299. Building Your Strongest and Healthiest Body (Without Deprivation) with Dr. Stacy Sims

24:08Financial Feminist:You did it for a while, and that was great. Set them down, take 30 seconds, and pick them back up. But I think it is that belief of I have to do it perfect, and no one can see me sweat, and I definitely can't get halfway up and then fail. Yeah, I know. And I don't know how to break that. I think it's going to take a large movement within the industry to be able to break that cycle. And we're seeing it more and more in some of the smaller box-type functional fitness gyms where they're having seminars on strength training for heavy women and why it's so beneficial. And they're not promoting the lighter weights.

24:42They're always like, let's pick up heavier ones and let's try to stay with that. And if you can't, then in your form, then you're done. It's not pick up the heavier ones and then drop to lighter. lighter. It's if you have to go light, then let's see how light that is the first round, and then you're going to go up. Because there's always that encouragement to listen. But in the general big box places, it doesn't happen. Especially when we're looking at the circuit type classes and a lot of the Les Mills kind of body pumps and those kinds of classes, it just doesn't happen. Yeah.

25:14Financial Feminist:I will say every time I go to a strength class, they're always like, we're lifting heavy to failure. And I think just some people are just like, they either don't know what it is or again, I think the perception is that I have to do all the reps. So as we're having this conversation, I know there's a woman listening who's like, okay, I have been avoiding strength training for all of the reasons you've just outlined. Or yes, I am just lifting really light because I'm nervous or because I'm worried about what people are thinking about me. So where do we actually start in changing that mindset? like how do we get more comfortable in a gym how do we start lifting heavier in a way that's still safe yes so for women who've never lifted before and they're listening to this yes i know i did do strength training we're seeing all the research come out for heart health brain health all the things i tell women when you first start let's just start in your house let's have 10 minutes three times a week and it's a wellness meeting with yourself so maybe the first trying to instigate those 10 minutes, it's like a meeting on the calendar that you cannot erase or delete.

26:20And the first time it might just be breathing exercises. Then the next 10 minute session on another day, you might start with some body weight squats or maybe sit to stand or maybe some wall pushups, something that is a movement. So you start to kind of get that feeling. And then we start adding load and maybe you're adding load through a front loaded backpack. So the backpack's loaded on the front and you're doing air squats. So you stay upright. And when When you start feeling comfortable in those movements, then you can find your people. And maybe you want to book an appointment with a physiotherapist who can assess your movement if you have the funds to do that so that you know how your movement patterns are and where the sticky points might be that you have to work on.

27:02If you don't have the funds for that, that's fine. You can do self-video and do some comparisons. Or we can look at doing unilateral work. So that means you're doing your single leg RDLs or you're doing single leg Bulgarian split squats. So you start getting the balance between the muscles and learning the movement there. And once you start developing that baseline of strength, then we can move you to a barbell. But when you start doing barbell movements, you do want to have someone that can show you how the bar moves. What's the path of the bar for a back squat or deadlift or a bench press? Yes.

27:37And that's where I'm finding more and more of these smaller boutique, well, I shouldn't really say boutique, these smaller gyms that are coming into play that are having specific strength training classes. They're being coached. And it doesn't matter if you're a woman or a man, they're trying to teach you the proper technique for lifting. And then you can progressively add load under the guidance of a coach. So there's lots of different ways of doing it. But to make yourself comfortable, you first have to be comfortable in the movement. And that always starts in the house because that's where women feel, for the most part, feel the safest for the different types of things that they want to try.

28:11Financial Feminist:And I know my trainer works with people one-on-one, but she also does literally deadlift classes for women. And a bunch of women come together and then it's, let's learn. The only thing we're learning today is how to properly deadlift. And so I think that those are great ways that, again, it feels more accessible. There's other women around. There's typically women instructors. So that feels more comfortable than just trying to figure it out by yourself. And it's social. I always tell people the gym is like your adult playground. And if you can get all your friends around you, sweet, healthy and friend time.

28:43Love it.

28:44Financial Feminist:Yeah.

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29:30Financial Feminist:Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash ffpod. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's quince.com slash ffpod. Everybody needs a website in 2026. I think it's one of the most important tools in your arsenal. But you especially need one that is beautiful and functional and easy to find. Maybe you're a business owner, maybe you're a freelancer, and maybe you're someone who just needs a place where all of their work can live, especially when you're applying for jobs or getting new clients.

30:06Financial Feminist:We did our first ever website with Squarespace, and it is still the platform that we recommend. The best part about Squarespace is you can do a bunch of stuff inside of it. So yeah, it's a website tool, but you can also send emails, you can sell content, You have your analytic tools all in one so you don't have to pay for a million different platforms. And when my partner needed a website to launch his business, this is where we turned. I literally helped him set up his Squarespace and we had his beautiful website all done in a weekend. Head on over to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code FFpod to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain.

30:46Financial Feminist:I have a confession for you. I felt like I brushed my teeth before going to the dentist because I usually go to my bar classes in the morning and I forget to eat. And today I knew I was going to be talking to you. So I ate a little bit of food before I trained because you have said that we should not train fasted, meaning not eating. Talk to me about why that is and what should we be eating before we go work out? Yeah. If we're looking at chrononutrition, so we talk about our circadian rhythm and women's circadian rhythms are a little bit shorter than men's. So when we're looking at the way that the body responds through our circadian rhythm, we have certain hormone pulses that rely on our circadian rhythm.

31:29So when we first wake up, we have what's called a cortisol awakening response. Women's peak is higher than men's. It's also attached to some of our appetite hormones. And if we then continue through the day without eating something, especially if we're going to go into training, then our body is like, whoa, what's going on? Because the way that we can reset our circadian rhythm is primarily through looking at light when you first get up or it's dark and timing of the food that we eat. So if you wake up and you're like, I'm part of the 6 a.m. club, I don't want to eat anything, So I go and I do my workout.

32:04Then I'll come home and I'll have some food. But I really don't feel that hungry because I just had a workout. And most women don't feel that hungry first thing in the morning. Part of it's dehydration. Part of it is the way our appetite hormones are regulated. And so they delay eating or they only have a small amount of food. And then about noon, they're like, I'm going to have lunch now. And then their eating window becomes from noon to 7 or 8 p.m. They've effectively phase shifted just like a shift worker does. So what happens when you're looking at phase shifting is now we have a perturbation or a misstep in our normal rhythm of how our hormones pulse throughout the day, including when our melatonin rises and starts to peak.

32:46So women, melatonin starts to rise about 9 o 'clock at night and then the second one that comes about 11. When you phase shift it, that melatonin rise isn't as robust, so you aren't able to get into a really good repetitive sleep. So we talk about fasted training. There's a whole bunch of things that happen when we wake up, we don't eat, we go train. We're resetting our circadian rhythm. We are keeping our cortisol elevated. So then we have a blunted in our cortisol responses throughout the day, which is not necessarily a good thing either because cortisol is a necessary hormone for us to have that flight or fight or have our arousal and all the things that we need for cortisol.

33:29And then we have a misstep in our appetite hormones. So we know a lot of women like, I don't feel hungry first thing in the morning and I'm doing fine with fasted training. It's a dysregulation of our appetite hormones. And the best way I can describe it, instead of getting into the deep neuropeptide, all the kind of regulation that people are like, it's, do you have a wall lean in the afternoon? Because we see that a lot of women around two or three, maybe 3.30 in the afternoon. Yep. They start to lean and they start to like feel really tired and they start craving caffeine or simple carbohydrates, that's a dysregulation of our appetite hormones.

34:05So when women are like, I get this slump in the afternoon having problems sleeping, well, that all exacerbates it. So I bring it back to, let's look first thing in the morning. What are we doing? If you get up and you're not training till lunchtime and you've had your breakfast and maybe you have a snack about 11 o 'clock, but you're not training till one, you're not doing fasted training. You've had food throughout the day. It doesn't mean you have to eat right before. But when you first wake up in the morning, you've had that 10, 12, 13 hour overnight fast, your body needs some fuel. Not only do we need fuel to not face shift, but we also need fuel in order to hit the intensities that we need to during exercise.

34:47And I'm now telling people, I want you to think like an athlete. An athlete has a purpose for each training session. What is the goal of this training session? What is the intensities? I need to fuel for that goal and recover from it. And we start to have that mind shift into what would an athlete do to purposely fuel for this session? What's this session? Why are we doing it? And then put a priority on sleep. It falls into place. And then people are like, oh, that's right. If I have a small snack before training, I'm fueling, my body fuels itself really well during training, either strength training or cardio stuff and then I have real food within an hour or so after training and then the rest of my day I just have more energy and then I can sleep better and then I wake up and repeat so it's a bit of there's a whole bunch of things that go into why not fasted training there are you know exceptions to the rule all the time like if someone is really struggling and trying to lose weight and is in a guided medical supervised type program, then maybe they are doing a couple of sessions of fasted training.

35:53But that's not the norm. The norm is we don't want to phase shift. We want to be able to sleep well. So let's fuel for what we're doing during the day. And then we have dinner and we don't have anything after dinner. And then we have that 12 to 13 hour overnight fast. We get up and we repeat and we feel much better with much more energy.

36:13Financial Feminist:So we obviously don't want to eat like a plate of biscuits and gravy before we go lift. So like, can you give us a couple, a couple of quick examples of like, what could we eat before we go work out in the morning? Yeah. So a lot of it is taste specific. Cause there are some women who are like, Oh, what do you mean? I can handle a plate of biscuits and gravy before I go lifting. It's a rare G, but some people can, um, you know, I wish I could. I couldn't imagine it. I know. Yeah. But no. You can always do the infamous protein coffee, which is a cold brew with a scoop of protein powder and some almond milk or rice milk or whatever kind of milk you want to put.

36:49You could have a piece of toast with a spread on it. You could have a banana. You could have a couple of tablespoons of overnight oats. You could have half your breakfast and then have the other half afterwards. It's not a lot of food. It's maybe 150 calories, and we're looking at a little bit of carbohydrate and protein. just to bring your blood glucose up, to dampen cortisol, bring everything into line and give you some fuel so that you can do your lifts properly. I think the other thing that people forget when they're not fueling is then the fatigue comes in a lot faster and technique goes out the window.

37:23And then you're like, I missed that lift. Oh, if I'd eaten, then I probably would have made that lift. Yeah.

37:31Financial Feminist:Happened to me earlier this week because I did my same strength class on Tuesday, forgot to eat. It felt different than the strength class I did this morning when I remember to eat just a little snack. Yep. I'm guilty of that this week too. I tell people that people are like, what? You didn't eat before? I was like, I was rushing around. It was the first day of school and trying to get all these things. Well, you'd rather work out than not work out, right? It's like, okay, I'd rather do it imperfectly than not at all. But yeah, if we have our say, we want to be able to eat a little bit. Exactly.

38:02Financial Feminist:Yeah. Okay. We have to talk about menopause because menopause can sometimes be up to 40 % of a woman's entire life, so nearly half. But you can train for it instead of white knuckling through it. So if someone is listening who's premenopausal or in the midst of menopause, what can she start doing to both prepare and also to guide herself through this period of her life? Yeah, I'm happy that menopause is getting its heyday, but I'm also like, I don't want it to be a fear factor because I've had younger friends go, I don't want to go through it. I'm really afraid. I'm like, well, what are you afraid of?

38:41And they hear all these horror stories. That's the generalization. Every woman's experience is different, but we can prepare the body and support the body as we go through the transition and then come out the other side a lot stronger and better. So what does that look like? We know that estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are, we have receptors all over the body. When we look at what's happening in perimenopause, we know there's a precipitous drop in estradiol and progesterone. Testosterone is not related to ovarian failure, but because the body is under so much stress, going through all these changes, we also see a decrease in testosterone.

39:18So when we start going, what am I going to do? We have to look at what kind of external stress can we apply to the body so the body can respond and adapt the way it used to with these hormones. So if we look at why I keep coming back to strength training is really important because it affects a lot of the systems that estrogen does. So we think about lifting heavy because we want central nervous system to still be able to activate those muscle fibers. And without estrogen, we have to have a stimulus that is heavy lifting to then create a good contractile protein response to lift the fibers together to be able to lift that load.

40:00We look at the way high intensity and sprint interval training affect metabolism and increase our insulin sensitivity. It reduces our visceral fat. It improves our body composition. We look at how jump training improves bone density. So does heavy lifting improve bone density? So all of the fear factors, we know there's a lifestyle intervention that we can start in our 40s that will attenuate the changes that are coming and help us through the transition. And if we start with nailing good sleep, and if we start having sleep interruptions, then we can look and say, well, what's happening? What's going on?

40:39How do I support that? And if there is such severity of symptomology, then we can lean into some pharmaceuticals. It doesn't necessarily have to be hormone replacement therapy or menopause hormone therapy. There are other non-hormonal options to help with symptomology. But with the lack of education, because it's been put in a box and been like, oh, after 40, you don't exist and we don't talk about it, people are really afraid. And then we have this overabundance of just this crazy pendulum swing of, no, these are all the things you should do. It's like, let's look at behavior first. Let's implement the strength training.

41:16Let's implement a little bit of high-intensity work. Let's make sure we're getting our protein and our fiber. Let's make sure we're paying attention to our circadian rhythm. When we have those nailed and we have additional symptoms that are interfering with our quality of life, then we can look to some other kind of intervention that will also help what we're doing from a lifestyle perspective.

41:38Financial Feminist:Yeah. Is there a particular piece of advice that you hear all of the time that's aimed at women that just really pisses you off? There are some things right now that are really making me mad. I think it is that everyone needs to be on menopause hormone therapy. And if you're not, you're missing out. And again, this comes from the big pendulum switch of when the Women's Health Initiative came out and everyone was like, oh, I'm not ever using menopause hormone therapy. And then at the same time, there's a study going on in the UK called the Million Women's Study that was specifically looking at perimenopausal women.

42:17And they found a benefit with menopause hormone therapy, which was very contradictory to the Women's Health Initiative. So if you're in the expat country, so the UK, somewhat Canada, definitely Australia, New Zealand, there's this whole, you can get it, it doesn't matter. And there's a lot of the push to get it. And in the States, we're seeing this uprise through telehealth that everyone needs to be on menopause hormone therapy. But we don't have the longitudinal data yet. And yes, it's still being done, but we don't have all the data. So when I get pushback, when I say it's a tool in the toolbox, you don't have to use it.

42:52But we hear this, that it stops dementia. The data's not there. If you have the APOE4 gene, it's beneficial and there's a timing hypothesis around it. But it's not for everyone. Oh, it helps with cardiovascular risk factor. Sort of, if you're not doing the lifestyle stuff. But if you're doing the lifestyle stuff, you're going to see a change in your blood lipids. And yes, we know there's a perimenopausal paradox where there's an increase in your LDL and an increase in your total cholesterol. all. And a lot of it is in women who are in low energy availability. So if we start eating more, then we see that shift and that's part of the lifestyle.

43:27So I get frustrated with this all or nothing that is just being hammered right now. And it makes me mad because I feel women don't have enough information to be empowered to say, wait, maybe I don't have to be on it. So I'll have friends who are breast cancer survivors and they're like, I need to be on it. It's like, do you? Are you having lots of symptoms or do you fear that you're missing out because because all this stuff that's coming out that really doesn't have a lot of robust science behind it yet.

43:54Financial Feminist:That's so interesting. And it is the same way that I say personal finance is personal. There are certain cardinal rules I have of like, you need an emergency fund, you should never completely combine your finances with your partner. Like, there's a concrete set of rules. But at the same time, everybody's situation is unique and different. And so it's very hard to just say, yes, this blanket advice works for every single person. Exactly. And the other big thing that really frustrates me is the rhetoric around why girls drop out of sport. And most people are like, girls drop out of sport because they get their period and they don't feel very comfortable.

44:31It's like, no, that's the end game. Girls drop out of sport because of the changes that happen in puberty to their biomechanics and the way that we are defaulting to the way we coach boys. And that doesn't work for girls. So girls get into a toxic sporting environment and they're being yelled at and male coaches and other coaches think that's encouraging, but girls feel like, well, you're yelling at me. I don't want to be here. So there's so many other things to unpack in the puberty set. And I think we just keep defaulting to that broken baseline across the lifespan for women. And it's coming out to play where we're seeing, you know, more and more girls are dropping out of sport.

45:09We're seeing less physical activity. And then on the other end, in perimenopause, the same thing, because they're like, what's going on with my body? I don't understand. I don't feel comfortable. I don't want to keep doing what it's doing. It's not working. Because of these normal body shifts, but the rhetoric around it is creating confusion, and that's what's angering.

45:31Financial Feminist:Yeah.

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46:04Financial Feminist:You can sell content. You have your analytic tools all in one so you don't have to pay for a million different platforms. And when my partner needed a website to launch his business, this is where we turned. I literally helped him set up his Squarespace and we had his beautiful website all done in a weekend. Head on over to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, Use offer code FFPOD to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. I'm trying to simplify my life. I make a lot of decisions in my everyday life. And I want to look cute without having to spend hours curating my wardrobe.

46:40Financial Feminist:And for years, Quince has been my go-to place. They are doing signature pieces in a really great way. That signature white t-shirt, the beautiful jeans, their cashmere sweaters that are 100 % cashmere and just$50. And the cool thing about Quince is they're priced 50 % to 80 % less. So you are saving money and you're looking chic as hell. And it's also not just apparel. I bought my living room couch from Quince. They have bedding and bath and kitchen essentials and yeah, furniture. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash FFpod.

47:19Financial Feminist:Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too that's quince.com slash ffpod I want to ask you like a bigger question just about the way we think about our bodies and of course the way that society perceives women and their bodies generally but I think that we have this deep distrust of our own body because we have been made to believe that our bodies are not to be trusted and that our bodies are something to mold and to, again, just focus on aesthetics and to create in the lab because that is what's desirable to men. That's what's desirable to society.

48:08Financial Feminist:And that deep self-trust that it needs to be built for all of us when it isn't there, when it isn't present, I think shows up in every aspect of our lives. It shows up in our relationships and our careers and also our just general relationship with ourselves. So talk to me about why we feel so disconnected from our bodies. And is there a solution for that? Or is there something that somebody can do to feel more in touch with their own knowing in their body? Yeah, so this is something that has come up quite a lot recently. And part of it is all the data that's available. We're looking at all the wearable and information that comes out with the wearable.

48:52And then we're seeing all these at-home tests. and the ability to be intuitive has been taken away because we're told by our apple watch oh my gosh you had a shit sleep you you shouldn't be doing anything you should be recovering an aura

49:05Financial Feminist:ring right now and it's funny you bring that up because i started realizing i love it for tracking sleep and i really need it for my steps because i'm on my own fitness journey with a coach but i did realize especially when i had it a couple years ago i was like oh i am not asking myself when I wake up in the morning, did I sleep well? I am checking my app to see if I slept well. Yeah. And then the problem with it is all the algorithms are based on a male body. And how that plays out in our recovery scores, if we're looking at heart rate variability, it's the variation between what we call the R to R interval.

49:44So we have the, that's how it's measured on an ECG when we have the electrodes on our heart. And there's a sex difference between the R to R, but in the algorithm, it's not being picked up. So then when we also look at menstrual cycle changes and hormone fluctuation, we know that there's a change in our autonomic nervous system that's driven by progesterone. So this is why almost no woman will be in any kind of recovery through the wearables about a week before their period starts because a natural occurrence has occurred in the woman's body, but the algorithm doesn't pick it up. So we start seeing all of these things.

50:21Oh, you shouldn't do anything. You are getting sick. You're overtraining. Strain.

50:26Financial Feminist:Yeah. Yeah. Right. And it's just because the algorithm has been weighted for male physiology. We're seeing wearable companies come out with retrospective fits, but it still does not correct the original algorithm. And then there are things like relying too heavily on a heart rate variability. And I see this a lot in really active women where they're like, my heart rate variability has dropped over the past two or three weeks. It's an unusual pattern. I'm dropping back on my training, but I'm still feeling really, really tired. And I don't really understand what's going on. And it's because they're anemic because the LED reading is based on how much hemoglobin is circulating.

51:08So if you become anemic, your heart rate variability tanks. And it's not a representation of nervous system strain. It's a reflection of low hemoglobin. So the algorithms don't pick this up. So this is where when women start relying too much on the wearable data that's being pushed everywhere, we lose sight of, oh, I'm feeling really tired and fatigued. Have I been eating well? Do I have a history of iron deficiency, and that doesn't even cue in. So I think that we've lost this kind of autonomy because we've been pushed down the data route. And now more and more, we're seeing AI come up. And AI is just an echo chamber of male algorithms and male data as well.

51:51Right? And it's like someone goes to consensus, or maybe they go to Claude, and I'm having all these issues and what's going on and spits out misinformation, old research data, or information that's viewed through a male lens that's still not true for the woman's body. I like playing with Claude and saying, you're wrong, you're incorrect. And then it's like, oh, yes, you're right. I didn't dig deep enough. I can do that because I know, but most women don't. So yeah, it is a step where I I want women to look at trends over time, not the absolute acute data, so that you can start understanding how your body responds across different seasons, across your menstrual cycle, across perimenopause, and really listen to your body versus the wearable information.

52:40So if you wake up and your wearable is telling you you're in the red, but you actually have a lot of energy and feel great, maybe you're in the red because it's the day before your period and your hormones have already dropped. And so now you feel great because you don't have the influence of high hormones. So it's like we need to have that individualized information that we're bringing from ourselves and not from that objective external data that's not really built for our bodies.

53:04Financial Feminist:And I think it's bringing it back to your body's knowledge rather than your brain's knowledge. That is something I had to work through the past few years of just overthinking about certain things and then asking myself not what are the 12 situations that could happen or what are the 12 things I think might be going on. What's, what is my body telling me? Because my body is never wrong. My gut is never wrong. Like my body tells me what to do, but I think we're so tuned out. And again, this is intentional. Like we're so tuned out of our own bodies that we are not able to make the smartest decisions for ourselves.

53:40No. And for us as women, we often put ourselves last, right? We take care of everything first and it might be nine o 'clock at night and you're exhausted, but yet you still have to do stuff for your kids to get them ready for school or you have to finish those emails because the kids have gone to bed or your partner's interrupting or whatever it is. And then we start putting those priorities first and it gives us this downward spiral. And I've had to reteach women what it means to feel fatigued from stress versus fatigued from low sleep versus rested. And when they start being able to understand that, they start implementing changes throughout their day or the week so that they don't get that dead end fatigue.

54:19The same with food and eating. So many people forget what it actually means to feel hungry and what it means to feel full. And reteaching that is so essential because then they get ownership and control over the food and they can understand that if I eat some of this ultra processed food, I'm going to feel maybe somewhat full, but not energized. And then two hours later, I'm going to feel hungry again. And what do I do? It's like, okay, well, let's see. What is that ultra processed food? Why did you drive for it? What time of day was it? So let's take some steps to be able to give you energy, even if you want to eat that ultra processed food, that's fine.

54:56But let's see what we can do to allow you to cue in to why and how and then how to reset.

55:03Financial Feminist:The thing you just mentioned was a question I had already, which is that woman who gets to nine o 'clock at night and goes, I haven't worked out and I haven't eaten well. How do we incorporate these things in a way that is accessible and doable for someone who is so busy, who has kids or who runs a company, she says for herself? How do we make this a priority where it doesn't feel like I'm just adding it to the never-ending to-do list. Now, I'm right there with you, right? I've got all the stuff and then a new startup and then we just moved. My daughter started high school. I'm married. I'm living that life, right?

55:45Yeah. And I tell women, it's like, we want to have three times a week of a wellness meeting with ourselves. Like I said earlier, when we're trying to learn how to lift or become confident in that. And maybe it's only 10 minutes. I work with morning TV anchors and they have to get up and be on set at 3.30, 4 o 'clock in the morning. So they're getting up in the middle of the night. We can do some sprint intervals right there. It could be a kettlebell swing or something like that. And it's going to wake you up. It's going to create central nervous system. And it only 10 minutes, right? And you have a whole cascade of positive effects that comes from that super high intensity work.

56:18Financial Feminist:So even 10 minutes, because I just want everybody to hear that. Because again, I think there's this perception. I have to go to the gym and I have to walk out a sweaty rat and I have to have been there for an hour and pushed myself really, really hard. No. And that's the misconception too, that if you leave a workout, not sweaty and exhausted, it wasn't a workout. And that's absolutely not true. How many times have you come out of the gym after a heavy lifting session and you haven't been sweaty and you feel energized? Old school thought is you didn't have a good workout unless you went to a spin class, you got completely sweaty and you're so exhausted.

56:55Financial Feminist:And also the spin class was 90 degrees, which I don't think we talk about enough. Like the room was 90 degrees. No wonder you're sweaty. I know, exactly. It was so hot in there. I know. Code Joni G from the 90s. Yeah. So that's the other misconception that you have to spend a lot of time and be super sweaty. So if we're looking at what are we doing for health, we know that a couple of high-intensity sessions a week is fine. That high-intensity does not have to be a 45-minute high-intensity interval training class. It can be a sprint interval session, which is like 10 to 15 minutes where you warm up really well.

57:34Then you do maybe five at the most, 30-second all-out efforts with one-and-a-half to two minutes recovery in between. Boom. So for my early, super early shift workers or TV anchors, I said kettlebell or battle rubs because some have home gyms, and they just do a quick warm-up, a couple of 30-second blasts, and then they're awake. And they've done really good things to improve their insulin sensitivity, which goes awry with shift work. They have been able to coordinate their appetite hormones. They've created a cascade of signals to improve strength and reduce visceral fat all in 10 minutes. Then we put aside strength training, right?

58:14So how do you fit strength training in? It doesn't mean you have to go to the gym for 90 minutes. You could do a really successful 20-minute session. You can go and have a really good warm-up and mobility, and then you focus on one compound movement, and you do some mobility, and you get out of there. 20 minutes, done and dusted. It's like the quality counts, not the quantity. And the quality counts with regards to how are we feeding our brain and our muscles? and that's what we want.

58:43Financial Feminist:Compound movement, explain it to us really quickly for those who may be really, really new to this. Yeah, so compound movement is something that's more of a total body movement. So we think about squats, like a barbell back squat, or maybe we're doing a goblet squat holding a kettlebell. We have to use all the muscles in our body to perform that movement. So if we are looking at our core and our back and our legs and holding the bar on our back or holding it in the kettlebell movement or goblet squat. We are tensing and contracting all the muscles in our body. And we're using all of our glutes.

59:16We're using our quads, our hamstrings, and we're developing functional pure body strength. And that's a compound movement. We talk about isolation movements. Those are your tricep kickbacks. Those are your bicep curls. That's not that functional. It's a time and a place if you need it because you're a swimmer or you're a bodybuilder, but you're going to develop your biceps and your triceps by doing deadlifts because of the way that you have to hold on to the bar and tense and pull. So deadlifts, squats, hip thrusts, overhead press, bench press, all of those are total body compound movement. Yep.

59:52Financial Feminist:And I will say, I am not the expert here, but if you are bench pressing or chest pressing and it is not a full body movement, you are either doing it wrong or it's not heavy enough. Right. Right. Like I often finish a bench session and my glutes hurt. Oh, my glutes are on fire. My legs are on fire. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Because I've had to turn them on in order to get the weight up. That's the only way that the weight has gotten up because my arms were not going to push it up by themselves. Right. What do successful women know about their health that the average woman doesn't? I think when we think about our C-suite women and other successful women in that regard, they've had to learn how to navigate and compromise but also advocate for themselves.

1:00:42So we learn that through activity. We learn that through sport. We see a lot of women who are in the C-suite who were team sport players earlier. And then when we start looking at menopause and we see a lot of women who drop out of work or get bypassed through promotion because they're having hot flashes or symptomology, they start lifting and they build that confidence back up and their brain switches on. And then they're like, hold on, I can make these decisions and I can do this. When you are investing in your own health, you're also building stress resilience and confidence. And that's what we need to front up for anything.

1:01:18if we are not taking care of ourselves, then we can't show up for anyone else. And I tell women that I'm like, you think you don't have time to exercise, but if you were to invest even an hour a week in your own health, then you can show up for everything and everybody else a little bit better, more stress resilient. And so it doesn't, all the negativity doesn't affect you as much. And if I could wrap exercise up into a pill, then everyone would take it. But because it involves time management and work and being a little bit uncomfortable, people think it's not that accessible.

1:01:57Financial Feminist:And I think there is this level of just like money, just like anything you're trying to pursue, you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. We say that all the time on this show. And just the same way that you were mentioning, okay, if it's just an hour, an hour is better than nothing. We did a whole episode prior on the show about the all or nothing mindset and about how it kind of kills us because it's like, I either do it perfectly or I don't do it at all. I do it a hundred percent, a hundred percent of the time, or I don't do it at all. And that's just not sustainable. That's not realistic.

1:02:33Financial Feminist:That's not actually success. I grew up in a military household and my dad used to joke around and go, well, it's good enough for government work. I'm like, what does that mean? And he's like, it's the 80 % rule, 80 % done. The 20 % is the extra. And the only person who's going to pay attention to that 20 % is you. So I'm like, oh, I got it. So if I strive for a hundred, but only reach 80, then that's fantastic. Even though it's only 80, only I know it's that it's 80. So I try to get people to go, it's the 80, 20 rule for everything. You have 20 % that's life. And of course, we want to experience life and there are hiccups in life.

1:03:14And if we're on at 80 % of the time, then that's your 100 healthy years.

1:03:18Financial Feminist:And I love what you said too about this giving us energy because that is truly how I feel as someone who has managed now to find a very consistent routine with fitness and with the food I'm eating is I feel bad when I don't do it. And I know I sound like a disgusting gym person who's like, I crave working out. But it is one of those things where I actually feel worse both mentally and physically when I don't do it. And I think the perception is, oh, this thing's going to take energy from me. And it might at first, because again, it's uncomfortable, but very quickly you start to actually feel better.

1:03:55Financial Feminist:You do. My daughter is like, you need to go work out. You are grumpy and it's not just jet lag. I was like, I know, because if I had the space and time to just do a little bit of heavy lifting, then everything feels better. My body feels better. My brain feels better. And I'm not grumpy. And it becomes one of those habits. Once you start it, you're like, wow, I feel great. Yes, it's uncomfortable. And there are times where you just don't want to go. But if you show up and start moving, then it starts to get real and you feel better. And yeah, you're right. I wish everybody could have that feeling that you and I have when we work out.

1:04:33Financial Feminist:Thank you for being here. thank you for your work. I have long admired you. I've seen you on other shows and just, I've always loved your perspective and I appreciate you sharing it with us. If somebody wants to learn more about your work, where can they go to do that? You can come to our website and I say ours because it's a team, the drstacysimms.com. And then the other company that we've just started is called Collective X and it's a women's intelligence platform. And so you can learn about all the stuff that we're doing to improve women's health on that platform as well. Cool. Thank you for being here.

1:05:09Financial Feminist:I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

1:06:02Financial Feminist:We'll see you next time. your move. Order on the Sweetgreen app. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode, available on Plus and Pro Plans.