#167: Why Your Workouts Aren't Working Anymore

So in midlife, our hormone levels change.

Our estrogen starts to kind of go haywire, and then it leaves the building.

And estrogen has been doing things like defining where fat is stored on our bodies, and when it goes, our fat starts to come to our middle.

That's why we're getting more visceral fat, in other words, that stuff between our organs in the center, and also some more fat around our waist, which is that beautiful muffin top that we all love so much.

And I talked about that a couple of episodes ago, and you can go check it out.

The link is in the show notes.

So that is causing that, "Why am I all of a sudden chubby in the middle when I never was chubby in the middle?" Well, okay, I always had a little bit of trouble with the chubby in the middle, but it was, like, 10 times worse than it ever was.

And then the second thing that's been going on here is that our muscle mass has been in decline for a long time.

Ever since we were 30, our muscle mass starts to decline if we are not actually systematically challenging our muscles.And really, the way to challenge your muscles is strength training.

So if you haven't been doing some systematic, progressively overloading, consistent strength training, then you have not been taking care of your muscles.

So I've been doing all these BODYPUMP classes, and yes, they're great for muscular endurance, and for sure I was stronger than if I had been sitting on a couch and not doing them, but I had been slowly losing muscle mass over time.

And now that I had less muscle overall on my body and my fat had increased, especially around my waist, then I really started to look blobby and not toned and not the way that I was used to looking.

And then there are aspects of midlife that start to come into play that can really make this even a little bit worse because, uh, I don't know about you, but for me, sleep, huge issues in midlife getting sleep.

And if you're not sleeping enough, then everything kind of suffers for that, right? Your hunger and satiety cues go out of whack, so you're eating a little bit more than you should.

You're not feeling full even though you've eaten enough.

You don't have much energy.

Also, when your estrogen walks out of the building, then your baseline cortisol levels rise.

So what that means basically is that, uh, estrogen's been there as a little bit of a damper on your cortisol levels all the time, and now that it's gone, your cortisol levels can rise, so you need to just start managing your stress better.

I don't wanna be all like woo woo about cortisol, [laughs] right? But it is something to keep in mind, and that's why things like doing a little meditation, doing some mindfulness stuff, cuddling with your cat, cuddling with your boyfriend or husband, you know, hugging your kid, all those things that calm your nervous system are important to do.

So there are a lot of things going on in midlife that are kind of exacerbating this effect of loss of muscle and the increase in belly fat in particular.

And of course, m- most of us haven't adjusted our eating habits.

We're losing our muscle mass, which means that our basal metabolic rates are going down over time, and I don't think many of us are like, "Oh, I've lost some muscle this year, so I better, [laughs] I better eat slightly s- smaller portions." So then you end up gaining weight, or your weight might stay the same, but your body is becoming a much less healthy composition.

As you're losing muscle, you're replacing it with fat.

Okay, so lots and lots of stuff going on there.