect might change about their life or feel different if they take everything to heart that you're about to teach us and share with us today and they use it in their own life I find there's two big things that often happen one most women

become more empowered and have better body positivity and two they have a sense of separation from the stress and their own selves so they're able to take that step back from the stress of everything that's happening it's kind of like that pause moment because when you are taking care of your body then it feeds back into a lot of positive metrics so the big thing that I love is watching women go through an evolution to go from being not so confident in themselves to having such empowerment to be able to stand up and say I

own this space and I'm taking it you know one thing that strikes me about your already is that you actually exude that oh thanks now you have a level of presence and power in your body and it's not just because you are in incredibly great shape in terms of muscle definition but it's it's actually something that's noticeable and so I think this goes beyond sort of that sense of separation of stress like what I experience in just sitting here with you is that you're actually embodied in the present and in your body and a lot

of times when we're stressed out especially you know as caregivers and the amount of stuff that we do we're up in our heads and disconnected from our body yeah and so I'm excited to really learn from you because I want to feel more like the centered confidence and calmness that you just seem to move through a space with I'm good with the facade no just kidding thanks um yeah it does come from a lot of pushback I've had in my life so it's like putting being put into a pretty Mal dominant situation you have to

find your feet and how do you move through that space and I found it through exercise strength all the stuff that we're going to talk about amazing so you have such an incredible background and I'm actually going to read it because it's quite a bit you know I've talked about this in when I was introducing you but you have a PhD in exercise physiology you're a researcher you're a former professional athlete you now trained professional athletes you're an expert in exercise physiology you have a long list of other Specialties like cardiovascular disease prevention Thermo regulation

Women's Health you are a pioneering researcher that participates in her own studies and you have this incredible Mantra Dr Sims women are not small men yeah what does that mean yeah um I laugh when people say women are not small men because when we hear it we're like oh yeah that's right but it's started from when I was teaching at Stanford and wanted to wake some of the undergrads up after and lunch and afternoon sleepies come in and I was teaching about sex differences in training or high performance so I would started with women are

not small men and people are like well of course not like that's you know women aren't small men but what I mean by that is everything from what happens in utero until we die is different for women than men so when we talk about women are not small men and we see all the guidelines that are out there for exercise all the guidelines out there for mental health for the connections the sociocultural pressures we experience things differently as women than men do but that's not ever really explained so when we say women are not small

men it makes people take that pause and ask well what do you mean by that what topic so today what I mean by women are not small men is we're going to dive into exercise especially how what we do should change as we move through our lives what does that motto women are not small men mean in practice I think when we look right now at what's being portrayed in social media fitness Trends the medical Trends all of that data is really drawn from men and just generalized to women which is a huge disservice so

I want women especially you as a listener on this podcast to take a pause whenever you see a new trend come up or someone pushing something to just go well where do this originate how does that appropriate for me as a woman in my phase of life and when you take that pause you begin to have an objection to some of the things that are being pushed on you and and an objective view of how you should approach things to make it beneficial for you I am so glad that we're starting here because um I

am constantly shocked at the things that I think I should be doing and the things that I hear a lot of male Health experts talking about or a lot of the Bro Science or a lot of the kind of bro experts and the Fitness trends that are very dude oriented no offense to the guys I'm just saying that it often has felt like to me as I've learned more and more like oh my God wait a minute we've just kind of treated women and our health almost like if you're golfing there's the tea That's further

back for the guys and there's the tea that's a little bit like closer for the women and we're just going to treat everybody the same but shrink it a little bit yep shrink and pink is what we called it in the industry shrink and pink shrink and pink so uh we'll take running shoes or a bicycle all they do is they make it a little bit smaller maybe put some pink on it and say it's a woman's product it's so true I know and it's like wait that's not really appropriate you'll see in my book

there's some pink and that's an oage to shrink in pink because that's what people think is honoring women by making it a little bit smaller let's bling it up with some color and we're going to call it a woman's product and that is not appropriate well the other thing that I think has been like really fascinating we're going to get into this is just that a lot of the research has only been done on men and there hasn't been research on how certain things have an impact on women and our hormones and our body structure

and our composition which is as you've already said fundamentally different than that of somebody who's male yeah and so I'm excited for you to take a step by step by step and help us kind of tee up all the assump iions that we've all just kind of come to assume that work for men but don't work for women and what we need to know and need to be doing to actually work with our bodies and take better care of ourselves perfect so what's the most common mistake that women make by following male Centric Fitness advice

uh they don't get any results and they end up what we call tired but wired I mean if you look at most women who make a point to get up do some training go exercise and it happens so often after four weeks of following the same kind of training program as their male partner their male partner has gotten leaner fitter better um cognition you know Focus all of the things that you want out of fitness and the woman's like how come I'm fatter and tired and I don't have any like increase in my fitness like

my partner does and I see it all the time and I'm always explaining well one your partner might get up and go fcet training women's bodies don't respond well to facet training what's fcet training I don't even know what the heck this is like fcet training fcet training means you're not having any food before you go do exercise oh so well that's what I would always do like I would always literally like I'm going to eat after because my husband would eat after and then we would my mouth is on the floor you can see

this on YouTube but like as you're listening I'm I'm processing this because I'm thinking how often I've been pissed off at Chris my husband yeah because will take on some challenge together and I'm like this is not fair like how is it that this is actually making you lose weight and I feel like I'm puffier and fluffier and tired and pissed off yep and I'm following the same steps I'm doing the intermittent fasting I'm not eating beforehand I'm slamming the thing after I'm doing and I'm like what the hell is going on and it this

is because he's male and I'm female yep exactly and it comes really to the brain right so when we start looking just at first thing you get up and and our responses are different where women's Brains will start going okay where's the food to come in to help bring my stress hormones down and get me started for the day okay and Men by the nature of being XY their brain's like eh okay I'm going to supply some amino acids and some blood sugar and let's get on with the day then we'll find some food that's

fine but women's brain specifically what we call the hypothalamus that is really sensitive to blood sugar and food coming in so if you get up and you start your your exercise without any food the hypothalamus is like wait a second this is a stress to the body that I need to really try to figure out but if I don't have food to counter the fuel that the muscles are needing from a contraction I need to find a way to supply that fuel so it goes into a little bit of a tizzy and one of the

first things that starts to get broken down is your muscle M cuz muscle is a pretty active tissue and the hypothalamus is like well I don't know if I'm going to be able to supply the food that this muscle needs if I don't have any food coming in so it's a very small amount of food that a woman needs first thing in the morning to then go be successful in her training and it's even if you're going for a walk a lot of women will get up and go for a walk on the ospice are

you with me like I are you in my house with me maybe Stacy I'm I'm sitting here thinking to myself S I think a lifetime of messaging about like thin is preferable yeah and that I want to maximize calories burned so I'm going to get up and I'm G to have a cup of coffee because I'm tired and I'm going to wire myself and then I you know back in the day would be going for a run or going to some sort of like Fitness class uh you know I'm old enough to have been doing

step aerobics and everything else let's go um and now and and I've just carried that over yeah and I also then tell myself a story that I'm G to get a cramp or I'm gonna like want to throw up in my mouth if I'm doing something too much and I've had too much to eat and so this is a complete Le different change for me yeah and it's one that's going to be really super beneficial so every woman listening and every woman in your life if you're listening and your male needs to know that one

of the biggest mistakes that we're making by following male Centric Fitness advice is we need as women biologically and physiologically speaking to actually have something to eat first thing when we get up yes yes and when we start looking at it I've I did a competition a couple of weekends ago just for fun and I had so many women come up and go the first thing that you did to change my life was to tell me to eat beforehand and now like my training's better my outcomes are better I have more energy and I'm like

well of course cuz your brain is like I can handle this stress so if you are supplying fuel to the empty tank of course you're going to go far if you think about trying to drive a car and rev it up and get it on the highway to at speed with it on E it's not going to get very far so I try to explain to women if you're going to get up and even if you're going for a walk like you want to maximize what you're doing you want your metabolism to fire on all

cylinders you want to get some aerobic fitness through that you need to supply just a little bit of fuel and it doesn't mean a full meal it could be the protein coffee it could be a couple of tablespoons of yogurt a half a banana it's not a lot but it's enough to bring your blood sugar up and tell your brain yeah I I've got this I've got this so the first change already small change but critical one for our biology and Physiology is you need to eat something before you move or exercise in the morning

yeah and to also I think like the bigger thing here for me is that I'm starting to realize I've been so brainwashed about the fact that you need to be thin yes that it's a paradigm shift to actually think well wait a minute I need to learn how to work with my body and my natural wiring to make it work for me and to actually optimize the way that my body's designed as a woman right and one of the things that um has come up recently in conversations where uh some women who've just started into

strength training realm or have dropped all of their you know big cardio walking because we all come from the 80s and 90s of let's do 90 minutes of aerobics and and that's not appropriate so they've gotten out of that mentality but they'll see other women at the gym who are on the litical or treadmill or out running and they look really lean m and they're like well I don't understand I kind of want to look like that but I know that I need to be doing strength training so I'm confused the women that are 40

plus who are doing the cardio for the most part they're going to be what we call skinny fat so that means that they're not going to have a lot of quality muscle there's going to be a lot of of fatty tissue within the muscle and their bones are going to be like chalk because if we are doing all that cardio work and we're not looking at how our bodies are aging and what we need we need the food before the training we need to put in some strength training then we're going to continuously be breaking

down the tissue that we want to keep to age well so when we're talking about that mentality of well what do I do it's like these small steps of yeah let's have some food before let's look at how we are dosing our exercise what kinds of intensities let's bring in some strength training because all of those are going to feed forward to having our lean mass having really strong bones having really good neuroplasticity so that means how your brain changes in a positive way so as we age we don't get dementia so these are all

the things that I would rather women focus on than the drive from the 9s to be Kate Moss thin because on the outside that drive to be super thin is killing us on the inside wow you you mentioned protein coffee yeah can you explain what that is and how that might satisfy the first takeaway which is eat before you move in the morning yes so a lot of women don't have an appetite first thing in the morning I'm one of those but I know that I need fuel so I'm very much a espresso addict I

love it and one of the simple things that I do is I make a double espresso at night and I mix some protein powder into my alond milk or whatever milk you want and then I put the hot coffee in there and put it in the fridge overnight and then it's my go to first thing in the morning where then I'm getting my 30 gr of protein I'm getting my caffeine it tastes like a latte I'm good to go and so that's a first hit it's a first eating opportunity to bring in some of that

protein that we need and if you're going to go do any kind of exercise knowing that exercise mutes your appetite then it also helps with that recovery part because you're going to have those amino acid circulating your brain's going to say hey yeah okay I've got stuff to rebuild tissue so it's a really really good way of being able to have what you need without feeling over full and still enjoying some of the good things of life like coffee well you've changed my life already yay because I've got two takeaways the first one is and

I still want to stay on it so I actually understand why eating first thing before I move my body and having fuel first thing in the morning is actually super important and I want to unpack that a little bit more but I want to hover on the protein coffee because I'm drinking it right now you made me one in our studios here in Boston this is going to change my life and here's why I have struggled forever since I've learned and a lot of us are learning as women that focusing on more protein and especially

getting protein first thing in the morning is super important and I'm always struggling with how the hell am I going to get 30 grams of protein first thing in the morning without choking down 10 egg whites and what do I do if I'm on the go and what do I do if I'm tired of eggs and what do I do if I don't have a blender near me and my stuff what do I like and so you literally took a scoop of protein shoved it in milk put in espresso stirred it up and put on

ice it tastes like a freaking milkshake and what I love about this is that a I can make it the night before B it's 30 grams of protein in a cup which c means I could even take this on the walk with me I could take this in the car if I'm dropping my kids off somewhere I could make this on the road like this is such an incredible tip so thank you for that you're welcome what I want to do though Dr Sims is you mentioned that when women wake up our brains are different

than the guys and our stress levels are higher and it is important to understand that and to give yourself a little bit of fuel MH what happens in your body if you do start eating breakfast in the morning or you CU a lot of women skip it a lot of women are now intermittent fasting a lot of people are waiting until noon a lot of people don't want to eat before they exercise because they don't want cramps or they like actually want to maximize calorie burn but what is the benefit to a woman in particular

first thing in the morning if you give yourself fuel there's a few things to unpack there so first we look at eating opportunities because there's so many women who are one trying to lose weight or two or in the fitness space and following some of the trends that don't eat enough so if you aren't eating enough you're not going to actually change your body composition so we look at eating opportunities first thing in the morning 30 grams of protein boom that's an eating opportunity that you're not really feeling overly full but it's such a great

benefit to the body and you're ahead of the game by having 30 grams of protein we also look at some of the newer research that's coming out about our circadian rhythms or how how our body goes through 24-hour cycle and for people who break their fast by around 8:00 a.m. and then they don't eat after 6:00 p.m. have all these great metabolic outcomes that you would expect from quote intermittent fasting but we see that people who hold a fast till noon or after don't get any of that benefit so if we look well why why

is that we have to understand that half an hour after a woman wakes up we have a spike in cortisol that's our stress hormone if we don't have food to tell the brain to drop that then we stay in this heightened stress State and what cortisol is responsible for is that fight or flight but also providing fuel for being able to fight or flight so the first thing that goes is we start chewing into our lean mass which is bone and muscle and a signal to keep our body fat especially as we start to get

older wait a minute so not eating and not eating because you think it's going to help you lose weight actually counterproductive it's counterproductive because it's signaling your body to stay in fight or flight which makes your body hold on to Fat yes are you kidding me no I mean when we look at the trends of the fasted training don't eat be it's all on male data and the difference between men and women in the situation is again it comes down to the brain so a man can get by with the fasted training because when when

we're looking at getting up and holding a fast or going training without food for a man's body it stimulates the little molecular structures in the muscles to use more fat because their muscle structure and the types of fibers that they have are different than women's so men have what we call more glycolytic or fibers that use glucose and not as many oxidative or the fibers that use fat as a fuel women we're born with more of those oxidative fat burning fibers so when we go and we don't provide fuel the body's like I'm going to

store fat because I'm going to need it because that's the preferred fuel for your muscles so men's bodies will start to adapt to be able to use more fat which is why you see fasting and holding a fast working so well in men but for women it doesn't do the same because we have different feedback mechanisms from the brain we have different muscle requirements because of different morphology we call it or different muscle fiber types so this is where you know we start looking at all the stuff that we've been trained to do over the

decades and how counterproductive and harmful it can be for women who are trying to improve body composition and Bone wow now does eating first thing in the morning because you mentioned the Circadian rhythm for a woman also help you sleep better at night absolutely how come because if we're look looking at decreasing our overall stress response so that cortisol bringing the cortisol down over the course of time you're going to have a lower Baseline of that cortisol if you have a lower Baseline of cortisol then your body can get into what we call parasympathetic so

that's what you need to sleep if you have this high elevation of cortisol all the time we're always sympathetically wired so we can't get into deep reparative sleep so you see a lot of Awakenings the other thing that happens when women frontload their Foods so we have a lot of of our calories in the day which we should then when we go to sleep we aren't waking up with hypoglycemia that means we're not waking up with low blood sugar because a lot of women who undereat or hold a fast and they aren't eating enough their

Awakenings at night is due to low blood sugar I thought it was because I had to pee it's also because of the low blood sugar Doctor S where the hell have you been like I I needed you in my life like decades ago I needed me then too it's taken me this long to be able to acquire all the knowledge and the research so now I'm hoping that we can hit all of the listeners and so that they will learn what we should have known decades ago this is so eye opening like already you have

highlighted so many differences between men and women just in the morning just in the stress levels just in the fuel that we need in the morning in the muscle comp composition like all of it and it also is very Illuminating because it makes a lot of sense then as to why the programs that work for Chris and seem to work like magic actually leave me frustrated and tired yeah so what would be the ideal breakfast for anyone whether like and let's just talk about the person who just wants to move more they want to take

better care of their body they want to understand how their body works so that you're getting better results and you're feeling better in your life so what would breakfast look like just on an average morning if you know for anybody yeah that I will say that it's a hard one because people have different food preferences how about an avatar what's an avatar a a makeup person okay a makeup person makeup person so we'll say there's a woman who is plant-based but not vegetarian know so she has a preference for plants three kids you know super

busy wakes up has been waking up tired but wired didn't sleep well was like okay I need to make this change never hungry in the morning so we can split her breakfast it could be overnight oats which is chiaia seeds oatmeal some um milk or or oat milk to soak it then when she gets up she's like I'm going to split that in half the first half I'm going to add some berries and maybe another tablespoon of Greek yogurt CU then I'm going to get some protein carbohydrate some Fiber and it's going to calm me

down it's going to tell my brain yep ready to go okay then you either are going out for your walk maybe you're going to do some home strength training maybe you're meeting a friend for a session maybe you're taking 15 minutes of Just Breath work to to bring yourself down especially if you're the Avatar of three kids in a busy life just taking that moment to put yourself first and then when you get back maybe it's an hour hour and a half later you have the second half the second half of those overnight oats with

a few more tablespoons of Greek yogurt and some nuts and berries because then you're getting the protein carbohydrate so you've actually split your breakfast but you've given your body the benefit of food on different eating opportunities without being over full but at the end you end up with 30 grams of protein over the course of a couple of hours so it's easy you can mix it up do it the night before you know that I'm not that hungry but if I have a little bit and then over the course of a couple of weeks you're

going to find that you're going to wake up go yeah I need some food and this is kind of a reset of your circadian rhythm your body is starting to fall in line your hypothalamus is understanding your appetite hormones are starting to work properly and when all of that feeds forward then you're going to start to see changes in body composition because you're having better sleep because we can't change anything if our sleep is perturbed so the more we focus on how are we going to work with our body's natural rhythms and the way that

our hormones work the the more it feeds into better parasympathetic drive for better sleep I have just so screwed this up like I literally wake up I delay the coffee I exercise on an empty stomach I then have my coffee which I'm then drinking on an empty stomach which means I've now maximized stressing myself out and then I'm slamming something that has 30 45 grams of protein after I work out and so what have you done if you are the kind of person like I am that you've bought into all the BS and you've basically

been starving yourself in the morning and even if you get out for a walk how are you kind of actually not only not getting the benefit but you're making it worse what's happening in like the person's body when you do not feed yourself first thing in the morning as a woman yeah I always bring it down to what are we doing when when we want to exercise right we're looking for better blood glucose control we're looking for better bone we're looking for better muscle if you're not eating then you are not going to get better

at any of that stuff because the body again is like I need fuel for the stress that's occurring and I need fuel for the exercise so if you've been brainwashed like I am MH and you're exercising because you are trying to like lose weight or you're trying to look thin MH what is happening if I continue to go down that route where I don't eat before I exercise and I'm basically starving myself and I'm going for my walk and I'm delaying food you lose muscle and then the other thing when we look at women who

are late 30s early 40s onwards we get a signal to put on more visceral fat so that's that deep belly fat that that metabolically active that can be dangerous so I'll see women who are at you know doing the same Pursuit and really proud of the fact that they're intermittent fasting they're not breaking their fast till noon they've had their coffee to hold them through and you do a DEA and what's a DEA a DEA is when you go and you get a complete body scan so it looks at your muscle it looks at fat

where Fat's put it looks at how dense your bones are so we see their dexa results and on the outside they look healthy right but on the inside it's a bit of a scary story where we see low bone density we see an increase of fat accumulating in the belly area which means that it's more what we call metabolically active so you see a change in your um cholesterol so you have more of the quote bad cholesterol that's elevated you have more inflammatory markers which is a predisposition for diabetes we see insulin resistance so I

know that there are listeners and maybe you know you're thinking about well I've been doing this forever and I don't have any bad blood markers what's going on I didn't say that it necessarily comes out that's the worst case scenario but when we look at what's happening on the inside side I don't want your bones to be like chalk and I don't want you not to have muscle to be able to get up and run after your grandkids or carry your groceries into your house so if we just make that Small Change by having some

food first thing and then carrying on with your day you're going to get the impetus to build muscle you're going to get the impetus to keep your bone and you're going to be able to reduce the signaling for that deep belly fat and it's all those Health like I understand it I've been there I grew up in that same 1980s 1990s and I still get it in my head sometimes like well is this the right thing and I'm I've done the research I've been in the lab I've implemented it so it is really difficult to

get your head around yeah but you have to look at the long terms like where do you want to be in 5 years 10 years 15 years from now well and I also think it's just like if you actually are working out not only to take care of yourself but because you do want to change the composition of your body you do want to be a little leaner you do want to be stronger that focusing on the actual science and this is like a complete turnaround for me that you need to actually eat more yes

in order to lose exactly which is the exact opposite of the brainwashing that all women and girls have have received for their entire life right and so it's so helpful to hear you talk about the science and it makes so much sense because I think we've all had that experience in our life we're like I am trying and this isn't working right and the first mistake that I've been making for now 56 years I'm understanding is literally not eating before I exercise yeah and you know one thing I want to ask is does this work

for everyone you know I got this listener question because when people found out that you were coming oh my God it was like our website crashed Ruby wrote in why do some people have natural muscle tone and some of us can eat right work out and we are still flabby and not toned there are lots of things on this and I wish that Ruby was in this room because then I could say well let's look at um your morphology so your body type so there are some women who have a better predisposition for building muscle

we call those mesomorphic and then we have other women who struggle really hard to put muscle Mass on and they tend to be a little bit flaber and that is more of our endomorphic and then we have in the middle the ectomorphic that are the super skinny K moss and most of the time people are a mix of that okay so when we look at those different muscle types and you're looking at doing all the work and not getting any benefit I want to see what kind of training you're doing because if we are looking

at when you're eating and how you're complimenting your exercise then we can make gains and every woman's a little bit different like my sister she isn't so into Athletics and stuff that I am we grew up in the same household but I was always out building tree forts and she was in reading books uhhuh but over the past year she's really put herself into getting stronger and strength training body composition is changing her grip strength is stronger and she's like I never really thought that lifting weights would help me change my body composition I was

like why have you not thought of that like if if you're lifting under load you build muscle she's like but then that's weight on the scale and I was always afraid of the weight on the scale not the outcome of looking better right and then we also because we've been so gaslit to think that it's about being so thin right that and that's what's desirable that you hear build muscle and you're like but I don't want to bulk up I'm actually trying to lean down yeah and what you're saying is no no no this is

actually like putting on your own Spanx with your muscles right it tightens you up right and I will say like I sit here and I know people always comment about my arms and it takes a lot of work to get arms like that I would think yeah but the other thing is I they're amazing arms thanks I I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt for a reason if I had your arms I'd be wearing a tank top too I would love it if all of this would go lower body like I have tried for years to

get really strong hamstrings and really strong glutes they're strong but they're not bulky it's just mesomorphic up here ectomorphic down so it's the difference in the combination um but I went through a time where I was really upset with the fact that I had more muscle like when I was bike racing I tried really really hard to lose it but I couldn't because my body's like no this is how you are born so women who are like I'm really trying to build muscle it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get bulky if you don't have

a genetic predisposition for putting muscle on really really easily it's really hard to get bulky and for most women who are trying to put muscle on not eating or doing lots of cardio work you're not going to put muscle on it's really hard to get bulky so what do you want everyone to know about exercise as opposed to diet ah so when we look at all the diet trends that are out there right we see the plant face the carnivorous the keto the intermittent fasting all of the things they are born out of a Want

For Better Health body composition better gut all of those things but if you exercise then you get all of those things and wait say that again yeah okay so hold on a second so all of those diets are designed to try to create a health outcome through eating yes but if you exercise the exercise provides the health outcome yes because we look at exercis as a stress like we have gotten into a societal idea that we all live in the same kind of temperature we have automatic garage door openers we have the internet we have

our computers even driverless cars so we have created this environment where we don't move the outcome of having a environment where we don't move we don't have a lot of green space or opportunities to even walk places is now we have this obesity epidemic and even if you're not facing obesity you're facing some overweightness and you're being bombarded by all these diet Styles if we were just to put a pause on the diet style and just take a step back and say you know what if I go back to eating normally which means that I'm

eating breakfast lunch dinner and I'm not eating snacks after dinner and I'm kind of paying attention to kind of food that I'm eating so it's nutrient dense it's not all these ultr processed things there's no protein Pop-Tarts CU it says protein on it you know what I call this Dr Sims the grandparent diet yes okay basically how your grandparents lived right exactly and then you put in some exercise because exercise is a stress the body is very adaptable to stress so if we're looking at doing a longer harder walk up a hill after a couple

of weeks of doing that it's going to be easy cuz your body's adapted to that stress oh we call it getting fitter but actually your body has adapted all of its mechanisms to that stress so if we're looking at how do I get a better okay hold on a second so I just had this like Epiphany okay I can't believe how many bombs you're dropping today like I I I I've never thought about exercise that way because I've focused on you have to exercise to get in better shape what you're saying is exercise is intentionally

moving and stressing your body in a way that it needs and is designed to do yeah and in response to the stress your body gets stronger at being able to manage stress exactly oh my God it's a stress resilience and the reason why we're so flabby and everything else is because we're sitting around and not moving and not stressing our bodies in the way that we need to and that only makes us more stressed out right because we look at stress mental health all of the things that are really plaguing everyone and the part of

it is lack of community lack of empathy all of these things that breed depression mental health and the fact that we aren't moving our bodies there's so much research out there that says if you go for a walk you're you are reducing stress if you go for a walk and you actually go to a green space so that's to a park and you're in nature it induces an incredible parasympathetic response which means that you reduce stress but because we are so ingrained to doing all the things all the time inside sitting and not actually getting

outside having the fresh air having that connection with being outside and moving our bodies we are by Design now a global of very stressed out unempathetic depressed people and if we're talking about how do we just make one small change to improve our mental health that's exercise I'm not necessarily here as an exercise physiologist to tell you the listener to go out and go for a long hard walk because you want better body composition I'm here as an exercise physiologist to explain what exercise is it is an incredible positive stress on the body that creates

changes from central nervous system down to the smallest little thing in your cell to improve your overall stress resilience and Metabolism meaning how your body handles food how your brain reacts to stress how your brain perceives an environment and you just the moving part really does help bring Center and bring yourself back to you I believe it and I want to see if I can just use an example to try to to really paint the picture of what you're teaching us right now which is an entirely different way to think about the importance of movement

and exercise strength training whatever it is that you're going to do MH when you go for a walk and let's say you go for a walk and you were mentioning you go for a walk and there's a hill in your neighborhood and when you have to go up the hill we've all experienced this you get shortness of breath you got to be using your legs a little bit more to go up the incline mhm make it a little winded a little sweaty yep even if you got a dog on a leash pulling you up the

hill like you're going and that is you by exercising your body putting yourself in a stressful situation right because it's requiring your body to exert effort and to move against that incline and it's designed to do that yeah and if you keep doing that over time what you're actually doing in addition to all the positive things that happen is you're training your body on how to be strong in situations that are stressful right so the more that you walk and the more that you build muscle and the more that you take the advice that you're

about to give us about what we should specifically be doing as women fast forward six months from now if you keep doing that and you're sitting in a stressful meeting at work the impact of that outside stress on you is going to be way less because you and your life have been strengthening your body by going to the gym and going for a walk so that your body can actually be in stressful situations and not get hijacked exactly so the whole flight or fight response that people talk about with cortisol we're flighting we're teaching our

body that flight by exercising and your body's like this is a stress I need to understand it overcome it get stronger could also think about it as the fight response too cuz if you're in the gym and you're building the muscle and you're ready to go coiled up ready to go your body's learning that stress because it's we're not an algorithm we adapt to so many different things so if we put our body into an uncomfortable or a challenged situation doesn't like it so it learns how to overcome that and get stronger in the process

so when I you know as you're explaining it's like yes it's all about stress resilience we're resilient to stress in a meeting our immune system is also really resilient to stuff that's going around and we're also resilient enough to maintain a focus if we're getting ready to lose it and our kid goes off like we're not going to break down and start yelling at our partner or our kid because we have the stress resilience we're able to take that pause it makes so much sense and you know you've talked a lot about strength training why

is strength training so important for women in particular yeah I wish I had known about strength training way back when like I was introduced to it when I was 16 because my friend's brother was a bodybuilder and I was like oh okay I'll go cuz Michelle you're going I'll go with you but I didn't really realize what that meant so when we talk about the science of strength training right now we know that with age we lose muscle really quickly start to lose it when we hit 30 and it's really important because one it's an

active tissue so it helps maintain so many different systems in our body not only that but we think about strength training and how it um puts leverage on the bone to improve bone but the big thing really is when we think about cognitive decline so we see that there's a sex difference as we get older in Alzheimer's dementia cognitive decline and it has to do with brain brain metabolism so that's the fuel that your brain uses and what we call neuroplasticity or how your brain adapts and creates neural Pathways if we're strength training then we

yeah we're taking care of our bone and a muscle but it's creating signals to the brain to increase its ability to be really plastic so it's like yeah okay I need to have a new PA pathway let's develop that pathway and so it's always changing it's like sidoku right you're mentally working on that but strength training does the same thing but it also Improv improves overall metabolism so now your brain is very flexible and it's like okay well I need glucose but then I can use lactate so when you start doing all of these things

it reduces your chances of developing cognitive issues so for women I'm always like yeah strength training is great because we're building all these things we're changing our body composition but for the long term we want to have a good body and a good mind so for doing these things and creating more Pathways and developing existing Pathways and making the brain very responsive and able to be flexible then we're going to have a really good sound mind when we're all doing Zimmer frame races when we're 100 what are Zimmer frame races you know those frames that

old women have to use and or old men I've never seen those I don't know what you're talking about in the nursing homes you haven't seen those silver Walkers oh yes I thought that was a game you were talking about so the I have a feeling you're not going to be using a walker I have a feeling you're going the one teaching us all how to lift weights when we're 90 years old in the nursing home together well no I'll be using a Zimmer frame I'll be doing the races with everyone else because I can't

say that my joints are all that great so what is the biology behind building muscle and how is it different for men versus women like what do women need to know women are what we call more fatigue resistant so as I was describing earlier the differences in the muscle fiber types right so women have more of those fat burning we call endurant fibers so that means that you can do lots of work and then you recover relatively quickly so when we're looking at sets and Reps and things like that women don't need as much recovery

time between your sets and Reps to be able to have the same kind of training stress now break that down please because I don't know anything that you just talked about I was like sets reps okay what are we doing so say have a man and a woman that go to the gym and they're like okay I'm supposed to do five sets so that's five sets so yeah this is there a lot I know it's an avatar here okay well let's just use an avatar of somebody who is just starting okay so like we're gonna

like what's the bare minimum doctors I'm looking for something I can succeed at five sets sounds like a lot yeah I'll get to there but I want I wanted to explain the biology okay you tell me biology I'll give you the biology and then I'll give you the actionable where to start thank you Dr SS all right so if we take a man and a woman they go to the gym and they have this the similar program where they're supposed to do five sets of five reps on the three minutes so what does that mean

you do five reps of a squat in 3 minutes so however long it takes you to do those and then you rest the rest of the time for the 3 minutes okay so maybe it takes you 30 seconds to do your five squats and then you have 2 minutes and 30 seconds to recover oh okay okay and you do that five times so that's 5 by five so if a man and a woman both do that and we look over time the strength the relative strength gain so that means relative to sex and body weight

the man will acquire better strength gains in a woman but if we were to change that recovery for the woman to go five sets on 5x5 on the 2 minute so she does it in 30 seconds and has a minute 30 recovery then over course of time she'll have the same outcomes because her body is like I don't need as much rest so it starts to kind of downturn with so much rest so you can put more training stress on and less time as a woman wow so this is one of the things that we're

starting to really discover in the strength training research because it's relatively new we're like okay we know that there's the sex differences in the muscle fiber types where women have more of these you know endurant type fibers men have more of the fast glycolytic fibers so if we really want to maximize the outcome of our strength training we need to work to women's physiology where they don't need as much rest to get the same kind of um stress and outcome and you know what I like about that it means it doesn't take as much time

exactly I have a lot of time so that's very good news Dr Sims you know I'm about to ask you a bunch of questions about like the specifics of what we should be doing but I had one question you know whenever I'm complaining about uh my body or you know feeling out of shape or whatever it is that I want to change my husband always turns me and says well don't forget abs are built in the kitchen not in the gym yeah is this like a man's is that what works for men that works for

men definitely yep because when I hear that abs are built in the kitchen not in the gym I'm like am I supposed to starve myself like what what are you talking about right so this comes back to the uh you know the fasting and I get really frustrated where men will drop alcohol they'll drop sugar and then all of a sudden their abs are ripped right they like belly fat gone yes but for women we tend to store belly fat correct and if I'm not drinking yeah I want results I know but it doesn't necessarily

happen no it doesn't Dr Sims it doesn't this is not fair no cuz I don't understand my own body I know it's very frustrating and I've been listening to the Bro Science and my stupid husband telling me the advice that works for him and he's he's only trying to help so what do I so why does it not work that way for women we have a higher percent body fat for one and again it comes down to food intake and hypothalamus so if we start taking out food and not replacing those calories with something else

then we end up in a lower energy state so that's a that could be a whole another podcast but basically we're not eating enough to support body composition change and health outcomes so if we talk about ABS in the kitchen if we're eating the same kind of grandparent diet then we're going to have the same outcomes right but if we have the extra 20 bit of life where we're having chocolate and whiskey and all those fun things a man can take it out and get super ripped woman takes it out there's no change why because

the hypothalamus is like where are those calories I need those calories so if we want to eat a little bit cleaner we have to make sure that we're actually providing enough calories so if we're providing enough calories and our body's like yep sweet we got enough for all the things that we need to do in a day overcome the stress and we have enough to uh fuel the training and the changes we want with the exercise we're doing you're going to get those abs wow and then the compound movements like working abs in a functional

way not doing sit-ups but like doing deadlifts or squats where you have to use your abs as a support mechanism builds them faster than you see you know guys on the floor doing lots of sit-ups or rushing twist yeah they're going to get those strong ABS but for women it's better to do this compound for that torsion to be able to use that as support because then it allows us to stand upright and have better posture because our center of gravity is down in our hips men's center of gravity is up in their chest so

if we're working to control our posture and develop the strength through our core and we're standing up taller our ABS show wow cuz I I would be a happy woman if I never had to do a crunch again and so if I'm actually lifting that could be true so let's talk about the specific things we should be doing okay what is the minimum amount of exercise that a woman needs to maintain her health and to be strong if we are looking from an age standpoint okay okay let's start with our 20s in our 20s you

can get away with a lot right what does that mean so that means that you could do bare minimum couple of days a week of mixed aerobic and strength training so you don't have to do that much okay so it could be a total body circuit set twice a week and that means like going to the gym and doing the machines you could do that or you could do an at home circuit where you can do what I say every every minute on the minute so you warm up with stretches and Mobility for five or

so minutes and then you have five minutes where one minute is jumping lunges the next minute might be some push-ups the third minute might be um some overhead thrust or you know you're pushing something overhead the fourth minute might be some air squats and then the fifth minute is completely off where you're recovering you do that circuit two or three times that's all you need wow and you don't even need equipment no that's your bare minimum right because we're talking bare minimums and talk to me about cardio because we've all been so obsessed with cardio

so is cardio a good thing is it a bad thing so cardio is interesting because it's about intensity so if we're talking about going for a walk that's really good like you're walking with a friend perfect because that's going to allow you to have some metabolic change it's going to improve your blood glucose it's going to improve your body stress resilience and hey you get to hang out with a friend so that's great it's Community it's connection it's all the great things so that's one kind of cardio if we're looking at improving our blood pressure

you can do some walking but what we find is true high-intensity work that's uh really directed with call it Sprint interval training where it's 30 seconds or less as hard as you can go and it doesn't have to be running it could be kettle bell swings could be air squats jumping lunges could be running could be cycling anything that's going to make you go as hard as you can for 30 seconds or less and recover for two minutes you might do two or three of those and that is such a strong stress that it creates

this whole Cascade of change that improves your entire cardiovascular system okay so let me make sure I'm tracking so one thing that you would tell us to do is to do Sprint training which sounds horrible but it actually as you broke it down was like oh I could do that yeah 30 seconds or less of something that's high intensity whether you're sprinting on a treadmill or you're doing kettle ball swings or you're doing push-ups or you're doing jumping jacks or just something right and then you rest for a minute and a half minute and a

half to two minutes because we want a full recovery from it's more of a central nervous system recovery because we want to be able to go just as hard if not harder for the next interval and then how many of those am I doing so you don't want to do any more than five oh I love the minimum that's it yeah I can do that that's the maximum five is the maximum now we're talking Dr Sims some people will go I can do all five and then they start and if they're doing it properly after

two they're like I can't do anymore that's fine you've gotten that impetus of stress and it creates this whole Cascade where all of a sudden your muscles are releasing signals called myocin that now is telling your liver let's not store that visceral fat we need the that fat for other things it's also telling your body we don't want to store Under the Skin subcutaneous fat we need that fat for other things it's also telling your muscles to open up and bring carbohydrate in so our insulin become or we become more sensitive to insulin so there's

so many great things about that high high intensity and by the way your blood vessels are going to respond really well so you get better blood vessel compliance vasod dilation constriction so better blood pressure control because again your body responds to stress and it's such a strong stress your body's like there's this whole Myriad of things that I need to be able to do to do that stress again so it's a really effective means of getting heart health better metabolic health and better body composition and burning fat in 30 seconds of effort yeah I mean

I I am G to I actually going to do that good that sounds like something because when you were going the box I'm like I think I can absolutely do that and again I also love that it doesn't take a lot of time no I mean I come from a huge endurance background but now I'm tra like I live in New Zealand I'm traveling the world I have a daughter I have a business super busy and I still want to exercise because one it helps with stress resilient two yeah I'm like you know there's a

little Aesthetics and vanity in there of course and Sprint interval it's so between lifting three days a week and some Sprint training that's pretty much what I do because that's all I have time for lifting three days a week MH and that Sprint training we just heard of 30 second bursts full recovery for a minute and a half to two minutes and try to do it five times maximum yep and sometimes I put that on the end of my strength training because if I'm already at the gym I might finish with some aerodine bike you

know 30 seconds as hard as I can go so I'm maximizing time so I don't spend any more than 45 minutes to an hour in the gym so if you had to bottom line what a woman should be doing in her 20s versus her 30s versus or 40s versus 50s and up what would it be so strength training across the board okay the type of strength training you do is different so when we're in our 20s and our early 30s we can do some of the protocol stuff that that is out there for men like

you're doing your 10 to 12 reps or you're going to failure or you're going in you're doing a full body workout you're going to get results as we start to get into our mid-30s and onward we start to have changes in our estrogen progesterone and it doesn't quite work for us okay because now we need to find an external stress that's going to create the same responses that those hormones used to support okay so now we want to look at more of a power-based type training what does that mean yeah like 30 up your hormones

change and now the 10 to 12 reps that we've all been socialized does not work is why we all start bitching about the fact that our bodies are not responding to what we always used to do this makes a lot of sense Dr Sims so when you're doing the higher reps it's more of what we call metabolic stress so that's more like muscle contraction using fuel yeah but it's not an impetus to build lean mass or to become stronger so this is where I say the power base so when we're talking about the spectrum of

weights and and and the reps and sets and stuff power based is zero to six to eight reps oh I love that I can do less yes but it has to be heavy okay has to be heavy but okay yeah so that means that you go and you pick up say we pick up this 20 right and you're like oh yeah I can do 10 overhead no problem maybe I could do two more great so we call that 10 with two reps in reserve okay we want you to be at a six with two reps

in reserve so that means I would have you put the 20 down and pick up those 30s and see can you do six really good wow not failing form and then could you eek out two more great that's the weight that we want you to use gotcha so I'm definitely lifting way too light and I am lifting far too much of it like the little tiny two pound weights with the put those down put those down like those aren't doing anything for my chicken wing arms no no not at all okay not at all well

that explains it because I'm like why does this hurt so much and I'm getting zero result here yeah but my daughter's literally look like they're cut yeah wow cuz they respond well to metabolic stress as our bodies get older we need more of a central nervous system Goa so the general takeaway here is that when we hit that sort of late 30s to 40s Mark and our estrogen is dropping and our bodies are changing and we're not getting the same results you got to really focus on these Sprint trainings and also doing weight training where

the load is heavier but the reps are are shorter yeah but I don't want women who are listening to go oh I heard Mel's podcast and I have to go lift these heavy weights and do Sprint training it takes time yeah to learn how to do things well without getting injured because I mean when we get older we're more susceptible to soft tissue injury joint injuries so I always want women to learn how to move first so if you've never done any kind of strength training don't be put off by oh I heard I have

to lift heavy weights I better not do at all no any kind of resistance is good maybe it's just body weight at the start maybe you're doing a body weight circuit and then maybe you're putting a backpack with some stuff that's in there to make it a little bit heavier maybe you're following somebody online that's teaching you how to move properly first and over the course of time you can add load because your body is learning how to move and it's becoming stress resilient so you add load to increase that stress and then over the

course of six to eight months you're going to be in lifting heavy weights and doing the Sprints without injury so it's not a training block like we've all been conditioned to what do I do every day in and out in and out so I can get X results we want to think about what am I doing to improve my overall health my strength my bones my brain so that when I'm 80 I'm self-sufficient when I'm 90 I'm self-sufficient it's not a training Block it's a lifestyle that we want in so it takes time to build

into that lifestyle so I another question from a listener named Aaron is it better to use machines or free weights with machines I want people to realize that it's hard for a woman to actually get the machines to fit well because they are designed for a 58 to 6 foot guy who's 160 to 190 lbs so if you are outside of that Norm it's really hard to get the right fit which can predispose you to injury if if you are just getting started it can be a way because you're not going to put a lot

of load on you're not going to get as injured like I'm not for me personally I'm not a huge fan of something like Planet Fitness but I do appreciate the fact that they've opened the doors to so many people to make lifting accessible so a woman can go in and use their machine circuit and get some resistance and some load to start to get them self resilient so then they can move away from those machines and get into to dumbbells I like more of the free weights where you have a barbell or a dumbbell because

you have to use more of your stabilizing muscles which is how we move anyway because you're not going to go pick up a bag of groceries just with your arm right so if you're looking at um bicep curls or tricep dips on a machine that's not functional per se yes you're adding load but I like it when people are okay I've got to lift the groceries or I've got to lift this overhead so I'm going to do a full squat using my abs and I'm going to go from ground to overhead it could be with

a plate could be with a dumbbell it could just be that motion at start because we have to think about how we move in the day I would love to have you talk directly to the person listening who has never stepped foot in a gym because I do think you know even though I'm in shape and I know a little bit about what I should be doing I always feel intimidated when I go to a gym because there's always guys like it's filled with guys yep and there's more and more women which is great but

if I walk into a gym even at a hotel and I'm seeing all the machines and then I see the free weight space and then I see the little space over and I don't know exactly what I should be doing right I don't stay long and I leave and I would love to have you since you've been in this industry for so long talk to the person who wants to do something and wants to learn about this but the idea of actually walking into the local gym is just daunting yep so what do you want

them to know though about the people at the front desk and the way that people at a gym think about somebody new Walking In yeah so gyms are super gendered I sometimes get intimidated you do yeah so I'll say like if I go to a typical bro gym like a Gold's Gym mhm I'll walk in and I'll see the lifting platforms and there's some big dudes and I'm like uh maybe I'll come back I'll go do something else first so it's it's still there because the gems are so gendered and it's a fault of that

industry where you walk in as a woman the front desk person looks at you and goes oh okay how much weight do you want to lose here's the cardio machines here are our classes if a guy walks in they're like yo bro how much weight do you want to put on how much muscle the lifting platforms are back there and we have bumper plates and our dumbbells go up to 80 lbs so you know it's all back there but it's so gendered even if you feel like I'm going to go to the free weights because

you have to walk through all the treadmills and the ellipticals and cardio and then you like the free weights are here and then the lifting platforms are at the back yes so it's not surprising that someone who's not ever been in a gym situation doesn't want to go into a gym situation and the way that we can get started in this is put the gem out out of your head at the moment right so we can look at there are two main things that allow women to thrive in strength training one is knowing what to

do and two is community right we see that working out with someone else is fun for one thing and two it allows you to push yourself a little bit harder it's just intrinsically you want to keep up or you don't want to look like the weak link it's just a psych psychological things so Community working working out with someone is super important so if you're someone who's like I don't want to go to the gym I don't know what to do well we can look at some of the online things that are out there so

like if you're really super super basic and you want someone to work with maybe oneon-one or maybe a small group you could look to someone like Loretta hog who does Loretta loves lifting she's very like she trains her mom she trains other people who are just trying to really understand how to do stuff in their house it's a very basic way of starting and you can move forward from there if you're someone who's like I got that part but I want to work out with a friend and we want to set program then maybe you

look at someone like the Betty rocker where she has specific programs where we can work out with her in her community or you and a friend can work out together and that's a way to do more stuff with dumbbells in the house then we can move forward and go to something like Haley happens Fitness that I've partnered with where it's from the gym where you actually have an app that shows you what to do you can go into the gym you know exactly what machines or or barbell or dumbbells to use you bring in a

friend you can both do it together so you're like here's my app this is what I do you can record everything keeps progress and you know exactly what to do and it's guided for 12 weeks and it's Progressive overload so you get benefit there's lots of conversations there's lots of community around it or you can even look if you're really confident and you're like yep I got that too I want to get straight to barbell with some dumbbell then you can look at something like Annie tourist daughters Empower which has a page from Crossfit so

there's all sorts of levels that you can find and the big thing is grab a friend have a friend and have that ownership to say for 20 minutes let's meet have our conversation and do this together because we're going to get strong together and it's fun I've been trying to get my daughter engaged in some strength training stuff and she's 12 we have a project coming up where she needs to know how to move properly and I have her working with one of my friends in a high performance gym but it's not lifting it's moving

and having fun so she has another little friend in there who's a surfer and a soccer player just like she is and they go there and they have fun she came back first day fizzing going I didn't know how fun it could be at the gym especially when you have a friend I'm like exactly it's the adult playground but little kids are being EXP go to it it's like come into my playground a playground it is absolutely a playground where else can you like jump up and down on things and then like there's a rope

and you can pull the Rope or there's a sled and you can push and pretend you're a bear or whatever it is it doesn't matter everyone's there sweating everyone's there doing stuff it's like make it time to play don't make it something that you're like I don't want to go this is too hard and I appreciate the list of resources and we'll make sure to link to those in the show notes so I have a bunch of burning questions that listeners submitted okay and we may have covered some of this but I'm just going to

hit these so that I make sure to cover the things that keep people kept writing in about that they wanted you to answer Dr Sims okay can you talk about cold plunging sure should women be doing it what are the mistakes that we're making what's the difference between men and women and cold plunging so inherently women don't need as cold so thank you we don't no why when we're looking at stress response cuz that's how I view all the environmental and exercise things is what kind of stress it puts on the body when a woman

gets into ice cold or cold water and gets in there it invokes such a severe strong stress response much stronger than a male's response that her body goes into uh more of a shutdown phase where it invokes a sympathetic dve and it doesn't create the metabolic changes that we see with men if you were to take a woman and put her in 15 or 16° Celsius which is around that 55 degree Mark she'll end up with the same responses that a man has because it's not a severe shock to a woman's body as it is

for a man's why is that because we have more body fat so we tend to vasod dilate and Vaso constrict first for controlling our temperature We Men will Vaso constrict and sweat when they're cold no we're talking about just in general okay so if we're taking a woman and putting her in ice the body's first response to environmental change is severe oaso constriction and with women with rain odds we have a stronger constriction response because it's a protective mechanism for men they'll constrict and then start shivering to induce heat women will just constrict if we

put ourselves into that 55 to 60 degree water or 15 to 16° C will constrict and then start shivering so we'll get the same benefit it's just the ice is too cold for us to start that shivering so we need the Shivering for thermogenesis to get some of those responses so we don't need ice we need cool water I have been doing this all wrong and do you feel uncomfortable when you get in the ice well I I I mean I live in southern Vermont so there's always like an ice slick on the thing and

you're like having to take an Axe and you know cut up the top of the barrel or keep an agricultural bubbler in it to keep it from freezing it's it's got to be at least 32 degrees Yeah too cold and my husband gets in it and he's like a freaking like meditation Zen he just gets in sits down he starts shivering I climb in that sucker and I'm like and then I can barely breathe I never shiver right and the Shivering is what you're supposed to be doing in there yes because shivering is an automatic

uh response for survival because when we're shivering we're increasing metabolic heat so we're able to keep our core temperature elevated so we don't die and it's a strong response that the body has to cold for women when we're Vaso constricting and we're trying to hold heat in we don't have the capacity because water on the cold skin is pulling out the heat so fast that the body is just getting colder and colder and colder and we won't really start shivering when it's that cold so when we're looking at like if you get in the ice

it's way colder than if you get into a plunge pool that's cold so if we have 4° plunge pool 4 de Celsius so that's about 38° Fahrenheit and you sit there in a little microclimate and you don't move at all you'll create a warm bubble around you and then you might start to shiver so that's what we say if you fall through the ice and you're trying to swim it's like no just try to Bob there to keep this warm microclimate around around you so if you get in cool water and you don't move then

you might start shivering but for the most part that doesn't happen so for women let's look at a little bit warmer so we get the same kind of responses and adaptations that men have and if you do this in 55 degree water so it's more cool it's not ice cold right what is the benefit to a woman's body by doing a cold plunge and how long should you be in it so when we look at a cold plunge the whole idea again is environmental stress so we start to see an improvement in our um parasympathetic

sympathetic drive so now we're able to get into that calming um because again body becoming resilient to stress we have an increase in our body's capacity for using glucose so we have better insulin um sensitivity better blood glucose control uh we have some signals to lose some of that deep body fat and we start to see better cardiovascular responses but women do better in the heat okay talk to me about this okay so when we look at sauna exposure women can tolerate heat a lot more than men so if we get into a sauna that

is 80° or 60° Celsius so that's on the upwards of gosh metric math hold on I keep forgetting you live in New Zealand I'm like why are you talking Celsius I'm like okay that's why and science sence all that's true science science is Celsius um 130 degrees okay we'll go with that uh woman can sit in there sit up high 20 minutes or so not sweating yet right absorbing heat Vaso dilate it's great so we're heating ourselves our body's responding to it by uh what we call heat shock protein responses so these little proteins that

will uncouple and then recouple and and be better for it so it's creating a whole cellular change that then is like okay now we have better responses within the muscle the muscle can use uh glucose a lot better it can use fat lot better we're also uh increasing blood flow to the brain we're also improving our blood vessels so they respond to hot and or to constriction dilation a lot faster which is important as we get older and start hit par menopause we start having blood pressure problems and it also allows us to hit higher

temperatures on the outside um so like summer times and things without having an undue stress because women by the nature of being women struggle more in the heat so if we environmental heat on the outside but when you're in the sauna sitting there it takes time for the body to heat up because of our Thermo regulatory differences between what men do when they get in and they start sweating profusely and then they get dehydrated and they don't have time to adapt as well to the heat as women do because we baso dilate first and then

we start sweating so if you have access to a sauna do you recommend that women sit in a sauna for the health benefit yeah I do how long like what what would you recommend like if you have access to this because I see a lot of the Bro scientists out there talking about the magical benefits of a sauna but now you I'm I'm starting to go okay for dudes but what about for me yeah and so what is the benefit or the protocol for women to get the maximum benefit for us so when we're looking

at for health benefits and not performance benefits because there's two different things so for health benefits if we are doing 10 to 15 minutes twice a week bare minimum you get health benefits and what are they so this is better cardiovascular health so better blood um flow better blood pressure we have metabolic responses so we have better blood glucose control better fatty acid metabolism so your body's like I'm going to use more fat as a fuel like meaning you're going to burn more fat if you sit in a sauna you will use the circulating fat

as a fuel instead of storing it yeah this is my kind of exercise by the way that's great send this on and it improves your exercise tolerance because when you exercise you produce heat and one of the living factors for women who first start exercising is the uncomfortableness of being hot oh and then my my my face still turns like a tomato bright red yes I just am there is something about me that I I can lift one weight and it's like Bing yep and that's that Vaso dilation first that's how women offload heat first

and some women say I don't ever sweat it's like well because your body is offloading the heat so much through vasod dilation and you're not in a hot enough environment to absorb more heat so your body can Thermo regulate and be be fine even when you turn bright red and you hate it another question that a listener had is should you eat before or after a workout this depends on what you're doing so we know first thing in the morning we've already talked about it that you need to eat before you go if you are

exercising in the afternoon and you had lunch maybe 2 hours before then you don't necessarily have to eat right before but you do have to eat afterwards if you are doing what we call metabolically taxing so high-intensity exercise a cardiovascular session having a little snack before and then having real food afterwards is really beneficial if you're just doing strength training we see especially from the research of Abby Smith Ryan at UNCC you have around 15 grams of protein before any kind of strength training session it improves the post exercise Epoch or what we say your

metabolism stays elevated after exercise for a longer period of time and it improves your body's responses to strength training so I guess the short answer is ideally yes you'd have some protein before but if you're really pressed for time and it's in the afternoon and if you had a meal within 2 hours not necessarily um you in your work talk about supplements like creatine and caffeine MH could you talk about why women in particular need to pay attention to these two creatine is something that's always thought of in the bodybuilding set where you see big

muscly guys and they're using creatine because it's a it's a metabolite or it's an essential thing in muscle contraction which allows our our muscles to contract really quickly and then recover and contract quickly but what we also see is it's beneficial for all the fast energetics in our body so we think about brain we think about gut heart all of the things that use energy quickly because it has to creatine is involved women by the nature of being XX have about 80 70 to 80% of the stores that men do primarily because men have more

muscle but also women tend to eat less so we don't have as much coming in and our liver only makes about 2 to three grams a day if we supplement with it then we see everything improves our brain health improves our gut health improves cardiovascular problems start to dissipate and we have better muscle function so there's an incredible body of research that's being done for creatine for health for women we see it's beneficial in pregnancy it's safe to take in pregnancy and it's really beneficial we see it's really important for mood and cognitive function in

women who repair and postmenopausal and then for skeletal muscle health and bone health we see that it's beneficial just a small dose so we're thinking 3 to 5 gram so that's a half a teaspoon that you might put in your water or something once a day doesn't have to worry about timing takes about 3 weeks for it to actually saturate the body so you know you want to kind of be patient and after that you're going like wow why have I not been taking this it's so important well now I'm like wow I need to

be taking this because it's so important here we go um what is your advice for women who are struggling to balance nutrition M and a busy LIF Style part of it is being prepared I know it's hard when we talk about that consistency and preparation um but then part of it reality right so it's like okay I know from being on the road it's hard to eat how I want to eat and I go to a restaurant and there's a salad and there's lots of stuff in it and I'm going to be one of those

people it's high maintenance I'm like I don't want dressing can you put some extra veggies in there great so I have to make it work for me if you are super busy and you're like running out the door to get the kids to school and then going straight to work and you're coming home and you're starving and you got to make dinner and then you have to do all the things that we all have to do we have to be a little bit prepared so I'm not saying take all of Sunday and prepare the week's

meals because that's just not appropriate if we do our protein coffee or overnight oats and we know what we're going to have and then we might have snacks in our bag I have snacks in my car that don't perish like I have nuts I have a couple of protein bars I have some Tetra packs of almond milk I have single sachet of protein powder just things that I'm like shoot I forgot oh I have it in the car or I have it in my bag and it's just something that's not ideal but it is things

that my body needs to get through and I always make the Precedence to have as much fresh fruit veg and whole grains at every meal that I have so that I'm taking care of my gut microbiome because if we take care of a gut microbiome then it feeds forward in so many positive ways for mood and health and Immunity and I think that's one of the things that's missing from looking at I come from New Zealand here and I go into a grocery store and I'm like whoa there are rows and rows and rows of

of supposed food but nothing to eat because of all the ultr processed sugar stuff that's on there with all the marketing so again we go back to the grandparent idea shop the perimeter get as many fresh fruits and veggies and then you know there are some canned things that you can get and some frozen things you can get but really think what am I eating that's going to protect my gut if the person that's listening takes just one thing from this conversation which is going to be hard to do because you taught us so much

today what would the one thing that you want that person to walk away with and focus on to be it's hard to make change and I want women to feel ownership of their own body and it starts with consistency and making time for yourself it doesn't have to be a lot of time it could be 10 minutes first thing when you get up and you might do some Mobility you might do stretches you might do every minute on the minute of squats and push-ups for 5 minutes but something that is you and you own it

and it helps you become more centered and you're consistent with that it doesn't mean you have to get up and make time to go to the gym it doesn't mean you have to take time out of family I mean if you go to the playground with your kids in the afternoon move around have fun make the kid playground the adult playground right it's consistency and what are you doing 10 minutes a day just for yourself you know one of the things that I'm excited about is that you know there will be millions and millions of

people that listen to this yes and if every person that listens shares this with one or two women in their life or young women in their life the number of lives that will change simply because of the things that you've just flipped on our head about the way that we think about strength about why you need to exercise in terms of intentional stress and stress resilience protein coffee has just changed my life doctor I mean just everything I've I had it all wrong and for a long time and because I didn't know right and because

I've been listening to the advice by men for men yeah and I am so grateful that you're here and I'm grateful that you have chosen to listen to this and that you're going to share this with women in your life because I think what you're asking us to do feels like it's accessible and it makes sense and I'm excited to try it all and I'm just wondering if there was a mantra that you would love every woman to turn to another woman after they hear this or turn to their daughter and say or some something

that like truth that we need to be telling each other and reminding each other that we've all gotten wrong what do you want us to tell the women in our life oh well I could joke around and say women are not small men because that's easy to say but in all reality my big focus and push is creating body positivity right and the body positivity is how we feel in ourselves and how we allow our friends to talk and to feel about themselves because we could have all the body positivity that we want and feel

really fantastic but if we're surrounded by friends who don't have that same empowerment and same body positivity it's heartbreaking so being able to share that and say you know what take up space I want to be empowered and I want you The Listener to be empowered to say I deserve that lifting platform in the back of the gym and I'm going to go there and if there's a bro there who's looking at me funny I'm just is going to take the barbell and say I own this space because I want every woman to know that

they have a right in every place in every gym every situation to be strong empowered and feel positive about the space that they're in so if we can turn to each other and say it's about being empowered and having body positivity then that feeds forward to so many different things it's a good role model for our kids it allows us to have more connection with our workmates our Partners it improves empathy because as an expat I look and I travel so much and there is a huge lack of empathy everywhere I land here in the

states and I feel it so if we can just share the positivity and empowerment despite what's going on in the world then that just improves all the things that we have in our lives and if every person that hears this shares this with someone else and everyone starts to move maybe 10 minutes a day I just think about the positive effect it has on mental health and the rolling forward that will have on so many different things well Dr Stacy Sims you just made a huge difference in my life you have completely shifted the Paradigm

in terms of how I think about exercise and what it is and why it matters and you've also explained why so many of the things that I've been doing just don't work and why and now that it makes sense I feel more motivated yay to do exactly what you're telling me to do and I am so excited to also change the narrative in my family with my daughters yay about getting strong and becoming stress resilient and actually operating in a way where we're not acting like little men yeah we're acting like powerful women so thank

you thank you thank you thank you and I want to thank you for truly taking the time to listen to something that will change your life and that is teaching you how to work with the design of your body and that is also empowering you to make a huge difference in the young women and the women in your life by sharing this and in case someone else tells you I want to tell you that I love you I love you for the fact that you do want to do better I love you for the fact

that you love science-based information I love you for the fact that you're willing to say you know what screw it I am going to go into that gym and I am going to do something uncomfortable because I deserve to feel good in my body and that means I need to start prioritizing doing it and now what I really love for all of us is that Dr Stacy Sims gave us a matter of fact science back simple step-by-step guide to exactly what to do to work with the design of your body as a woman and now

all you need to do is go do it all righty I will be waiting for you in the very next episode I'm going to welcome you in the moment you hit play I'll see you there and for you you sitting here watching with me on YouTube I just want to say please share this with somebody don't just sit and watch please do something and take a minute and subscribe to this channel because it's really a way that you can support me in bringing you new videos every single day and I'm sure you're looking for something

really inspiring to watch to really move you so I want you to check out this video next