Building Muscle in Midlife: Hypertrophy Training, Bone Density, and Fat Loss for Women with Holly Baxter

27:44Holly Baxter:What's your favorite flu exercise? Oh gosh, I have so many. You know, there's so many cool machines that have come out lately. I don't know whether you girls have got them in your gym, but I like the 3D Glute Medius, or like kind of. I've seen that. I don't have one at my gym. My gym's a super bro gym. Lots of upper body equipment. Yeah, I think most of those gyms are like that. But that's a really cool machine that targets your Glute Medius, which is the muscle group that I keep getting told in all my competitions. Holly, you've got to grow your ass. So specifically that kind of upper shelf. so yeah I like that one and another one that really isolates your gluten medias again that upper shelf is something that we kind of jerry-rigged or concocted ourselves sorry are you familiar with the standing hip abduction yes I was gonna say I've used it once okay so that's an excellent machine like the standing hip abduction um you know instead of the typical seated machine that we probably have access to at our gyms.

28:41Holly Baxter:So I basically set this up so I'm lying down. So if you imagine I've got two kind of benches like butted up to the back of that standing hip machine and I lie on my back and I basically scissor out. So we put these little pads under my knees. I put another pad under my hip. There's actually a video of me doing this on my Instagram. I've got to go find it now. but it's probably the most isolating glute medius exercise that I've done it takes out all of your ITV band and all of your hip flexors because your leg is in a straight position you haven't got any like 90 degree bend like a lot of the you know seated hip abduction you know um entails so yeah definitely kind of takes out some of those other accessory muscle groups and really allows you to nail your glute media stuff sorry I don't know yeah it's really cool I would love you to give it a go it's so it's so good I haven't even filmed it yet for my workout app because it's semi-new so yeah it's good I want to know your favorite shoulder exercise before we get on to something um I really like overhead pressing and it doesn't matter what kind of press it is I think to really help you know build those shoulders I do probably 12 sets at least a week overhead pressing and that'll also get a little bit of your anterior too so dumbbells smith machine eyeballs you name it all of it all of it so if we look at how you program and if we're looking at gen pop, not, not physique competitor.

30:19And you have someone that comes into the gym. I, I forgive me if I have this wrong, but I remember listening and reposting something. This was months ago, um, that I really liked that you said, instead of having someone taking a gym, gen pop female into these low rep ranges, you know, one rep max, two rep max, three rep max, you would prefer to do something like higher rep, like a drop set, you know, something like that to failure opposed to going in and doing four sets of four, whatever. Is that, did I catch that right? Or it's been a while, so maybe I'm not saying it right.

30:59Holly Baxter:Yeah. Okay. So I think what you're kind of describing here is like two different training modalities. So we have the training like concept of high-low traditional training. So that is this concept of doing, say, 8 to 15 repetitions. And then there's another type of training called low-load training. So that's how it's referred to in research. And that is like 20 reps and above. And just to give some reference to like the percentage of your one rep max in terms of the load, when you're doing traditional high-load training, that's normally somewhere between like 70 to 95 percent of your one rep max whereas for low load training that's um significantly lower loads it's around 20 to maybe 60 percent of your one rep max so the rep ranges are quite a bit different um but what's really interesting um about those two different um training i guess strategies is that they both tend to yield the same outcomes when it comes to muscle growth.

32:02Holly Baxter:So there have been for the longest time so many debates on social media. I mean I used to see it all the time like stop doing high reps. It doesn't build muscle. You've got to lift you know really really heavy like you suggested one to six to build muscle and we have enough studies now. I'd say probably at least 30 that I can recall. I've probably posted them on my YouTube, that you supported this concept of low load training being an effective way to still build muscle. One of the critical pieces of this story is ensuring that you are training close to failure. So your rate of perceived exertion, which is one of the intensity scales, I'm sure you guys probably know all about that.

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34:40That's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. Um, somewhere between seven and 10 is really where we need to be training in efforts to sufficiently activate and fatigue the motor units within our muscle, which then signals growth. And I think unfortunately a lot of women, especially new women to resistance training, there's either an intimidation factor or they're a little bit nervous because they haven't done the movements before. They end up training at that kind of intensity. And unfortunately it's not going to have the same carryover to muscle building as we would hope. Instead, you'll get some signaling.

35:20It's not like it's pointless, but you're kind of putting a ceiling on your growth outcomes when you can't train up in that high, you know, rate of perceived exertion. Instead, you're really just burning calories, which again, I'm not poo-pooing that. I think, you know, it's a great way to maintain an energy balance and for weight maintenance, but for muscle growth, the proximity to failure really matters. So I think the good news there is it gives us a whole lot of flexibility to work within a huge spectrum of reps.

35:52Holly Baxter:But I will say I'm not going to condone like doing 90 repetitions. I mean, it would be so boring and cumbersome to train that way. But I mean, our lab actually did that very studying. Brittany Counts was the lead author on this one. And it was, I think no load training we basically did like a sham little squishy foam dumbbell and we had them doing our biceps where they were literally just flexing their muscle through a range of motion so no load and they compared that to a group of participants that used just regular traditional high low training eight to 12 rep sets and the muscle growth between the two groups at the end of the 12-week study was identical like there were no significant differences so um load is important to a certain extent if we see somebody's training load so low like i'm thinking less meals classes that's how i started and got into to lifting um you know it goes for like four minutes like for a track right and you can just lift away left and left and left that type of training is probably too low to signal muscle growth again just thinking about those percentages of one rep max I referred to earlier, that's probably lower than 20 % of your one rep max.

37:06So you kind of have to stay above that, which usually means that you tap out at about 90 repetitions before you're now not training for hypertrophy. You're just getting some caloric expenditure and maybe some muscular endurance. So I think that's helpful for people because we hear so much about, you know, you've got to stick with a certain rep range. So I like to do certain movements with higher reps like bands and some of my abduction like the small isolation muscles um I'll often do higher reps for those just because I can feel it and I like

37:38Holly Baxter:feeling it as opposed to getting stuck under a heavy bar sometimes so um but then I guess conversely to kind of finish your question because you use the example of one to six um that particular style of training is great for strength development um but it doesn't carry the same weight for muscle growth. It is not as good as doing say eight reps and above. So when I think about like putting a program together for like the general person, I kind of want to know their goals. Like if they want to get strong, yeah, let's program one to six rep maxes. Like it's so fun. I love going into the gym and trying to hit a PR, even if it's not like on a squat or a deadlift, I think it's just fun.

38:24But for the majority of the volume that we're prescribe in a program if the goal is primarily to build muscle then I'm going to be putting reps that are above eight but probably below 30 just from an efficiency standpoint to get through the session so that you're not in there for hours and hours so yeah I hope that that kind of gives some will shed some light on like the rep ranges and how we can build muscle when you said that the people that did the sponge weight and a normal dumbbell and the muscle was the exact same. So the quality of your movement, like the quality of your bicep curl or your overhead press is really important.

39:11Is that what you're saying by giving that example? Yeah. So that's kind of really pointing to this concept of like good mind muscle connection. So provided you can like get a good connection with that muscle and in this case they were flexing and squeezing as hard as they possibly could you know through a full range of motion that was able to signal muscle growth sorry there are probably going to be some muscle groups where that would just not work I'm just trying to imagine doing that in something like a leg extension or you know a back muscle I mean they chose the biceps very specifically but it kind of points to a larger you know, idea or concept that load isn't everything.

39:50Holly Baxter:You don't have to, you know, stress the muscle under, you know, eight rep max or less to, to get good muscle growth. We can see similar muscle activation, um, and muscle growth outcomes with higher repetition. Okay. So if we're looking at a female that is just wants like, cause now, I mean, And I love how there's been a lot of this movement to get women into the gym. Women are paying attention to their bone density and all of that. If somebody wants, you know, they want muscle and they want strong bones, what does that look like in a program? And can you get the same thing in a 30 minute versus a 60 minute?

40:36Oh, that's a good question. It probably depends for stuff on the individual that we're working with. So are they a trained lifter or are they a beginner? So I want to touch on the timeframe that you just mentioned. So you said, is 30 minutes enough or do you need 60? So again, just thinking back to like the bigger, broader requirements to build muscle. For somebody that's brand new to lifting, you don't need the same kind of volume per muscle group per week to sufficiently grow it or to maximize growth. So for new people that are just stepping into the gym, they really only need somewhere between 10 and maybe 15 sets per week per muscle group to achieve really great growth results.

41:18So, you know, when we put that into a program, that might look like a three-day training program if they're just picking, say, four or five muscle groups that they're interested in. If they wanted to do that on all muscle groups, that might become a four or five-day session program because now you've got

41:34Holly Baxter:to fit more volume in, you know, across the week. But for advanced listers, their volume requirements are going to be a little bit higher. And unfortunately, there are diminishing returns with all of this, where more doesn't necessarily lead to like Lydia growth, kind of tapers off and kind of plateaus. And we don't really have great data at the moment either on those really high volume sets per week. There might be less than a dozen. I've reviewed a few of these on my YouTube. But for the advanced list, there are probably somewhere between 20 and 30 direct sets, again, with a high degree of effort, is going to help those individuals grow.

42:13So for that person, the time spent in the gym, unfortunately, will need to be a little bit longer. So 30 minutes, you know, probably isn't going to cut it if you're trying to grow multiple muscle groups as an advanced lifter. I think generally the programs that I'm writing for that type of client would be about 60 minutes, probably as a minimum, unfortunately, for like really advanced lifters. Sorry, that was the first part of your question. What did you say at the beginning? You asked about something else and I can't recall what you said. Oh, I think it's just like if you look at periodizing a program, what does that look like to you for a for a female that wants bone, bone health benefits and muscle in midlife?

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43:34The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free. That's right, free at ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. Warning, the following ZipRecruiter radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F-words. When you're hiring, we at ZipRecruiter know you can feel frustrated, forlorn even, like your efforts are futile. And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine.

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44:55Finally, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. Knowing that I'm sure that your midlife women that you work with, they're usually not cold kicking it with nothing to do. There's usually a decent amount of stress at this stage of life. You know, financial stuff going on either at work or whatever. there's just a lot like we're handling a lot of stuff that also goes into you asked about bone mineral density that was the thing I couldn't remember what you said about okay so uh we have a couple of phenomenal researchers uh Dr. Stuart Phillips is one of the leading researchers in the world that has more recently started to explore like training outcomes in women that are going through menopause or perimenopause, I should say.

45:46And what they have discovered that is high load training, that typical eight to 12 rep range, again, when performed to or very near to failure, seems to result in similar bone mineral density improvements as doing your very heavy one to six rep set. So that's more traditional strength training. So again, I look at that as, wow, we've got some flexibility here. So if you like lifting really heavy with low reps, which is more traditional of strength training, then program some of that into your workouts. It might be that you pick one exercise at the start of your three or four day training program, and that might be strength specific.

46:32It's going to help with bone mineral density, and it's going to help functionally with strength adaptations. But for the rest of the session, then that might be an opportunity to focus maybe more on your hypertrophy range, which would be eight and above. So again, then your remaining six exercises in the program, if you're doing a seven exercise program, would be focused more on hypertrophy. And again, which muscle groups kind of comes back to which ones you as an individual are wanting to improve. But I think for beginners, I generally prescribe all muscle groups. I think it's helpful to have biceps and triceps and some of even the smaller muscle groups, just to kind of establish a good, solid, like strong foundation.

47:14So yeah, I think for bone health, both of those rep ranges can be beneficial according to the most recent meta analyses. Sorry. Yeah. Does that answer that question? Yeah. I mean, and with that, I agree. I think it's because there's women that are coming in that may want to lift heavy, but they have, you know, a degenerative spine or whatever. And I'm like, well, good news is for you. You don't have to stay there. But what do you think? Is there ever a time and a place? How does lifting only in those strength, low, low rep, heavy loads, how, what toll does that take on your joints and your body over a duration of five to 10 years?

47:58Because for me, it has significantly changed just because I had back surgery when I was 17. And so, you know, ongoing, um, degeneration issues, but, uh, there's no way I, I, I can do that around the clock.

48:13Holly Baxter:Yeah. I love this question. So it's funny. Um, I'll just use myself as an example here. Sorry. When I first moved to the U S I really got interested in powerlifting. So I did a couple of powerlifting competitions. Like I really enjoyed training that way as somebody had an athletic background. It was just nice to be competitive and, you know, get into the gym and, you know, see those strength improvements. So first and foremost, the positives that I saw from that, obviously, yes, it can increase and improve your bone mineral density. There is some carryover to muscle building, perhaps not as effective as those hypertrophy rep ranges, but there's still some nonetheless.

48:51But it really taught me how to get to failure.

48:54Holly Baxter:There is nothing like getting under a barbell for a squat or hitting a deadlift and like going to failure and grinding that rep out. And like you are that close from sitting back down. So that was terrifying, super scary, but wow, when you can do that, it just increased my confidence and like, it was so empowering. And I also learned in doing that style of training, like where my true like RPE 10 was. So I realized going through that style of training that, wow, I've been leading a lot of gains on the table when it came to my hypertrophy training. So there was some positive lessons learned in that experience.

49:35And I would encourage women to give it a go. Of course, with the appropriate footwear, the appropriate lifting accessories, knee sleeves, lifting belt, and a solid thick belt not a slimsy velcro one I used to use wrist wraps like the works to give you confidence and to support you in all the places that will allow you to lift you know safely but as I have aged as you have kind of alluded to I feel like I have disintegrated a little bit just over the last few years like things are significantly more sore and my recovery is negatively impacted and I think you know part of that is also my lifestyle it's been very

50:13Holly Baxter:stressful. I've had a lot of big changes in the last few years. And I think my stress is at an all-time high. So I think there are some lifestyle modifications I could make that might improve my capacity to recover from that style of training. But as you said, it really wears on your joints. And for that reason, and particularly for women that are aging, a lot of my clients do not enjoy training that way because it's putting extra stress on their knees. I mean, I've got clients that had double hip surgeries or they're going in for two knee replacements next week or you know they've got some shoulder issues going on and they need a shoulder surgery so I think that that style of training as empowering and as fun and as potentially beneficial as it is for helping improve strength and functional strength it does come with some risks particularly when it comes to recovery and that of your soft tissue so that being said I think I'm a little bit more hesitant to prescribe that style of training.

51:14I have all of those programs available for clients. But for my ladies kind of 35 and up,

51:20Holly Baxter:as this kind of tends to be the time where we all start to fall apart, life is also stressful and things get in the way, I probably tend to prescribe maybe a larger percentage of the training programs that are just more hypertrophy specific. So we're not doing one to six reps. It's usually eight and above. Yeah, I like that. If we move on to nutrition and specifically fat loss at this stage for like the Perry postmenopausal female, it's definitely a different game changer than a lot of the, you know, maybe for someone in their 20s. again, a lot going on in these women's life that, that also comes into play than maybe somebody in their twenties.

52:06That's a little bit more carefree, doesn't have kids, a mortgage, maybe aging parents, divorce. I don't know. I mean, name the, the, the stress there. What does that look like? is it harder for women to lose weight? And a lot of the times, do you feel like it may be because they're overeating, but they think they're under eating? Look, I think it can be many things. So I know, you know, as we start to age, we do have something that's called metabolic resistance. So we have increased risk of muscle sarcopenia. Basically, our bodies do not respond the same way as our 20 year old former self when it comes to how we metabolize and utilize protein.

52:51So those amino acids that we're getting in from our diet from protein, just as an example, are not, they don't carry the same kind of weight as they did when we were younger. So as we get older, our protein requirements do need to increase a little bit. It doesn't need to be crazy, but I generally recommend, you know, trying to consume somewhere between 1.8 to 2.9 grams of protein per kilogram of lean body mass. So one of the reasons I use lean mass as the, I guess, predictor is that's generally a greater indicator of someone's true protein needs, perhaps than total body weight. One of the things that can often happen is if you are somebody that's carrying excess body fat, the equations that prescribe protein based on total body weight will unfortunately over prescribe protein it will mean that their intake is really high when the reality is you know a lot of their total body mass is from adipose tissue which doesn't really have a need for all of that extra protein so i like to calculate my protein requirements based on someone's lean mass so 1.8 to 2.9 is kind of the range per kilogram of lean body mass and i think that checks out at maybe somewhere between maybe 1.1 or 1.3 grams of protein per pound lean body mass.

54:09So that's kind of my rule of thumb for protein. And err on the upper side as we get older, because we've got this metabolic resistance where we don't metabolize and utilize those proteins and the amino acids efficiently. I think the other thing that you kind of alluded to is just our lifestyle changes so much. So I know we'd love to think we're as active as perhaps when we were young. I know my mind feels a lot more active. There's a lot more

54:35Holly Baxter:things going on out here than when I was 20. That's for sure. But I don't think that we're actually moving our bodies as much. We're probably a little bit sedentary. And I don't know if you're anything like me. I know my food preferences and my enjoyment for eating out probably has gone up too with aging. And, you know, with that, my calorie intake by way of food choice and preference has also gone up a little bit. Sorry. I think we're kind of faced with decreasing activity levels with aging and increased stress. We have less time. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of those things can then play into how well we're able to either build muscle or in some cases even retain muscle.

55:20In fact, a lot of the metabolic resistance discussion that we hear online, you know, talks about, you know, well, you know, maybe women are just not able to burn as much body fat as we were when we were young. And unfortunately, a lot of it actually is more due to the fact that we lose lean tissue with aging because we're not moving our bodies as much. I know for maybe your audience and my audience, we're probably a little bit more active than maybe the average person. So I see less in our demographic, but that's certainly a key contributor to why we start to see increasing fat mass or it becomes harder to lose weight with age because we are no longer like maintaining the same kind of lean body mass and then of course you know our hormones are changing as well so with decreases in estrogen with falling testosterone levels from about the age of 30 you know those hormonal changes are also negatively influencing our ability to preserve muscle and also they influence our energy levels like low testosterone is associated with depression, low mood, low energy.

56:31I mean, I was struggling with low testosterone

56:34Holly Baxter:levels a few years ago during some high stress. And I felt like I was a living corpse. Like, I think my energy levels were zero out of 10 at one point. It was horrible. You know, those hormonal changes, while they're not directly causing like slowing down of lipolysis and our ability to lose fat they're influencing us indirectly through like I don't want to train I'm exhausted I don't want to go to the gym today or like the quality of our sessions starts to go down because our mind is in 20 other places we're thinking about this we're getting emails I know I get phone calls when I'm at the gym from my class and I'm like I just want to do my dance I want an hour.

57:22Holly Baxter:So, yeah, I think we've got like a multitude of factors that start to make it harder to lose body fat. But it's not impossible. And with a good training program, a good, you know, nutrition plan, I mean, I have seen some incredible results. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along. Which is why you should try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash zip. ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. Its powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job.

58:06You get qualified candidates fast. So, while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, ZipRecruiter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free. That's right, free at ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. Warning, the following ZipRecruiter radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F-words. When you're hiring, we at ZipRecruiter know you can feel frustrated, forlorn even, like your efforts are futile.

58:49And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. F***! Fortunately, ZipRecruiter figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. With ZipRecruiter, you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent.

59:28Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash zip to try ZipRecruiter for free. Don't forget that's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. Finally, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip. Well, people that you work with in this time in their life, when they're struggling with motivation, how do you try to help them with that? That's a good one. I think women do a terrible job at giving themselves grace and compassion.

59:56Holly Baxter:I don't know whether you were raised this way. I was certainly raised in this environment where, like, it was perfectionist mentality. Like there were no exceptions for poor performance. And I think I just grew to like have such high standards for myself across every domain in life. And, you know, that's kind of carried through for a long period of time. And I never gave myself any grace when life got busy or as, you know, my circumstances changed and my time became less and less. And, you know, I'd always get really frustrated that I wasn't able to make progress. So I think for a lot of women, it's more about kind of identifying your set of unique circumstances and discerning like what is actually like a realistic weight loss goal for you, given all the things that you are currently navigating.

1:00:45And I think, you know, hopefully most coaches are kind of trying to ascertain that with their clients. But I think maybe adjusting our expectations and giving grace and learning how to kind of ebb and flow as life kind of throws us different tasks than obstacles. And yeah, I guess extend more compassion. I used to struggle with that a lot. And I think a lot of the women that I still work with are so unforgiving. And I'm like, would you say this to your daughter? would you say this to a friend like how you treat yourself and your expectations just aren't realistic so I think there's a big shift in mindset that can leave women without doing anything differently because often they're doing everything right it's just about changing your expectations reframing how you think about your goals and all of a sudden they're just happier because you know And now they've got something that's tangible that, oh, I've got a timeline.

1:01:43Oh, I can actually see where I'm going and I just have to be patient with it. Yes. Oh, all good information. What about, do you have any solid supplements for midlife women that you really, I know it varies, but just like basics that maybe are safe to kind of recommend? Yeah, sure. I think for women like for aging women, I say anybody over age 30, obviously a good protein supplement never goes astray. I think, you know, as life gets busy, sometimes it's hard to fit your protein intake through whole food sources alone. So, I mean, I even have like a protein bar for one of my snacks. I have those ready to drink Stain Life protein shakes.

1:02:26They are gold. Like during a busy day, I have two of those things to kind of get through. So I think a good protein supplement could be helpful. but kind of moving more into like the specifics of capsules and things like that I think calcium supplement if you're not somebody that's getting in a lot of dairy can be beneficial obviously you know with aging our bone mineral density decreases with decreasing estrogen that also increases the risk of osteoporosis so having a good calcium supplement and maybe a vitamin d paired together can be super beneficial to helping preserve the bone that you have I also recommend an omega-3 fatty acid, something with around 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 milligrams of DHA and EPA combined.

1:03:09They're just the different fatty acids that are found in omega-3. Great for inflammation, great for heart health.

1:03:16Holly Baxter:And I don't know about you guys. I'm not a big fan of cooking fish at home. I love eating. Me neither. I can't do it. Not at home. I can't do it. I will eat it out at every opportunity. Yes. Please. So therefore, my fish and my seafood consumption suffers most weeks. Until the weekend, I might put one serving or something if I have a nice filet. So I think an omega-3 is very helpful in those doses. There's no downside to having a good insurance policy when it comes to a multivitamin. I would avoid the gummies and chewies, even though they're a little bit more palatable. all, the ability to kind of get those into a gummy form and to have good bioavailability is challenging at best.

1:04:01And I don't know that there are very many gummy multivitamin companies that have like third party verification and that have some of the approvals that are like make them a high quality supplement. Just because I don't know that there are any that are really good that have good bioavailability. Sorry, you're going to get a multivitamin as an insurance policy since none of us can have the perfect diet every day, even me, dietician, not going to happen. Give a capsule. I think capsules are the best route to go. And what else do I use? I think the only other supplement that is something that I think would be beneficial would be creatine monohydrate.

1:04:39Probably not for the reasons that you've heard. I think there's still a lot of misinformation out there about creatine helping to support muscle growth. A lot of the research that has been carried out, even though it's a very, like it's the most widely used and consumed supplement and it's the most studied, a lot of the research that has taken place on creatine has relied on for their measures of muscle growth are either DEXA scans or in-body scans. And unfortunately, in those types of studies, we can't differentiate changes in non-fat tissues very well. It's unfortunately a combination of things like water, skeletal muscle, hair, skin, nails, bone, glycogen.

1:05:23So when someone starts supplementing with a creatine supplement, the changes that we might see on a DEXA or an in-body scan are often water changes and they're not really a true reflection of its capacity to change your muscle sickness. It's just capturing that non-fat tissue which includes water. So there's a couple of more recent studies that have used a more direct method to look at muscle growth for example the b mode ultrasound i've mentioned before and we simply don't see these like massive changes in muscle growth with creatine but what it is beneficial for is strength it's also great for performance so those things are generally something that you care about maybe you're feeling a little bit under the weather you haven't slept well it certainly is like a rep extender it will allow you to do more.

1:06:17And of course, you know, there are some more recent studies coming out that show that it's been supportive for your cognition, for processing speed, for memory, and just overall cognition. So the dose is a little bit higher, in fact, than what's recommended for performance and strength. So I personally take a dose, I've got it right now in my, I just have an unslabored creatine. I just put it in whatever I'm drinking. This is a diet soda, mango but I just pour it into any of the beverages that I'm drinking and I'll have 10 grams as a serving and that's supposed to based on some more recent studies help with your cognition so yeah they're kind of the main ones that I would recommend perfect I love that you don't cook fish at home either I don't know it is a block like a mental block that I cannot get over it's the smell don't you think yes it's the smell and just going into whole foods and I'm like okay I'm not gonna I don't I can't do it I can't do it yeah well as we kind of wrap this up if we if we kind of end on a little bit of reverse dieting what are your feelings there do you think that all women need it after a fat loss phase if they're only in a moderate deficit for a few weeks a shorter amount of time versus someone that is like coming out of a severe or a more aggressive deficit with like a physique competitor, two different situations.

1:07:46But for the average female, you know, midlife female. Yeah. So I think just for context, perhaps for someone that might not know about the idea of this phenomenon of reverse dieting, essentially, it is a nutritional strategy to help improve your metabolism. So unfortunately, when we diet, and again depending on how aggressive, how long, what's the total percentage of fat loss, there is something called metabolic adaptation that takes place or adaptive thermogenesis. So based on what predictive equations would suggest your energy requirements are, your actual requirements end up being lower because there's a lot of downregulation in several different processes within the body.

1:08:26So to kind of undo those effects of aggressive dieting or, you know, an extreme amount of weight loss, you can reverse diet by simply, you know, increasing your calories to encourage that positive adaptation to kind of bring you back up into what would be considered a normal healthy metabolism. So I actually wrote a book on this or co-authored a book on this, but since then there have been a handful of additional studies that have come out on this topic. And I actually don't reverse diet clients anymore because the actual degree of adaptation that we're seeing in some of these studies is not that significant.

1:09:07In most of the studies that I have seen, the degree of negative adaptation falls somewhere within 90 to 150 calories. That's it. So you can imagine in coming out of fat loss, you know, you're really only

1:09:22Holly Baxter:giving yourself 150 calories, maybe max, and then you're back, you know, at an even playing field. So I don't necessarily prescribe reverse dieting anymore. What I do instead at the end of a fat loss phase is we just shift our perspective back into building muscle. And in fact, a lot of the time, if we do see more significant changes in somebody's metabolism, it's probably because they lost a lot of muscle during that fat loss phase. So they did it too aggressively or they did it for a really extended period of time, resulting in lean mass loss. And that is why their metabolism has adapted. It's not really negative adaptations.

1:10:02It's a true physiological response. You've got less muscle, so your body demands less calories. So just the simple act of going back into a building phase, let's reacquire that muscle and you know get more that tends to help improve someone's metabolism

1:10:20Holly Baxter:so yeah I think a building phase is appropriate for everybody I don't know that I've ever met someone that's like oh you know I'm good it's like I don't want to change so I think most of us can probably afford to jump back into a building phase and just by bringing your calories back up you know you're going to encourage some positive adaptation anyway so I usually try to find somebody's maintenance calories after their diet which is not a too difficult of an equation I actually have that on my YouTube channel if anyone wants to know but we find that maintenance calories and then you know it's the the slow and gradual process of just bringing calories up as somebody is acquiring more muscle so we kind of match those as we go through a building phase so I don't know if I've done a good job of explaining that or not that's great I don't really yeah I don't really use the term reverse dieting anymore I just kind of switch from fat loss phase okay we're gonna our focus is now building muscle again sorry and then we go from there perfect It sounds easier too.

1:11:25Well, that's complicated. Simple. Yes. Well, thank you so much, Holly, for sharing your expertise and your time. I'm so thrilled. We're so thrilled to have you on. Again, I've been following you for years and years. So this has been a privilege to interview you and hear all that you have to say about training women at this stage of life. So thank you so much. Oh, I appreciate it. It was a fun chatting movie. You guys are awesome. We love our Aussies. Thanks for listening, everyone. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a five star rating and sharing the body pod with your friends.

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