EP 43: 7 Fitness Facts To Know On Your Fit Over 40 Journey

0:00Hello and welcome back to Becoming Her, Fitter, Better, and Stronger over 40. I'm your host and coach, Shauna. I am a wife, a boy mom, and a fitness and nutrition coach, helping women over 40 become their best. Today, I wanna clear up some big misconceptions and false claims that are floating around still in the fitness world, especially ones that target women over 40. There is so much information out there, quick fixes, magic workouts, one size fits all kind of diets, and it's easy to get overwhelmed, feel confused, and feel frustrated when nothing seems to work. My goal with this episode is to cut through all of that noise and give you truth facts that you need to know that you can use and take the steps right now towards your fitness goals.

0:43No gimmicks, no fluff, no fake news, just real talk backed by science and experience. Let's get to the first one. One of the biggest mistakes I see women making is using the same dumbbells for everything, their upper body, their lower body, every single exercise. And this gets trickier because even with popular programs, they use things like combination moves, things like squat to presses or lunges with a bicep curl. On paper, those moves sound great because you're working multiple muscles all at once, saving time, getting your heart rate up. But here's the thing. For true muscle growth, aka hypertrophy, these combination moves don't provide the right challenge or stimulus to grow that muscle.

1:25Because when you combine two movements, say, for instance, a squat and a shoulder press, your muscles are sharing the load and the focus is split. Not to mention, your legs will not get fully fatigued with the same amount of weight that you would use to get your shoulders fatigued. They are different sizes. Using the same dumbbells for both upper and lower body exercises often means your legs aren't getting the heavier load that they need. Your arms might feel fine with some lighter weight, but your glutes, your hamstrings, your quads, they need to be challenged. They are big muscles. Women have lots of muscle mass in their lower body.

2:00We are very strong. You will cut yourself short with growth and progression if you use the same dumbbells for your upper body and lower body. Don't be afraid to go heavier on your lower body movements. You are strong. Keep the weights that you choose for upper and lower body appropriate to your muscle size and your strength and make sure you're challenging each group of muscles appropriately. In simple terms, the weight that you use on these combination moves is often too light to really challenge both muscle groups properly. That means you miss out on the key factor for muscle growth, which is progressive overload, using intensity and gradually increasing the demand to your muscles so that they do adapt and grow stronger.

2:41If your goal is to grow more muscle, which it should be after 40, that's going to be what's helping your metabolism, helping you have sustainable fat loss and helping your overall metabolic health, overall health. Separate your movements. Instead of doing a squat to press, do your squats, do your deadlifts, do your lunges, and then do your upper body separately. Make sure you're using weights that are challenging your lower body and using weights that are appropriate for your upper body. Separating these out in that way, you'll be able to use appropriate weight for each muscle group and really fatigue those muscles, making the exercise and the workout much more effective.

3:18This is what's going to help drive real progress, especially after 40 when building and maintaining muscle is crucial for metabolism and health. Now into fitness truth number two that women over 40 need to know is that fat does not turn into muscle. I think this is a big myth that causes some confusion and maybe even some frustration, and it comes up a lot with my clients. And it's a conversation that I've had with many women. Fat and muscle are completely different tissues. So fat is stored energy. It's your body's way of storing energy for later. And muscle is a living active tissue that contracts and it supports movement and it actually burns a lot of calories.

3:56So you cannot turn fat into muscle. What you can do is lose body fat and then build more muscle, something that's called body recomposition. But these two are a separate process happening potentially simultaneously. Fat loss happens when you create a calorie deficit, meaning you burn more calories than you consume over time. Hand muscle gain, on the other hand, requires adequate protein, progressive strength training, and eating enough fuel so that you can build and repair that muscle tissue. This is why cardio-based programs or endless dieting will often leave you frustrated or feeling skinny fat.

4:30You might lose some weight, but without that muscle there to support it, you're not going to have that toned, defined, sculpted look that you want. And it might even leave you with a slower metabolism. So if you want to change your body, your shape, your strength, you need to focus on both. Both fat loss through smart nutrition and muscle growth through intentional strength training and proper fueling with protein and calories. So fitness fact number three is that you cannot tone or lengthen a muscle. This is a big one, a huge one, because it's still something that floats around and it's still something that a lot of women think that they can do.

5:06They think that there are certain workouts that are going to either tone their muscles or lengthen their muscles. But let's break this myth wide open. The idea of toning is misunderstood because these are fitness buzzwords that are out there really intended to market to women. And it isn't something that your muscle can actually do. So when people say they want to quote unquote tone, what that means is they want their muscles to look firmer, leaner, more defined, not bulky. The problem is that muscles cannot get toned. Muscles can do two things. They can grow or they can shrink. And when it comes to lengthening muscles, this is another myth.

5:43Muscles don't physically lengthen through exercise. Your genetics are going to determine your muscle length and shape. stretching and mobility, improve flexibility and range of motion, but they're not going to change your muscle length or create long quote unquote lean muscles. The real secret behind looking toned is having enough muscle tissue and low enough body fat for that muscle tone to be visible. You build muscle in the gym with resistance training, and then you lower your body fat percentage in the kitchen with calories and protein that are appropriate for your goals in your lifestyle.

6:19So if you are chasing getting quote unquote toned with lightweights, endless reps, or certain programs that are promising to sculpt your body, I really want you to shift your mindset here because when you focus on building strength with challenging weights, using progressive overload, and then fueling your body properly, you are going to look toned, but that's only because it's going to be a result of having enough muscle tissue and having a low enough body percentage of fat. I hope that that helps kind of clear that up because I understand, like I was that person who was always leaning towards the workouts that were promising to sculpt and burn and tone and lengthen and lean out.

6:58But those things cannot exist just with a specific type of workout program. When you understand those basic fundamentals that getting toned means having enough muscle, which means training with intensity and intention in the gym and low enough body fat, which is going to happen in the kitchen. When you understand those principles, it's going to make life a lot simpler and you're going to get results that much faster. Now onto number four of the fitness facts women over 40 need to know is that muscle doesn't weigh more than fat. This one messes with a lot of people's heads. And it used to be something that I was confused about too, when we've all heard that muscle weighs more than fat.

7:34Now, technically that's not true. A pound is a pound, whether it's a pound of muscle or a pound of fat. The difference between the two is that muscle is much more dense than fat. So it takes up less volume or less space on your body. That means as you're gaining muscle and losing body fat at the same time, or pretty close together, the scale might not be showing too much change, but your body's going to look firmer. It's going to be tighter. It's going to be smaller because muscle is compact. This is why relying solely on the scale for progress can be misleading and frustrating. And so instead, I want you to focus on your clothes.

8:10How do they fit? How do you look in the mirror? What are your progress photos looking like? How are your strength gains? How do you feel? When you build muscle, you're improving your metabolism, your posture, your overall function, which is so much more important than just that number on the scale. So remember muscle and fat are pound for pound the same, but fat's going to take up more space and muscle is going to be more compact, making you look leaner and smaller. Now on to number five, which is you cannot out-train your diet. This is a really tough one to swallow for me and for clients. I just had a client conversation recently and she said to me, and maybe you'll relate to this.

8:47She said, if you told me I had to go to the gym for two hours, six days a week, just to get my goal body, I could do it. But the idea of mastering the kitchen is so daunting and overwhelming for her. And maybe that's how you feel too. Maybe that's why you lean on exercise a lot, where you're in the gym, you're doing cardio, you're burning a ton of calories, you're there six days a week. But if you are doing all that, and you're not seeing the results that you want to, it's likely because your nutrition is not matching the goals that you have. If your nutrition is not dialed in, you will not see the changes that you want with your body.

9:21This is a hard truth, but it's a liberating one. So I don't want you to feel frustrated. Rather, I want you to feel empowered by this information. Fat loss is primarily about being in a calorie deficit, meaning you're eating fewer calories than your body burns. So exercise is crucial for building muscle, improving your heart health, boosting metabolism, but it cannot override our nutrition habits. If you're eating more calories than you burn, or if your protein intake is too low to support muscle maintenance, fat loss is not gonna happen, or it will be painfully slow. Here's a phrase I want you to remember.

9:54Put this in your brain. You build your body in the gym. You reveal your body in the kitchen. That means the hard work that you do in the gym should be focused on lifting weights, which creates that muscle and that shape for your body. But the fat loss that reveals that muscle happens with nutrition. This doesn't mean that you have to starve yourself or eat boring foods, but it does mean having to be intentional about your calories, making sure you're getting enough protein to support your muscles, and building sustainable habits. When nutrition and training are aligned, your body composition improves faster and with less frustration.

10:32I want you to think about nutrition like your financial budget. If you know how much you make and you know how much you spend, you can budget appropriately to reach your financial goals. calories works the same way. If you know how much you eat and you know what your maintenance is, you can adjust your calories to reach your fitness goals. Now I've said this before, but you cannot stay in a deficit forever. And there are times where maybe it's not appropriate for you to be in a deficit. If you've been yo-yo dieting, if you have been chronically dieting for a long period of time, those are times where maybe it's more important to get into more healthy habits like having more protein, having enough calories so that you can help your metabolism, put on some lean muscle tissue, and then you can go into a calorie deficit.

11:20Understand that a calorie deficit is the only way that you are going to lose body fat. Yes, you can maybe enhance your deficit with a little bit of activity from extra steps or some zone two cardio. But if your nutrition is not aligned with being in a deficit, fat loss is not going to happen. This is such an important concept to understand and to accept because we can spend hours in the gym, but they will not give us the results that we want to unless we really align our nutrition with our goals. Now let's move into number six, which is chronic dieting is not the answer. It is not the vibe, but it is something we have all fallen into, especially growing up in In the 90s, we just were told to eat less and move more, and we never really knew how to leave that space.

12:10And I see so many women falling into the cycle of cutting calories too low, dieting so hard, and then rebounding. I was that for so many years. But chronic dieting will slow your metabolism. It increases hunger hormones, often leads to muscle loss, not fat loss, and your body thinks it's starving. So it starts to slow metabolism, making it easier for you to gain fat and harder for you to lose it. It can even impact your thyroid, which also further can damage your metabolism. So over time, this can lead to really frustrating plateaus, hinge episodes, and a really broken relationship with your body and your food.

12:46Especially after 40, where we're already experiencing some hormonal shifts, your metabolism needs to be nurtured, not punished. That means giving your body enough fuel to maintain and build lean muscle, having periods where you're eating at maintenance, maybe even a little bit more, allowing yourself to recover from those dieting phases. Reverse dieting, aka gradually increasing calories after a diet, is such a powerful tool to help you restore metabolic health. If you want more information on reverse dieting, I highly suggest you go back and listen to episode number seven. That's a powerful episode to listen to.

13:22And it's a really important phase because dieting is not something that you want to do forever. You should not chronically stay in a deficit. So if you want sustainable fat loss, chronic calorie cutting is not the vibe anymore. It's about working with your body, not against it. Yes, you need a calorie deficit to lose fat, but then you want to reverse into maintenance. So like I said, if you want more information on that, definitely check out episode number seven. And speaking of seven, that is our last fact that I want to get into. which is what worked in your 20s is not going to work in your 40s.

13:56So many women try to apply the same diet and workout plans that we used in our 20s, only to get frustrated when the results don't come. There's a good reason for that because our bodies are changing. Muscle mass declines naturally with age if we're not prioritizing certain things. Hormones are fluctuating. Recovery can slow down. Stress levels might be a little bit higher and stress is harder for us to manage. Sleep can be disrupted. So all these changes mean that the old strategies like tons of cardio, extreme calorie deprivation, or quick fix detoxes are not only less effective, but they can actually be harmful.

14:34The focus now should be on getting stronger, preserving and or building muscle, walking, low impact movement for cardiovascular health, joint health, and nutrition that supports muscle and hormone balance and prioritizing our rest, our recovery, and our stress management. This season is not about working harder. This season is all about working smarter and working with our bodies and not against them. And that wraps up all these seven facts to know. But I really hope that these gave you some aha moments that inspire you to now take a different approach with your Fit Over 40 journey. If you take anything away from today's episode, please let it be this, is that we don't have to shrink ourselves anymore to be healthy and strong.

15:18In fact, leaning on strength and health is going to give us the best transformations inside and out. Our progress is going to come from getting stronger, eating enough protein, and respecting our body's unique needs now after 40. So it's time to step away from all of the fad diets, the quick fixes, and really lean on health and strength. And that's all I have for you today. But if this episode was helpful, if it resonated with you, I would be so thankful if you left a rating or a review. And if you have any idea for future show topics, please reach out on Instagram. I would love to hear from you.

15:55Also check the show notes for my fat loss over 40 guide. It's packed with tips that you can start using today. And if you want more guidance on your fit over 40 journey, you can always reach out to me and explore my coaching options. Thank you so much for listening to our episode today. Until next time, keep getting stronger.