Christa 0:00
Hello to another episode of The Wild and well collective and today we are super excited to invite Alexis Paige, she is a woman of badass Surrey. She is a personal trainer. She knows how to motivate you in a gentle yet firm way to get moving and really to incorporate weightlifting. And I am so excited to have this conversation with you. Because I think a lot of our audience can benefit from all of your knowledge and the things that you have to offer us. So without further ado, let's get started. I think how I'd like to start it is just having you share your passion. Tell us how you got to tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got to what you're doing now and how you serve your clients.
Speaker 1 0:48
Oh, absolutely. Bear with me my path to where I am right now. It's kind of like a meandering route. But I'm hoping I'm not the only one here that took a little while to figure out what they wanted to be when I grew up.
Christa 1:00
We love me. Love me enduring you love me. And
Speaker 1 1:05
when I was a little girl, all I wanted in the world was to be a dancer. I know, super original. But it wasn't like the tutus and the glitter and the pink tights and everything that I was obsessed with. It was the freedom that I felt when I was on stage to just kind of become whoever the choreography wanted me to be because I was comically shy. Like I was super shy, which I know like Chris is laughing because she knows I never shut up now. So like, that's just not the way I am now. And that's okay. But I was obsessed with it. And there's all I wanted to do. But I had a real knack of spraining my ankles, like, all the time. And at first I was like, Well, I guess that's normal. Like I'm dancing a lot like I was on a competitive team, a formal studio, like you name it, I would do it. But within a period of four years, I had sprained each of my ankles, eight to nine times. So like, alright, some, obviously, it's not you, it's me, like I'm doing something wrong. So what's the issue, but my family couldn't afford physical therapy. But I did have a library card. So I would spend, I kid you not hours and hours in the library, just reading over corrective exercises, and, you know, different forms of resistance training, anything I could do that I can make my body strong enough that I could keep dancing uninterrupted. And I did it, and I was like, hallelujah, back in the studio. Nothing could stop me now. And not only was I not hurting myself, but like my dancing actually got better because I had so much power behind all of my movements, which was amazing. And it gave me this competence that I'd never had before. So much so that I actually thought I could out train any health issue. I was like, I got weights. I got this, like no big deal. But then the whole 30 came around. And you know, I never really paid that much attention to fad diets because I felt like they always came and went came and went. And at the time I was training in a gym. This was gosh, like 2015 ish. So it was personal training. I was bartending part time I was going to school bartending was paying for school. So I was just basically living on a series of naps. So I thought, well, yeah, of course I have aches and pains. Like I'm up and running 13 hours a day, I'm hunched over my desk studying for seven hours, and I'm sleeping for four, like, you're gonna come with some pains. I had some back pains. I had knee pain, I had a low grade headaches that ran 24/7. I was like, that's normal. But then the whole 30 came along, and a bunch of my clients were asking me about it. And three of them were even doing it. But I had nothing to offer because I hadn't done it. I didn't really pay attention to them. And I was like, alright, like, I don't, I hate not having answers. So I was like, you know, I'll give this one a try. Why not? So I did. And I go in, I don't have as anything. So I bought the book. I cleared out my cabinets. I got everything ready. I was meal prepping, and I dove in, but like, I'm not gonna lie. I went in as such a hardcore skeptic, like totally ready to come out the other side with like a full PowerPoint debunking the whole experiment. But then like, day nine happened. I woke up the morning of the knife day, and I hopped out of bed and I started walking and I stopped dead in my tracks. So I was like, Oh my God, nothing hurts. Like my back pain was gone. My headache wasn't there. I wasn't walking in this like half crouch that I usually was in what I wouldn't get out of bed. And I had so much energy, it felt like I'd already had two shots of espresso. And I like just woken up. And it was like, oh, plot twist. Like I just learned something I didn't even know that I needed to know. And I became obsessed with anti inflammatory nutrition at that point. And it was just a really cool journey that eventually brought me to Christa, actually, because a couple years later, still at the gym, and within the span of like, two weeks, almost every single one of my female clients came to me with some sort of hormonal disorder that I had never even heard of. At that point. I was like, what like How have I been a woman my entire life and not come across any of these things like Hashimotos thyroiditis. PCOS, endometriosis things that like we are all inundated with everyday here now. But at the time, I was just at a complete loss. So I started diving into hormone health. And that eventually led me to the steam certification where I met the glorious Krista and brought me pretty much to where I am now. Now I do a lot of group coaching to help women kind of establish their new baseline get moving well, eating well like respecting what their bodies need as women's, because a lot of the research out there is based on men. Research historically, a lot of it's been done by men, they like to research themselves. So it's it's necessary to Yes, got annoying, but that was my meandering, how I got to know you kind of wrap. Yes,
Christa 5:46
I love that. I love that you are passionate about personal what the individual needs. And I think that Sheree and I both you know, in our practices. We're all about personalized medical medicine, personalized approaches. So I love how you got around to that. And through your own experience, really, it just sparked your own curiosity about how to create solutions for people and you get to spread it around. I love that spread the love. Yeah, so I know you're passionate about women in particular, and but you also serve men as well,
Speaker 1 6:21
I trained, I do actually have a lot of male clients. Okay. But like
Christa 6:25
you said, I think you brought up a good point, there is a lot of research done on the bro science of things, men tend to be very more by the book, not I mean, of course, everybody's an individual and everybody's body is N equals one. However, they don't have the fluctuation of hormones that women have. So a lot of their training, a lot of their diet could be a lot more straightforward. And so I think, you know, for one thing, I want to ask you about the whole 30 diet, and I know that you had a really good experience with it. You know, I like those that just can't stick to something so hard. I'll be quite honest, like I, it requires a lot of prepping a lot of so what suggestions do you have for and then we're going to dive into, you know, strength training, for sure. But before we go there, I want to ask you, what have you learned through that experience? Because for people who have a busy schedule people with kids, people who just can't stick to what it takes for that? What are kind of the lazy man's version, if you will to create kind of an anti inflammatory or low inflammatory diet that's reasonable for people that don't have time to necessarily do the work that it takes for a whole 30? If
Speaker 1 7:31
we love this question, this is great. And this is like a huge foundation of my program to the whole 30 was awesome as a tool for what for what it was, which is an intervention. So I think where a lot of people run into issues is running into the hole 30 and thinking like, Oh, my God, I have to live like this forever. Like, that's absolutely not the case. Like I thought it was amazing, because it allowed me to identify and for anyone not familiar with the whole 30. It's an elimination diet, where you subtract six or seven things, and you just hardcore, get rid of them for four weeks. And then you reintroduce them over the course of two or several weeks, which was like refined sugar, grains, lagoons, dairy, and there's something else I'm missing. But that's about the gist of it. If you don't have the time and the bandwidth to commit to that, that's your human congratulations. But if you're experiencing some sort of like unexplained pain or digestive issues or something, it's a really great thing to try to do. Because it's it gives you a way of figuring out what your body is begging for. Now, that being said, if you don't have the bandwidth, you don't have the time you've got kids you have demands, you don't have all the meal prep to do keep it really simple. Shop the outside of the grocery store, stick to as much whole food as you can, things that don't come in packages, things that have the least human touch on them. So is it the sexiest meal ever? No. But like if you can compose your meal of a protein, and I'm a hardcore carnivore. So I can only really speak to that being my preferred form of protein. Because they're naturally complete proteins, they have all nine amino acids that you need animal based protein, as many colors of vegetables as you can get. And if you need a little starch, like rice, or sweet potato, go for it. But just really try to eat a lot of colors and eat some good protein and lead with the protein. The thing that I find most women are not eating enough of is in fact protein. And it's one of the most critically important nutrients that we can take into our bodies for a variety of reasons, which actually will go hand in hand with what we're about to talk about with strength training, which is maintaining muscle mass. So I would say hands down, just try to get as many Whole Foods and colorful foods into your body as possible. And don't overcomplicate it.
Sheree 9:40
I love that. Love that. And I always talk about shopping around the supermarket as well like close your eyes and just visualize the perimeter and you'll be amazed. You ended up cutting out of your daily grocery shop or your weekly grocery shop. Right so and the fact that you bought up protein is huge. I think Krista and I both the same. We're very kind of we're kind Have a lead and approach obviously getting greens getting in the colors like you've mentioned. So I love that you've really reiterated that. And so when we look at strength training, like I know, again, I want my background and personal training as well. And it's what you see people really struggle with is getting that protein. And but yet we're so we're off with so often told that you're getting too much protein, or you're eating too much meat, or you're not, you know, hitting the other goals, or you're not getting enough of the fats. And so women can get so confused with this dude, can you talk to us a little bit more about how that goes hand in hand with when women are strength training? And they're like actually meeting those protein needs?
Speaker 1 10:41
Yeah, absolutely. So the thing that I think a lot of people don't understand is that it's not actually easy for women to put muscle on. And starting at the age of 30, we start to actually just lose muscle mass every decade in large amounts for the rest of our lives. So we need they go hand in hand, we need protein to build and sustain muscle, we also need to be doing resistance training to build muscle like we have to have both of those things. Now, if we're doing a ton of resistance training, but we're not giving our body the fuel it needs to sustain that level activity. That's when you're starting to see injuries happen. Or people are overtraining or they're like oh, my back's killing me and lifting so much for it's like, something I had to learn the hard way was I was not fueling my body appropriately for the level of demand that I was asking of it. So this is a whole other conversation. But not only do we need protein, we need to be making sure that we're eating enough, we need to be eating plenty of protein, I like to shoot for one gram of protein per pound of body weight. And that's well above the RDA, like the recommended daily allowance, you know, that most food organizations suggest, but I find it to be, let's say one gram per pound of goal body weight. So if the goal is weight loss, whatever your goal is, that's what you want to stick to. So like, I love to be around 135 140 pounds, so I'm eating 135 to 140 grams protein every day, and I eat it. First, it is the first thing on my plate, it goes down for a lot of reasons too, because it also helps with your digestion, it helps keep you full longer. It helps relieve like the stress on your liver with the glycemic impact of all the carbs that you're about to take. And after that, like it's just it's like the rock that you hold on to in tough times. Protein is like your so your emotional support food, it should be like that's what's going to keep you grounded and your health. Yeah, I
Christa 12:31
think it's really counterintuitive. And I actually worked with Alexis one on one. And we mapped out what I was eating day to day. And I was shocked at how little calories I was eating compared to what I really should do, right? Like, I think as women in particular, we think, well, we've got to really cut back. And it's fascinating how when you instructed me, hey, you got to be eating this amount, let's really start tracking protein, that I actually did lose fat because like you said, it's so important to feel your body. So one thing I wanted to ask you, you know, when we talk about men and women, why is it important, in particular, for women to do strength training,
Speaker 1 13:10
Oh, I love this, this is this is going to be a tangent. So many times, it's first and foremost, I would start with the fact that strength training fortifies our bones. And I don't think there's anybody listening to this podcast who hasn't heard about osteoporosis. But what you may not realize is that 80% of Americans in particular, who are diagnosed and struggling with osteoporosis are women. And of those women, more than half of them over the age of 50 are going to break a bone because of osteoporosis. But when you're like there are a variety of interventions, so get me wrong, like there's different types of medicines and shots and pills you could take to treat osteoporosis. But the only intervention out there right now that is non medical free, available to everyone and has absolutely no negative side effects is strength training. And it's really incredible, like the mechanics of it. Like if you think about it, when you lift a weight, you pick something up, three things happen. The muscle pulls on the tendon, the tendon then pulls on the bone and the bone pulls back. There's like a little tug of war there. So for anyone not familiar, muscles are attached to bones by tendons. And there's a little resistance that happens every time you pick up a weight and it's in that bone pulling back moment that positive adaptation occurs. That's super, super important for women to understand. We have to be lifting weight heavy enough to instigate that adaptation. And just doing that a few times a week is enough to not just treat but prevent osteoporosis from ever even happening and prevent sarcopenia the loss of muscle mass we were just talking about a second ago, forever happening. And that in and of itself is going to add years to our life because it's going to keep us mobile and it's going to keep us stable and preventing unnecessary false. That's my first reason why string training is just like wild and important. If we want to dip our toes into like the hormone bucket, it also boosts testosterone. And like, you might be thinking, okay, cool. I'm a woman, why should I care? Well, turns out testosterone is actually the most abundant sex hormone in the female body, not estrogen. So, and its availability is affecting things like our mood, our memory, our libido, which I'm quite wedded to our ability to build and sustain muscle, and our ability to even create estrogen. So another thing that's super important, and literally one strength training session is enough to boost testosterone for 24 to 48 hours. So it's not like it takes that much. But if you stop and double click on that for a second and think about if we're training four to five times a week, how much power that gives us over the aging process, if training consistently is keeping our hormones stable for a longer period of time, suddenly, we're aging so much more powerfully than we were before, when we weren't being proactive about it. I love that. Yeah, I think you've got I've got like three,
Christa 16:04
going. Integrated two things that maybe we didn't think of right off the bat, right, like hormone balance and bones. That probably wasn't the first thing that people thought of when I was asking you that question. So I love that keep going. Yeah,
Speaker 1 16:20
I Well, yeah, I like to kind of leave with the chakras too, because, like you said, it's not the first thing you think of, but they have such huge impacts on the way that we're aging and the way we get to spend the later years of our lives. You know, my third one, it helps you have good posture. And it's really easy to dismiss this as like a fluff etiquette thing. Like, okay, cool. I'm sitting up straight, no, but think about it. One of the primary roles of our spinal column is to deliver fresh, oxygen rich blood to our brain. And keeping that flow going consistently is super, super important to clearing out cellular debris, and allowing fresh new cells to be made. And this is directly impacting our cognitive aging. So now think about how we spend most of our day or pen over, we're texting or like, I'm leaning into the zoom camera as we speak, like talking to you like, and every inch that your head has been forward is adding an additional 10 pounds of strain to your spine. So if you've ever used a garden hose, you know what happens when you bend that hose a tiny bit, how quickly does that waterflow diminish and losing strength. That's what we're doing to the blood that we're trying to get in and through our brain when we have poor posture. But if we're focused on things like strengthening up our posterior chain, so the muscles along our spinal column that run all the way down our back and keeping ourselves upright, more, we're making it easy for that blood to get in and around our entire body and do its job. Fourth, and I think probably almost same, it's my favorite because they're all They're all my children. I love them deeply. But muscle is metabolically active tissue. So what does that mean? That means it's freaking hungry. Okay, so there's something called a basal metabolic rate, or BMR. And if we did nothing at all, all day, late in bed, binge watch, Netflix didn't even get up to pee just lay down, we would still burn calories, just to keep our organs and our tissues alive. Now, muscle is a tissue, and she is a Hungry Hungry tissue. So the more muscle you have on your body, literally, the more calories you're burning, doing nothing at all. Like everybody loves that, who does not love that. And, you know, something that we'll probably get into in a little bit, but this myth that a lot of women fear, that muscle is going to make them bulky. I would like to dispel that immediately. Because pound for pound muscle takes up 20% less space on the body than fact us. So you can literally stay the exact same weight, but just swap out fat and muscle and lose 20% of your size. Like, that's amazing. Yeah. And last but not least, if we're training in a very specific fashion, strength training gives us more energy. It just, that's like if you focus on certain muscle fibers like the muscle fibers that we're using when we're strength training, and we're walking, doing low level activities that stay in like the lower heart rate zones. Those specifically only burn fat for fuel. You can get up to maybe like a zone two, and then you're burning fat and sugar for fuel. But if the goal is weight loss and gaining energy, you can give yourself more mitochondria, which is like our cells powerhouse. You know, I don't know if anybody remembers bio 101 back in like ninth grade. We
Christa 19:34
love chatting mitochondria here. So
Speaker 1 19:36
if you want more energy, you want more mitochondria. If you want to make more mitochondria, you need to use the muscle fibers that are most densely packed with them. And those are low level muscle fibers that we're using when we're lifting weights and just walking that's why getting your steps in is so freakin important. So those are my those my Fab Five
Sheree 19:58
touched on some really powerful appoints and I want to circle back to the anti aging a little bit because I think that's such a trendy thing at the moment, everyone's looking at what I can do to reduce, you know, the wrinkles and the fine lines and making sure that I go into my later years really optimizing my longevity. And one of the key things you said was like the strength training is actually so powerful to help us do that, not just in the prevention of falls and that sort of things. I think people can kind of brush that over their head, which I love them into that and so much more depth and detail because again, as woman, it's like, I'll think about that later. It's like, No, you need to think about that now.
Unknown Speaker 20:37
Yes, yes,
Sheree 20:39
I'm just wondering if you can dive into a little bit more, because I've seen so much come out about this idea when, oh, I can just do some Pilates, and I'm not bagging on Pilates, love my reform. But I can just do some Pilates or I can just do some bodyweight resistance. And I do think that, you know, that's amazing, depending on where you're at where you're starting from. But again, this fear around lifting heavy weights, this fear around actually, strength training, as a woman is one of the things I see. And I hear so commonly. And so I'm wondering if you can touch on that and really how we need to be doing that. And not just this kind of fluff piece of Oh, I got some Pilates and or I went and did my walk or I went and did this. It's like as when we actually need to be lifting some heavy shit.
Speaker 1 21:26
Yes, we do preach. Oh, my God. Yes, absolutely. So like you, I love Pilates. I think it's phenomenal for core strength. And I think, you know, the core is something we need to respect almost above all else, because it stabilizes our spine and keeps us up, right. And we all spend a little too much time sitting. Let's be honest. However, it is critically important that we lift heavy shit, if we actually want to make these biological changes in our bodies. Like I was saying we testosterone is the most abundant hormone in our body. And we want as much as possible, but we're not going to instigate those changes doing, you know, a chill pilates workout or a casual walk around the lake, that is only going to happen when we're providing enough strain to force adaptation. And that's going to happen with weight training. Now, that said, even though testosterone is the most abundant sex hormone in our body, we don't have nearly as much as men do. So, you know, this fear that we're going to suddenly turn into sheara, or the Hulk is actually unfounded, because the women that you see on these covers of like Muscle and Fitness, magazine and shape who are just like shoulders on top of shoulders jacked out and looking shredded. Like, I don't think we pay enough respect to how much effort they have to put into that. That is a lifestyle that is a commitment greater than any whole 30, I could ask you to do. We're talking working out twice a day, we're talking, never having a cheat day, eating so much more than you could possibly fathom. Eating protein probably doubled to what I recommended earlier, and supplementing very strategically, with things like creatine, certain types of steroids, I'm not saying all of them, you can absolutely get huge without steroids. But you just you can't do it by accident. So we need to be lifting heavy enough to instigate metabolic change without the sphere of the bulk, because it's just not something that's going to happen from a casual, consistent weightlifting regimen. If that makes any sense. When
Christa 23:30
it comes to weight loss, what do you because I know a lot of a lot of women in general are constantly especially when you're talking about h 30. and higher when weight gain tends to be kind of a bigger concern because all of a sudden, they can't eat the same way they did in their 20s or they've had babies or maybe they're going through kind of that 10 year wonkiness, before even before menopause. I find a lot of my patients worried about what can I do to really move the needle as far as losing fat mass and so is it a combination of cardio and weightlifting? Is it strictly weightlifting and just every now and again, doing cardio like, because a lot of women just go to cardio, that's kind of how it's, you know, we're a product of the 80s A lot of people and Jane Fonda around the house, you know, it's just cardio, you know, and in my experience with patients like cardio is very important. There's so much positive about that. But then, you know, we definitely need to incorporate weights. What do you find is the balance and how maybe percentage wise you could direct people in what percentage of time they should be spending in cardio versus weights? That's
Speaker 1 24:32
an amazing question, which has a lot of layers to it. If we're gonna go with percentages, I'd say 80 to 90% weights 10% cardio 10 to 20% cardio, and I am not anti cardio at all, I'm just not pro cardio for fat loss. Cardio has amazing benefits for you know, cardiovascular and cardio benefits. It's great for your heart. You know, doing steady state is great to keep your blood vessels you know, stable and strong and open in one position. Doing hit is good. way to keep your blood vessels flexible, you know, expand contract, expand track. But when it comes to fat loss specifically, there are a couple things especially in, you know, populations that are getting above 30 and 40. That there are a couple things that weightlifting has over cardio, and part of it is the fact that muscles are like little glucose sponges. And a big issue we see with weight loss as women get older is insulin resistance. And they're it's harder and harder to use a surplus of insulin and glucose that we find in the bloodstream. But weightlifting is an awesome blood sugar regulator, because the more muscle you have more you have available to soak up that excess that's floating around in your bloodstream. So there's that. But there's also the fact that those muscle fibers I was touching on earlier are the ones that we activate the most when we are weight training. So we have three types of muscle fibers, type one, two, a two, B, one and two A. Those are ones when you're doing like casual housework, up to a brisk walk, and weight training. Those are very mitochondrially dense, and they use primarily fat for fuel stored body fat for fuel, when you get to to be those are the ones that we're using in those extended cardio sessions. So you know, long trend like peloton sessions or SoulCycle classes, I don't know SoulCycle even exists anymore, going for long runs, that kind of stuff. There's a combination of things that happen when you are very wedded to cardio and you do it in excess one because it's more cardiovascular and muscular training, you can go catabolic, so you can start using eating up muscle for fuel, especially certainly back to the beginning, if you're not eating enough protein, and not eating enough calories to balance that out, too. If you're doing it at such a high intensity multiple times a week and not giving your body enough time to recover. You're gonna start instigating a fight or flight response in your body, which is going to start spiking your cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone, and fight or flight was supposed to be a very temporary state. When we were hunter gatherers, like I see a lion, I need to flee get away from the lion's den, I'm saying then the stress shuts down. But now we live in a 24 hour news cycle. We have kids, we have jobs, we have responsibilities, we have stress on top of stress on top of stress. And we start to live in this chronic low grade fight or flight all the time. And then we compound that when we do these excessive cardio sessions and don't give her body time to recover. And what happens, especially when cortisol starts pumping out, we're telling our brain that we need to do something to survive. So it's going to start favorite producing, favoring producing cortisol, over sex hormones. And anything that's deemed non vital to our survival, like digestion. So we've got this cortisol pumping out, but now we're not digesting our food properly. And anything that we can't digest properly, is going to get stored as body fat. But now we're also fighting this insulin, blood sugar imbalance that's making it harder and harder for us to take in fuel to get rid of body fat. And it just becomes this, you know, dumpster fire of metabolic problems, because we have stressed out our bodies far greater than it's capable of handling by doing way too much of cardio, and not enough of the activities that are going to actually balance our blood sugar, like lifting heavy weights,
Sheree 28:23
oh, so much juice, so much gold in everything you should know, I love I want to, I want to pick your brains on something that I see so much. And I stress my clients time and time again. But having the knowledge that you have and the expertise that you have, can you share on the importance of actually having a meal before you start to train or having some sort of fuel because with this whole let's do cardio, let's live in this cardio bubble. And again, I love you know and respect the fact they should be cardio and I totally agree with you with the ratio that you said. But there's this almost this mentality like oh, if I go and train and exercise faster, I'm going to burn more fat, I'm going to burn more fuel. And that's going to get me my results quicker. How important is it for women in particular, to actually have a meal or some sort of fuel before they go and lift the heavyweights?
Speaker 1 29:12
I'm actually a huge fan, I spent a long time doing fasted workouts don't get me wrong, especially and I still do sometimes, like if I'm trying to get up and get there right when the gym opens at like six in the morning, like I won't eat first. However, exercise is a stressor. And it's a good stressor for the most part until it's not. So if you're getting up having a cup of coffee, stress. One we're pushing out cortisol, you know, and naturally cortisol should be at its highest in the morning already. So when we're throwing caffeine in there, and we're pumping up cortisol even higher, and then we're going to the gym and we're getting on the bike and we're going to town, then we're pumping of course even higher. We have nothing in there, but stress. So when we at least give our bodies some fuel before we work out. We're out actually allowing it to use new fuel and repair during and post workout. I think the problem that a lot of women run into is they're like, Oh, I can't eat before I workout because it just I feel sick. And it's like, well, that falls into the stress category, it the problem is eating a little too close to your workout. So I like to eat, if I can, depending on the day, 60 to 90 minutes before I workout, because that allows me time to digest, absorb, transfer, do what I need to do with it, so it becomes fuel. If I don't have that much time, I'm going to eat very little, I'm gonna eat like half a banana with some peanut butter on it, because then at least I'm balancing out like, I'm getting fat and getting a little bit of protein, and I'm getting the carbs. And it's all going to like make its way through my digestive tract and my liver pretty quickly. But not as like this big sugar bomb in my gut. But it's going to be enough to, like, calm that little like frantic child inside. That's like, am I ever going to eat again, ever gonna get food, like it'll, it'll stave off that stress response and allow you to actually get into those positive adaptations, because those adaptations aren't going to occur. If cortisol is screaming through your entire workout, like, you've got to make sure you manage your cortisol before you can actually reap the benefits of the strength training session. So yeah, I'm a big fan of eating something. And it usually imbalance, like I was saying, if you only have time for like banana and peanut butter, or let's say, you know, a handful of almonds and some dates, that's fine, but try to eat things, like your macros in conjunction with each other, don't just like grab an apple or just grab a banana, you don't want just the carbs, you want a little bit of balance in there. And the more time the better like hour and a half ish is great. Anything beyond that, it's already gone. Anything too close, you could be upsetting your stomach. So like you got to kind of figure out what works for you. But eating before a workout is going to do so much more good than harm. And there is actually no solid data that says a fasted workout is going to help you burn more fat. It's just that I think it's not Yeah,
Christa 31:59
I love. I think this is really important information. Because most of the people listening to this, they're highly driven people, they've got a lot of go go go go go. And most people are listening that are already in somewhat of a maybe a chronic state of fight or flight. Right. So and then we think we're doing the right thing. Oh, it just it helps me focus. It helps me relieve stress to go work out. But understanding what's going to actually benefit them in the long run is so so important. And kind of unwinding that I just do cardio to relieve stress. But like in you know, bringing in the weights, another thing that I listened to, I can't remember where I heard this, but just talking about how it's actually important to eat a little bit of protein prior in order to actually have it accessible to the muscle after, you know, because a lot of us say oh BCAAs or protein immediately right after a workout. But it actually takes a while right for our bodies. Yes, that and assimilated and actually utilize that. And so it's you know, tell me your thoughts on that, eating a little bit of protein prior so that by the time the end of your workout is, you know, maybe an hour later, your body has access to it.
Speaker 1 33:13
Yes, that is such a huge point. That's such a good point. I'm so glad you said that. Because there's something called the thermic effect of food. Okay, and protein is a very, it's not that it's difficult to digest, it just requires a lot of energy to digest. So digesting fat pigs like zero to 3% of the calories that you're ingesting from the factory to process. Carbs is like five to 10% protein takes 20 to 35% of the calories that you're ingesting and that protein just to process it like it is an energetic process to take in that protein. In other words, it takes a lot of time. So to your point, like, I often like to have four eggs before workout, like, I'll have a morning session with a with a client in the morning before that client, I'll have four eggs, I'll have my session, and then I'll get to the gym. But I know I'm using that protein, because I've given my body time to process it. Because it is a very time consuming process that we don't really pay respect to and if it and like I said I eat it far enough in advance that it can actually get through my stomach. Because if I don't, then what's going to happen is it's just going to sit there, and then it's not going to digest. So that's where timing becomes really important. But yes, eating protein before workout is massively beneficial to your healing your recovery, your gains to actually building the muscle. Because once you're like post workout, I mean, you still want to have protein. Don't get me wrong, but the most beneficial thing you can have are carbs because carbs don't grow the muscle. That's a very common misconception. People are like, Oh, I have to have carbs to bulk up. No. Carbs are what your body uses to heal the muscle. And when you're building a muscle you make these little micro tears. Okay, so when you get sore, let's say you did like a ton of bicep curls and you're like, Oh, these are hard. That's because when you lift progress Really heavier weights, you're creating micro tears in the tissue. Carbs are really good healers, but protein is the builder. That's why you got to have both. You can do it without getting bulky. Trust me, it's much easier to do it without getting bulky than it is to get bulky. But yeah, that's a great, that's a great point. protein timing is hugely important.
Christa 35:18
Yeah, coming back to how muscles are hungry. What tips do you have, let's say over the holidays, and we're eating big meals, maybe we're eating more? How can we integrate lifting weights? And how can that serve us? And really balancing blood sugar around bigger meals? You know, how should people maybe mitigate that through weights around the holidays and bigger meals and things that they don't necessarily always eat? But they want to, you know, does that does that help?
Speaker 1 35:46
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big fan. Like I was saying before, muscles are glucose bunches. So before, like, every Thanksgiving, I get up bright and early, and I have a comically heavy lift, because it's going to soak up all that extra sugar floating around in my system. And it's going to make room for more, because I'm not gonna lie, I love stuffing. And I love pie. And I'm not going to not have them. But I will make sure to eat the turkey first. Because that is a huge part of managing those blood sugar spikes. The other thing I like to do is after I eat, I don't just like sit down and chill and watch football, like go for the walk up, because that's going to help one it's gonna help your digestion, but it's also going to help start pushing all of that glucose, you just take it and push it into your muscles, instead of just letting it like sit in your stomach or float around your bloodstream, it's going to just coax it into the muscle a little bit faster. And then the next morning, I'm going to do another heavy lift. So there, there are options here. Because there are two things that are great for pushing glucose out of your blood, lifting and hit workouts. So this is one time I'd be like, You know what, yeah, you could definitely get in a hit workout here. Like you could do it the day before, like right before the meal. Or you could do a heavy lift, but the morning after highly recommend the heavy lift, because that's going to pull out the rest of that glucose in your bloodstream and put it into your muscle. So before the heavy meal, I personally prefer a heavy lift, but you can get in a hit workout, you just want to deplete all of your glycogen stores, like you want to use it up, okay, because it's going to pull the sugar out of your blood into your muscle and then burn it, just going to get rid of it. So one of those before the meal, eat the meal, go for a nice walk, it doesn't have to be a power walk, like we're not talking like you're trudging up hill breaking a sweat, we're talking go for like a 15 minute walk around the block and call it a day. Then the next day lift some super heavy weights. Those are my big movement tips.
Sheree 37:41
Helpful. I love that you mentioned that after the after the big meal, because it's something that's so easy to implement and to do and we just don't think about it. And I think it's one of the biggest reasons why when people snack off to dinner, and they just sit and let all of the glucose and all of that kind of accumulate, we ended up putting on weight a lot faster and a lot quicker because you're having those high glucose spikes in the evening, right? So it's even more important than around holiday time when you are having those bigger meals or you are wanting to enjoy the food a little bit more and get that yummy stuff in without going worrying about the weight jumping up. So that was super insightful. I love that you shared on that. One of the questions that I have for you is you've talked a lot about like that progressive overload and making sure you're actually hitting that adaptation. How important is it for you to stay consistent with, you know, the types of exercises you're doing when it comes to strength training? I know a lot of women are like, oh, I want to go try this new thing or those little booty burner or or they go to the gym every single time and they're changing their workouts constantly. And it was one of the battles I had when I was personal training my clients as well like, No, we need repetitive stress, repetitive overload, obviously progressive overload in terms of pushing the weights up. But can you talk to that a little bit more? Because I again, I see this being such a it's almost like a fad diet right? Or tickle. I've seen a new exercise or I need to be trying something new in order for me to see. Yeah, oh
Speaker 1 39:06
my god, I love that you brought this up. Because it's like, it's one of those things that gives me like a little like, Twitch makes my eye twitch every time I see people coming in and just be like, No, I'm gonna try this. No, no, try that. It's like, it is so hard to embrace the monotony of the workout that you need to actually see change. Like I would say that is the hardest part is to be consistent and to patient with your programming. And as a trainer, that's been like, the hardest thing for me is to communicate that to my clients because they get bored. And I get that because it can be boring. But how do you know if you're making progress? If you're switching it up every single week? Like I can do this same program for three, four or five months and still see progress by making little changes and I'm not even talking about changing the movements. I'm talking about changing up the rep scheme. Maybe I'm doing fewer reps and more sets. Maybe I'm doing doing higher reps and fewer sets, maybe I'm doing them in a different order. But you absolutely need to stick to a process for a long enough time that you can actually let it have its effect. Otherwise, you're just training haphazardly and your muscles don't have a time to adapt, because you're just teaching us something different than next week. Like, how many times like if you're trying to learn Mandarin? Are you going to learn Mandarin? On Saturday, and then on Monday, you're going to try and learn French and then on Thursday, you're going to go back to Spanish and then you're going to stick with Italian like No, like you can't learn anything or make progress learning anything. If you don't give it the consistency that it deserves. Your muscles are the exact same way.
Christa 40:39
One more question I have for I love that. Because you know, going back to what you just said, I tend to be Mondays as a certain you know, body, you know, biceps and back and Tuesdays is going to be triceps and chest. And I like that it can be consistent. So it can be easy. That's one thing that I think can be helpful to people to eliminate some of the confusion around what to do today. And it doesn't really have to be complicated, right? It can be very simple. And it can really change. If we're noticing a lack of progress or lack of challenge, then yeah, like you said, there's ways that we can kind of change it up. But I wanted to go back to hormones and women really quickly. Menopause. So you know, some women have questions about how does this affect me when I'm not administrating anymore, I don't have that those hormones in my patients, I definitely recommend if it's safe for them to do some hormone replacement, especially at the beginning of menopause really helps support multiple factors brain health, cardiovascular health, you know, there's also that receptor of the tendon to the bone that you were talking about, and how estrogen really plays a role in that stimulation. And so for women in menopause, what do you recommend for them? Do you recommend that they continue to do heavy weightlifting? And do you? Yeah, how do you manage patients that are your clients that are maybe older men and women, both women in particular have lost a lot of their hormones? But do you? Do you recommend anything different for people, let's say 50 and older?
Speaker 1 42:13
Yeah, I'd say actually, they have a lot more freedom to lift heavier, more frequently, because they're less under the influence of estrogen. Like you said, estrogen has a very big impact on our tendons. So for a cycling woman, you know, when estrogen is absent, your tendons tend to be a lot looser, and your ligaments tend to be a lot tighter. And that makes for a better environment for let's say, you know, explosive movement, that kind of stuff. But when estrogen is super present, that makes your tendons tighter, and your ligaments looser, so you want to stick to heavier weights, things that are going to be you know, it's a good environment for building muscle. Once you've hit like, menopause and beyond, you don't have as many hormonal considerations, like you said, and it's safer to lift more frequently without fear of injury. Because when you're worried about like, maybe the tendons a little bit looser, or your ligaments are a little bit wonky, like you got to be really considerate of cycling your workout intensity appropriately so that you're not instigating overtraining or injury. So I find that they see a lot more benefit from lifting heavy frequently, but it is still really important to cycle because all tissues need time to recover. So I actually like to have them cycle with the lunar cycle, like, just take a 28 day period and just decide when it's going to be day one and cycle that way. Because even though the hormonal considerations aren't there, like tissue is still tissue, it's still receptive to damage and it's still capable of building so just because there aren't as many hormones happening, doesn't mean she can't see the benefits from keeping her strength heightened all the time. Does that
Christa 43:57
make sense? Oh, yeah, I'm constantly telling my parents, you got to keep lifting weights, you know, it's not, and really educating people on the importance of muscle beyond physique, you know, because it's not just about the physique, but also when people who are on you know, wanting to lose weight, it's also important to muscles like the scaffolding, right, like we've got the bones but then we need, like, if you're losing fat tissue, and you're and you're also older, you know, we'd have less collagen right? So you got a lot more hanging skin like it's really a motivating factor. I think if we're going to talk about physique, to have good muscle mass to kind of give you a better shape to really help absolutely, yeah, kind of keep that that physique looking. But I think you brought up some really beautiful points about the it goes beyond just that it goes into you know, the posture. I love that one and yeah, just really, really, really helpful things. Cherie, do you have anything else that you that kind of came to your mind?
Sheree 44:59
Yeah, so I love that you kind of touched on cycle syncing with the, with the hormonal changes, and I love how you explained it in relation to estrogen. Because I always do encourage my clients to really lift really heavy during your ovulation period, as explained that perfectly. So thank you. Thank you for that. I feel like we could riff on that for for agents. One of the final questions I really have for you is, you know, a lot of our listeners will be like, okay, you've convinced me, I want to go out there, I want to go into my strength training, which I'm hoping everyone is like, yes. I'm not afraid to take any more frostiness grads, what is like the most common fear or the most common concern that you kind of encountered you help coach your clients through to get over that initial hurdle? Like, if someone's listening to this, what is the next best step for them to go out there and take action? If there's a lot of fear of, maybe we've annihilated the fear of okay, I'm gonna get too bulky, cool. We know that that's not going to happen. But it's still really scary, especially, you know, and I used to find a lot of women would be afraid to walk into the gym, even with it being more of a male dominated environment. Like, is that one of the concerns? Can you talk to, like, what some of the fears are that you see? And how to really overcome them? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 46:09
Absolutely. So you said it right out the gate, the number one fear I get is this fear of being bulky, we have beat that to death, I hope, I hope that is no longer a fear of anybody listening right now, that is gone. I'd say the next thing that I, I hear a lot of people get hesitant with, especially with lifting weight is like I don't want to hurt myself. And that's fair, like that's completely fair. And to that I say, if it is in the budget, hire a trainer. And this is this is not a self serving plea out there. Like it is so much easier to learn something properly once than to have to untrain a bad habit. And there is nothing more important that you can invest in than your health. And I think we've done a really good job of exploring why strength training is so so important for your health and your longevity and your ability to age gracefully, that when you think about it, even if it's just three sessions, even if you just do three sessions with a trainer so they can get you comfortable with form, they can watch the way you move, because I don't care how many mirrors are in a gym, like you can't see the way you look from the back, you shouldn't be turning your head to the side to see your profile. When you're doing student movements, you need a partner, neither well first partner and a trainer is really just the best way to get that done. If that's not the budget, try a group fitness class. But I would actually full circle, maybe start with Pilates so you can really get your core strength dialed in, and then move on to a strength training class. Because I think core and glutes are like the two most important complexes you can strengthen up in your body. But I would say for the most part, go with a trainer. If you can make it happen. I don't care if you have to save up, like invest in it. It is not frivolous. It is it should be a priority, honestly. And it's not going to for everything. Like I said if it's just to get your form down and just get comfortable to alleviate that fear that you're going to hurt yourself. Once you know you're doing it properly, sky's the limit. Just build gradually, like no one's saying you need to go in and throw up a 250 pound deadlift, like start with dumbbells start with resistance bands. Actually, I love resistance bands. Most of my programs start with bands because it's like the unsung hero of resistance.
Christa 48:26
I love that I think you've given our listeners really an amazing, beautiful amount of information, and you just are so elegant about how you put it all together, you know, you really take something that can feel overwhelming and complicated and just boil it down into very actual easy ways to get started. So I know people are gonna be asking, yeah, I know people are gonna be asking, how can they get in touch with you? And we're gonna link it in the show notes. But how can people get in touch with you, if they want to work with you if they want more information from you.
Speaker 1 48:59
I keep it super simple. I am most active on Instagram. I don't have 1000 touch points. But I always have an active link in my bio for whatever the next thing I'm offering is next group. I'll be launching a group in the next eight days. So I don't know where this is coming up. But I want to get this quarter so you can always get on the waitlist if you don't make it to this next one. But Alexis page made on Instagram is where you can find me pretty much every day.
Christa 49:24
Brilliant. And we will leave that in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us and taking time out of your busy schedule to share your amount of knowledge. I mean, this has just been a really really fruitful conversation.
Speaker 1 49:37
Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun, like entirely too much fun, actually.
Sheree 49:43
So beautiful. Thank you
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