RE-RUN - Nutrition Strategies for Fat Loss in Menopausal Women with Mikki Williden, PhD

28:03Mikki Williden:in terms of its long-term impact. We know from a performance perspective, fed will always trump fasted training. We know that. But that's not always the goal of someone getting up, going for a run at 5am in the morning. Sometimes it's just to get exercise. We're not all sort of have that athletic mindset we also know that there's no difference in terms of fat loss whether you train fed or you train fasted there is a difference in substrate utilization so you will burn more fatty acids when you train in a fasted state compared to if you have like a carbohydrate before training but that won't affect your overall fat loss if calories are accounted for so these are some of the things we do know but I don't I don't know that it's correct to say that no woman should train fasted like there is no like I'm not sure where that uh what markers we're looking at to determine that this is um dangerous for all women when I'm working with women in my fat loss groups who are in a calorie deficit I do say to them that to get up and train and have something before they train because when you are in a calorie deficit those those sort of guardrails do change a little bit compared to when you're talking to a woman who is just aiming to maintain her already healthy body composition because you are running on less calories so it is more of a stress on your body so you do need it and you want to get the most from that training session and you want to be able to recover well from that training session so you can do it again and when you've got less calories to play with all of those things become a little bit more challenging so i i do recommend that in a fat loss phase if you're training early in the morning we try to get something in and that something might be um it might just be a a serve of protein in water or unsweetened almond milk, you know, or it might be like a banana or something, whatever they can tolerate.

30:15That then sort of makes them, they've got a little bit of fuel on

30:19Mikki Williden:board, but it's not going to be so much that they're sort of choking down a breakfast. But then afterwards, we still want that sort of maximum amount of protein, or sorry, minimum amount of protein that I was talking about, that sort of 40 grams of protein. Okay. So we want the, the, the, the threshold to be the two and a half grams of leucine is really the, the, um, protein synthesis, like that, that threshold, we want to have the two and a half grams of leucine in there, but if it's before, and then say like they wake up at five and then they work out at six, um, then they might not need it, you know, right after if they got 40 grams before, but that window, if somebody decides to wake up and says, has a 40 minute run and it's all in context, is it a super hard, you know, run where you're trying to beat something or is it more of a chill run?

31:12Then you, you, you want to eat, if you didn't have anything, then maybe you want to eat fairly close after that so that we're kind of in that peri workout phase of fueling the body, not necessarily like no one's getting results if they don't do it this, this way or, or the exact way? Yeah, no, absolutely. So, so I, um, if it is a super hard run, then I am going to encourage someone to have something before they go out, you know, and a lot of that come down, comes down to habit because, you know, we get in the habit

31:42Mikki Williden:of doing things a certain way and our body anticipates food at certain times. And that is a trainable thing. So, you know, if you never eat before getting out training and your training starts suffering then I'm then I'm going to say hey let's try and put something in there and and it'll take a little bit of adjustment and you can start small but it's literally just to help you sort of get through your training period however you know if you think about physiology like the other time to think about pre-training fueling is actually the evening before like the dinner because that's how you you know you're going to restock a little bit of that glycogen into your muscles at that point and then overnight it's your liver glycogen that depletes it's not your muscle glycogen that depletes so which is the liver is like a little holding like a little um a holding bay for for glucose and carbohydrate and that depletes overnight but it only takes like a little bit of maybe a little bit of carbohydrate or even just some sprinting like that physiological sort of sprinting um um exercise sort of will then allow some of that muscle glycogen to travel to the to the liver to then be sort of pushed out into the bloodstream so so if you can't eat before training you really can't then aim to have some have a like a decent dinner with some carbohydrate in it the night before and then get in your nutrition post training within you know 15-20 minutes if possible and I'm always going to say you know I typically say a protein shake and a banana and it maybe it's because you always sort of go down like what I what would I usually have like a lot of my recommendations come from the things that I like yeah that's the thing which I would I would normally like but I yeah and the older you get I think you need a little bit more leucine than two and a half grams actually like I think it might be, I'm pretty sure it's closer to three, to three and a half, which I know seems like, like, why would I even mention that?

33:46Mikki Williden:But it, because that's, it's harder to get it in normal food. Well, then that would be the recommendation more for 40 grams versus maybe 30 grams. Maybe. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So that's good to know too. I know. I feel like this is a confusing topic. Haylene, I've talked about it before, what to eat before or what to eat after to get your maximum benefit. But on that too, I feel like this might not have to do with people that are focused with athletics, but I still feel like a lot of women are waiting, doing the intermittent fasting and waiting to eat. And I hear all the time, I don't have my first meal until noon or one o 'clock.

34:32What is your thoughts on that?

34:36Mikki Williden:yeah i'm like i do my best to encourage people away from that practice if they're training in the morning and look i will say that intermittent fasting is a really powerful tool for people with severe insulin resistance and really you know and really poor metabolic health and so a lot of what you read on social media is targeted towards that population but of course those messages are everywhere they hit everyone and so you're picking them up and you're thinking maybe this is what i sort of should do and and i know the mentality around that laura could be well you know if i get up and i train i'm burning calories and then i'm not replacing those calories so i'm going to this will just help my calorie balance later in the day because i'm i'm gonna be hungry later in the day anyway so i may as well save them and the other thing which often comes up is well I'm just not that hungry in the morning and coffee suppresses your appetite being busy suppresses your appetite and most people that we work with they have they're either busy at home or they're busy at work and it's really easy to put off that meal and they think they're getting the benefit from it but you know Hayley talked about low energy availability through the day and that's a big thing even if you don't have low energy availability you can still disrupt hormones and there's research to show that acute bone turnover markers are compromised if you go for hours without food post-training even if you are meeting your calorie targets for the day so you know it's so hard to hold on to muscle and bone as we age and particularly through perimenopause and menopause that's accelerated aging essentially so we need to do all we can to hold on to muscle and bone and the practice of getting up and training and then fasting across the morning is so detrimental to those two things that i just try to encourage people against it because the other thing which people don't sort of realize from a fat loss perspective is that it's really easy to overshoot your calories in your smaller eating window if you do that because even if you meal you can still feel unsatisfied and then you are constantly grazing in the kitchen or you're um you're you're really like hanging out for that after work wine then you open a bag of chips but it's fine because you fasted in the morning so it's all about you know you know so we just make these little justifications in our head but it it does us in and in most people lauren i'm not sure what your experience is, but this doesn't work long term for most people.

37:23Mikki Williden:So most people I see are already doing this and it's not working for them, but they haven't quite made that connection or connected the dots themselves. Hi, Uncle Lazer here. America's built on fast cars, fast food, and even faster women. Moto Casino's built in America. You know what they're fast at? Fast gas, rise, redemption. You see, only Moto is US owned and operated. Moto, it's American made, because that's who we are and that's who we care about. Play for free at Moto.us. Moto Casino, the social casino. Avoid were prohibited. No purchase necessary. Visit Moto.us for more details. Must be 21+.

37:54Moto Casino, America's social casino. Exactly. You actually set up my next question perfectly. In the last three weeks, I have talked to three different women who were diagnosed with osteoporosis, and they're 40. so young and a couple of them are starting the carnivore diet but as I walked away from those conversations I thought what is the best thing to do even to not get to that point also yeah but you know what can we do but even if you don't have osteoporosis and we're 40 what can we do to prevent that from happening? Yeah.

38:41Mikki Williden:So I think the number one thing, which is, which I talk a lot about as well, even though my main area of education is nutrition, I use the fact that I have a phys ed degree as almost like, well, I can still talk about this as well. But I have to say, I think strength training is one of the best things. And most of the experts would say, if you'd never have to choose between protein and strength training but strength training is is the thing right it's that mechanical load of the muscle and the bone and what occurs when you actually do that um progressive overload type work which isn't necessarily hitting three by five in the gym you know you don't have to go from the couch to dead lifting um you know your body weight or anything like that but that working to failure however that looks so I think strength training is is probably the thing even though of course we're here to talk nutrition so protein is the next thing um to my mind and I know that you agree and we already talked about the amounts of protein um uh that that I normally sort of operate in uh and then outside of that we've got creatine And we know that currently the research supports, particularly for older women, but there's no reason why you wouldn't think about this for women in their younger years.

40:07Mikki Williden:Like if you're doing strength training and your protein intake is good, then creatine may potentially help with bone as well. The research is really emerging there. Vitamin D is essential. and down here in New Zealand the sun doesn't have enough strength in those UVB rays to help us synthesize vitamin D in winter despite how sunny it is so most people in New Zealand would need to supplement during winter it's not a very good public health message like no one talks about this but you know that's actually that's um uh definitely something which I talk to a lot of people about. And then, you know, there are these other trace minerals that don't even really get featured when we think about bone health.

40:53Things like boron and silica are two trace minerals, which are super important for bone. I discussed on a podcast with someone called Dr. Charles Price,

41:03Mikki Williden:and he did a lot of investigation into osteoporosis when his wife got osteoporosis back in the 80s. and he came up with some supplements and it wasn't he wasn't just trying to sell a supplements as he's moved on from that thing but his research showed that you know in our sort of modern diet we don't get a lot of these sort of trace minerals that are really important for bone either um collagen is something else I'm really like big on and I'm sure that you guys are familiar with research to show how um and I know it's case study research and it's pre-clinical research as well so there's not large human clinical trials, but there's a suggestion that accelerated sort of healing of tendons and ligaments, and I want to say bone, but I might be wrong about that.

41:53Mikki Williden:So fact check me on that one. But that accelerated healing can occur when you sort of put collagen peptides in with a little bit of vitamin C. And, you know, there is research from Dr. Mike Ornsby's lab of women in midlife taking 10 grams of collagen, having a reduction in joint pain and knee pain. And this is in an athletic sort of population, you know, women like us. So I'm going to also suggest that people take collagen as well. Okay, Mickey, welcome back. So here we are. I want to really dive into and start with the cardio portion. So we hear a lot and there are definitely sides of the, you know, the different types of cardio that peri and postmenopausal women should do.

42:43What does the science say, the current science say, this is where I feel like, you know, any exercise is good exercise. And if it's getting you out the door, that's what you should be doing. But where does that come into place in this age group? Yeah. Great question, Hayley. And there's just so much chatter about this right now as well because I'm absolutely with you I'm like any exercise that someone can do is is going to be great and you know zone and the zone two training is the one that immediately pops to mind there's there seems to be some you know camps that say women should not do zone two training and don't need to do zone two training and then there are other people probably a bit like us that are like do what you love get out there and just move because it's important as well and as far as research goes to the best of my knowledge there have been no human clinical trials of women in our age group

43:45Mikki Williden:to show that zone 2 training is neither is detrimental or sort of neutral to health and you know we often hear that women are more metabolically flexible than men so they do not need to do the zone two training for the same reasons that men do zone two training uh and john daly here you know what day it is neither do i i live life daily that's why i only spend on moto casino moto's got daily free bonuses daily tournaments new slots added daily and the best part guaranteed daily jackpots you can't beat that so today's the day you gripping to spend it with me on moto america's social casino play for free on moto.us

44:36If they're thinking about metabolic flexibility, I think that they may be referring to, there are a couple of things that they're referring to. One of them is how much fat we burn during exercise. And many studies have shown that women do tend to burn more fat

44:51Mikki Williden:during exercise than men. So they're more metabolically flexible that way. and they can better access carbohydrate stores. But those studies aren't done on perimenopausal women. They're done on young women. And I think this is where the real difference lies because there is research to show that women in perimenopausal and postmenopausal age are less metabolically flexible. They lose that metabolic flexibility. So they lose the ability to burn fat, which sort of suppress. so they have a suppressed fat oxidation so they're more likely to burn sugar and rely on sugar and that's when um that's sort of kicks off this metabolically inflexible system and if you can't if you can't um burn fat um as a fuel substrate and you need to rely on sugar then you just run the risk of ramping up inflammation fluctuating blood sugar levels increase cravings reduce energy.

45:55Mikki Williden:That's just from an almost what someone might feel perspective, but under the hood, it sets you up for poor metabolic health. So the idea that women in our age group don't need to do zone two training just doesn't make sense in my mind, to be honest. Yes, and we're both 47. Yeah. Yeah. But I like something that you said in the podcast, in one of your podcasts, where you said just because we might be born with more type one muscle fibers doesn't mean that we stay, that that's the way we stay for the rest of our life. Well, it's interesting, Hayley, because I looked at that research too. And the research that I saw on it, and I might be missing a whole bunch of papers, which, you know.

46:46I could be but from what it what it appears is that women do tend to have a higher percentage of type 1 fibers compared to men but those amount of fibers in our body is actually quite a small percentage of the overall fiber types that exist so that they would make a real meaningful difference to your metabolic flexibility is questionable to begin with but also some of the research I see that is used to promote the idea that we don't need to do zone two training, that research itself shows that sort of beyond the age of 60, those differences change, those differences are no longer there.

47:28Mikki Williden:So, you know, if we're thinking about women as we're into perimenopause, postmenopause and beyond, like there is no real difference between men and women in terms of those muscle fiber types as well. So one, I don't know how meaningful that is. It might be clinically, it might be statistically significant, but how meaningful is it in real life? And two, those differences seem to dissolve. And hey, but again, like I say, I'm not diving into muscle fiber type papers every day and haven't done a PhD on it. So maybe I could be missing something. Okay. Well, for your PhD in nutrition, this is what I always get asked too.

48:10And I'm running a course right now. And so these questions are, it's a very large, large group. And there's a lot of questions. Can you lose or what is the current research say about, can you lose visceral and body fat if you aren't in a calorie deficit?

48:35Mikki Williden:no in order to lose in order to lose fat so you like in terms of if you're going into a fat loss phase you absolutely need to be in a calorie deficit visceral fat might be different like because visceral fat can change when you change your diet or change your practices around training and when you you this is in fact where a little bit of intermittent fasting for these people might actually be beneficial, but fat loss requires a calorie deficit. Yes. Okay. So, I mean, and that's the hard thing is I think that a lot of women, at least coming into my courses, they have always been under fueling and over-exercising.

49:22And they're like, I don't want to go down that road again. And I think there's a whole different conversation for disordered eating. And that I'm not talking about today. But if we look for the general female, that's like, okay, I got the message. I'm going to start strength training. I'm cleaning up my diet. I'm listening to all of these things that you say. I'm adding more protein, blah, blah, blah, all of this stuff. Can they significantly shift their body fat percentage, the amount of body fat they carry if they are not in a calorie deficit? I don't think so. Okay. I haven't ever seen it. I mean, I, there's body recomposition where you can like lose fat, build muscle.

50:08It's such the Holy grail that for women that I work with one-on-one, um, it's, it's just not like these body transformations aren't happening happening where you're in a surplus and and losing body fat no no like like what I think Hayley and this is in my practice women who are quote-unquote doing all the right things there's just something missing and this is where you know

50:39Mikki Williden:we know how I said earlier I said in our earlier episode that you know I don't necessarily think all women need to track calories or track protein like that you know that's not something that I do a lot of counseling around but if you are someone who feels you are doing all of the things and nothing's shifting then you then you need to track actually like like that is I think so like I think you know if someone who's I work with a couple of different sort of types of women and and one type is one that seems to have dieted all of their lives they've done all the things and they've never really sort of been successful long-term.

51:19Mikki Williden:But then I've also been, I also deal with women who have been lean all of their lives and they've never had to exercise in a way to manipulate their body composition. It's just sort of naturally been, you know, slim. So they're healthy because of course we've always, you know, I did sort of little quotation marks there because we've always equated being slim with being healthy it's not the case but that's just how our mind operates but then once they come into perimenopause they don't necessarily gain weight but their body composition does change and they do you know they they get a little bit leaner in the limbs because they lose muscle mass they get a little bit rounder around in the middle and they just don't feel in their bodies and i and so for these two different women like the the first one i described where they felt like they were doing everything right like they could benefit from tracking to actually seeing what's going in because because sometimes they are still overeating on calories even if they're good calories or they're doing what Laura was talking about in our previous conversation where they're starving themselves in the morning and then they're absolutely overshooting later on so actually picking up those habits are really helpful but then if you are a woman like the one I described who has been lean all of her life and now only struggling with body composition changes, they may not necessarily need to track.

52:50Mikki Williden:They actually probably do need to just focus on upping the protein sources in their diet. And they've likely got appetite regulation cues already in place because they've been lean all of their lives, you know, and so they probably can regulate a lot better and may not necessarily need to track. Yes. And I love that you said that And I love this that you had on, on your Instagram. I deserve to weigh less for the work I'm putting in. Yeah. I mean, how many times do you've heard that? Hey, like I, this all the time, Haley, I'm doing everything right. I'm doing everything right. And so it must be that my thyroid is low or it must be this, but 99 % of the time, and this is a super hard conversation to have with someone when they're not getting results.

53:34Is there like, well, maybe I'm not doing enough hit. Maybe I'm not, um, you know, my, my food timing is I'm like, no, no, no, no. Take out all of that. And let's look at the basics, the very basics. So when someone says that to you, I've been putting all this work, like most of the time, is it that they're eating too much or is it because the protein timing is off or they're not doing enough of the right cardio? Yeah, no, it's a hundred. It is that they're eating too many calories. then their body is able to burn you know and and and i guess this is a good time to sort of just think about the other lifestyle factors that come into play that do change how your body burns calories too right like the lack of sleep like the stress um like these do impact on our hormones and impact how your body utilizes carbs and fat and it can mean that even if you are on lower calories you can um your body can sort of almost um it'll take those calories and store them rather than burn them so so particularly women of our age group stress and anxiety for a lot of women can sort of kick up quite a bit and that will impact both how their body responds to the food that's going in, but also their behavior around food, you know, and what they choose to eat.

55:02Mikki Williden:And so those are other difficult conversations. It's so much harder to talk to someone about stress, I feel, because you almost have to get them to examine these parts of their lives, which then mean they have a hard conversation with the people around them, you know, whereas so much easier just to give them a diet plan. You know, that's what they want. Just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. And I'll just blindly follow it. And, you know, all is great. Every dating app swipe is another loss. Jim bros, fake CEOs, straight up losers. So now the only app I open is Moto Casino. Because at least there I'm surrounded by winners.

55:38Real winners. Thousands of them. While everyone else is in the single swamp, I'm at home relaxing while stacking bonuses, hitting wins, and playing all my favorite Vegas style games. Moto Casino. The only app worth your time. Moto Casino. The social casino. We're prohibited. No purchase. Visit moto.us for more details. Download the Moto Casino app today. Must be 21 plus. Moto Casino. American Social Casino. So let's talk about that because in the courses that I run, we have a clinical psychologist that has, you know, her PhD in behavior change. And most people, I'm going to tell you, I don't even think they listen to most of those episodes or they fast forward because they're like, this is the boring stuff.

56:17I want you to tell me what to eat and I want you to tell me how to exercise. and this is the fun stuff. And I'm like, but if you don't change the habits and the behaviors, you're not changing anything. And I noticed that you said, if you're not losing weight, look at the snacking for someone that maybe doesn't want to have track or, or literally like every time I always tell my, my groups, when I go into a fat loss phase, which I haven't for a while, but I'm like, I would give myself a C minus. Like here I am running the course. and like I don't want to measure in ounces everything that I everything that I but I can usually do it because I know what's in the food I have the education because I have tracked at some point for education but I also have changed some of those behaviors and habits around it to get success so how important do you feel like that is it's it's the thing Hayley it actually is the habits and behaviors it's the food prep you know it's the food planning it's knowing what

57:15Mikki Williden:you're going to eat um well in advance if not a day in advance like maybe several days in advance like i think these are the things that are really important because you can't wing it out there you know you can you can freestyle like you can prep three different protein sources and two different salads and decide how you're going to have them throughout the week but you can't wing it and expect to be successful because our environment isn't set up to allow for you to be successful there is food everywhere like if you're starving and you're going into like I don't know Walmart or something and then I mean there's you know food everywhere but there's even food in like clothes stores like Forever New and I don't know what other clothes stores you guys have but yeah there is though yeah but if you make the usa i mean i've been to new zealand and i've been to australia multiple times and i'm like there's not a mcdonald's and a burger king on every single corner like it's all in your face and you walk into the target or the walmart and the whole back to school aisle is complete junk food yes oh a hundred percent a hundred percent and the thing is you do need to exert some discipline and willpower particularly at the beginning of a fat loss phase for example but if you set your diet up right so you are hitting the protein that we're talking about you're not overshooting carbohydrate you're feeling satisfied with your meals and you have actual defined rules around how you eat that sounds very dogmatic i and i i completely appreciate that but this is the discipline that you need to exert that allows you to not have to rely so much on willpower you know like when you're under fueling and under eating and training faster and then and then um and then continuing that fast across the course of a morning you're like just like you've got very little you've got a lot of discipline up until that point but you've got very little willpower it's like a muscle that that we exert and you've used it all in that morning unnecessarily so and it just sort of does you in so the whole idea of no snacking like you just make a deal you just just take it off the table like you're just not a person who snacks you know breakfast lunch and dinner and you make these rules and you stay by them and I just think there's real freedom there because then you don't have to come into every opportunity to eat like then you have to make the decision do I snack do I not snack what do I have to eat how much should they eat.

59:44These are things which can really tie people in knots and so often they get it wrong. Now, if you are someone who tracks calories and you've accounted for these calories and you know how this is going to affect your overall energy budget by the end of that day or the week, by all means, work in your snacks. But if you're not someone who's going down that road and you're just sort of basing it on sort of meals then I feel like these rules are really important initially and what I will also just say is that it is actually work to change your body composition and to also maintain that so and that's not a bad thing you know like that really isn't to exert discipline in the space isn't obsessive it's not like you've got a problem it's not

1:00:35Mikki Williden:it's not all of these negative connotations that people often associate with looking after yourself because it is actually just looking after yourself and your health in the long term and I'm not sure why we expect that we should just be able to do it because you just can't do it in our environment we do have to work on it and then just when you feel that it gets easy it then gets hard again so just expect it to get hard again so you know that you have to continue to work on it and just I don't know, just pat yourself on the back every single day that you've managed to achieve largely what you set out to achieve and celebrate the fact that you are working towards your health.

1:01:09Mikki Williden:And I think people don't celebrate that enough either. That's such a good point. I love that you said that. Yeah. So if we're looking, I love that you say a good diet doesn't happen by accident. And for me, I feel like the preparation, yes, number one, but for those people that again, calorie tracking can work for some people. Some people need it and they love it. But then for others, they're like, it does my head in the second. I think I'm going on a diet and I have to track. I like push back most of the time. If I'm just like, pay attention to your portion size and cut out snacking, you are not going to die by missing your, your two snacks in the day.

1:01:48Yes, no, totally. Totally the same. And, you know, and also I find it hilarious that people come into my program and I just started one actually this week and so I've got several hundred people in there and and and we're talking and I get all these emails going I'm so excited to start this can I still eat that this breakfast and can I still do this one this thing so we've become so attached to our food you know so many people sign up for a plan but don't even really want to follow it they sort of just want approval of what they're already doing you know like I find that mentality really funny as well and we change right and I always say this to people as well is that is that we we have these narratives in our head of the type of person we are the type of foods that we eat the things that we do and these are narratives that have just been ingrained for years if not decades but you can shift them and evidence builds confidence so part of it is this is why the behavior change work that you do Hayley is just so important I wish more people understood that because that that is what they need to change they need to change how they talk to themselves about their diet and their fat loss um and and the exercise they have to change how they view themselves they have to sort of almost change like some of what they think they like and don't like

1:03:11Mikki Williden:and like tastes change as well. Like you might think that you couldn't possibly give up your, I don't know, like raspberry frappuccino or whatever it is, but go without for 10 days and you'll find you'll just really love, you know, the new, I don't know, egg white bites and iced americano, whatever it is that you're changing to, you know. Yeah. Yes. And when you say you can't eat your way to a better physique. So here we're saying, or I think the nutrition is the biggest component. Most women can get to the gym. My job's easy. You know, I put out the strength program and it's like, well, just go and do it.

1:03:50And then this one overloads onto the next one, onto the next one. If you have intelligent programming, it's, you know, it's, it's hard to do. Good programming is hard to do. So there's a lot out there that are just all over the place, but the nutrition is what draws people off. So when you say you can't eat your way to a better physique, what does that mean? I mean, it comes back to what we were discussing with bone, but also like muscle, like muscle required to build muscle. You need to do strength training, but you can't, yes, you can lay down some lean tissues by increasing your protein. Like we know that you can do that.

1:04:30So, but ultimately the biggest driver of that physique change, which is what I think a lot of women want in terms of being more they call it toned but it's actually building muscle you know like this is this is the thing that they come to me for but you need to do the training for that like the diet supports a good intelligent training program and oftentimes with diet if you're just relying on that calorie deficit you just end up being a smaller version of of yourself you're not building your body you're sort of you're you're just becoming a smaller version of yourself which may or may not be a good thing and for a lot of women who aren't engaging in strength training it's not necessarily the best thing but what I do feel is like there's that a lot of women are quite intimidated by some of the messaging around exercise right now you know like we were talking about the zone two training you know like you shouldn't do this you have to do this you know all of the rules that are put around that.

1:05:31But as I understand it, is that it's that progressive overload to failure. And you'll know way more than I do, I'm sure, Hayley, but

1:05:41Mikki Williden:it's actually challenging the muscle is the main thing. It's not about having to do sets of repetitions that then place you at risk of injury. I'm not sure. Exactly. I mean, and I definitely preach using all rep ranges because it's, you can't stay in one rep range and keep getting, even with varied trainings and overload methods, the body needs variety, but it needs intelligent variety. And there's different purposes and different plans for each rep range. And my goal as, as more and more women are coming into the space is, I don't want, you know, a whole generation of injured women that are out for nine months because they're like, well, now I have these tendinopathies or now I threw out my back and I can't do this.

1:06:30Usually it's, well, you did too much too soon or, you know, you weren't ready for this or your form isn't. I mean, there's a lot that goes into it that way, but there's, I don't believe in any absolutes. There's, there's one way there's tools in a toolbox that have to be worked out. And I think that's the message that you're saying for women out there. Like, if this works for you, I'm never going to discredit, you know, that this works for you. If this works for someone else, provided that they're all under the umbrella of everything we've been talking about. Those are the important things that there isn't a exact approach.

1:07:08And I think that the women in this age, and you can say how you feel, but they come in almost desperate because they are thrown advertisements every day about what is the exact thing to do. And they're just like, I'm freaking tired of like, now this is good. Now this is good. This is bad. You know, this is what I should be. This is why I'm not getting results when it's a time thing. I mean, do you ever see body compositions completely change in, you know, a couple of weeks. No, no. And I, you know, people have just promised these, these, these results that are just, well, almost seemingly impossible, but absolutely unsustainable.

1:07:53And I think, I feel like that's really important as well. And, you know, we spend for a lot of women, they spend their thirties to mid forties gaining weight, but not really, not really noticing, you know, it's sort of easy to ignore. And, and I know some people won't understand this, but literally someone can stand on the scales and be 15 kilos, 30 pounds heavier, and not even really realize it because they haven't really paid attention and things get a little bit tight. You just wear slightly different clothes and start buying slightly different sizes and then suddenly you're 30 pounds overweight and didn't even know it.

1:08:25But that happened over the course of 10 years, whereas I don't think anyone should expect to be able to then in 12 weeks go back to where they were 10 years ago so you know a a healthy sort of uh rain a healthy amount of weight to lose in a sustainable fashion um might be anywhere from say 0.5 to 1 percent of your body weight now we know that rapid fat loss does work though like i think bill campbell who i believe is an expert and you know he's done some great research to you know you go in you you lose fat you come out it's short it does the job but I'm not sure how suitable that method is for a lot of people that I work with but I mean you know it's good to know that it can happen but I think people should look at their you know we need to be patient and look at this as like a long-term way of doing things like a forever approach and it's just it is like a very a version of your forever diet and your forever exercise plan but right now the version that you might need to use is one that elicits a fat loss rather than one that just allows you to maintain a healthy physique and and allow one to two years for that like I have women that like when I started my group program it was in 2021 and they've done several of my plans and they sort of come in and they lose like six or eight kilos and then they maintain that weight for like six months and then they join the group again because they love the community but they also want to take the thinking out and they're ready to hit fat loss again and this is how they use that approach and i think that if you are patient you almost you take off the pressure that you have to do it all in 12 weeks you know and and that it all has to be done immediately and this is such an important thing

1:10:20Mikki Williden:which we should almost relish this opportunity to make these changes because they're changes for our health and we deserve to feel good when we're doing it. And then also understand that it takes time. Yes. Okay. Two important points. Number one, I love Bill Campbell. He's actually coming on to be a guest expert along with you for a Q &A. I mean, and he's just, I think he said it once. And he's seriously the most humble, nicest guy. And he's like, I think I know more, you know, about fat loss than anyone else. And this is what I'm telling, like, this is what the science is. This is all I've devoted my life to.

1:11:03So it's so great. But I, you know, I've had women come in that are like, well, I, you know, I thought I was going to do a 12 book program and have arms like you. And I'm like, I've been building my physique for five years. Like it doesn't just happen overnight. But to wrap it up, because I know we're out of time. I love your mindset. I love the habits that you teach women. And I love your kind of no BS approach where it's just like, if the science changes, Mickey changes and isn't afraid to change your mind based on that. And knowing that we have so much to learn about this peri and postmenopause phase that in 10 years, You know, our kids are going to be way more better, like the better off than we were coming into the space.

1:11:52So that's such an important piece of it, too. So I have so many more questions, but thank you, Mickey, for coming on and just for your personality and for the ability to really give us straight information. That means so much to me. And I just appreciate everything that you're doing in the field.

1:12:15Mikki Williden:Well, thank you both. Like I really, I love to, as you can tell, love talking about this, could talk about it all day. And these conversations I think are really important. So I'm just so thrilled to have the opportunity to come on your show and be able to have them and share them with a wider audience. So thank you so much. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a five-star review and sharing the BodyPod with your friends. Until next time. You ain't heard about Moto Casino? Moto has real Vegas slots. Any game you can find on the floor in Vegas, you can play it on Moto.

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