Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Stop Blaming Menopause for Muscle Loss (Here's What's Really Happening) | Ep 434

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Stop Blaming Menopause for Muscle Loss (Here's What's Really Happening) | Ep 434 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: If you're a woman over 40 who's been told that muscle loss is caused by peri and postmenopause, this episode is for you.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: Menopause is real, of course, and the symptoms are real.
• 0:11
  Philip Pape: The frustration is real, and I'm not here to dismiss any of that.
• 0:15
  Philip Pape: But what I am going to show you is that the story you've been sold, that your body has stopped responding, that building muscle is now close to, if not impossible, is not supported by the evidence.
• 0:26
  Philip Pape: And believing that it is maybe the thing holding you back.
• 0:30
  Philip Pape: You're going to learn five hidden factors that drive mid-life muscle loss.
• 0:35
  Philip Pape: Most of them you can control.
• 0:37
  Philip Pape: Why post-menopausal women respond to resistance training just as well as younger women, and the exact protein and training targets that work at any hormonal status.
• 0:48
  Philip Pape: The women I see who build muscle in their 50s and beyond, they're not biologically advantaged, they're just doing specific things differently.
• 0:57
  Philip Pape: I'm your host today, Philip Pape, and I want to start by acknowledging something.
• 1:17
  Philip Pape: Yes, I'm a man, to state the obvious, and I'm talking about menopause.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: I'm aware that I've not lived this experience.
• 1:23
  Philip Pape: I haven't had hot flashes at 3 a.m.
• 1:25
  Philip Pape: I haven't had the brain fog or the feeling that your body has suddenly become unfamiliar to you.
• 1:31
  Philip Pape: And these are real things I hear from women and they matter.
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: But what I can offer is the research and the patterns that I've seen working with women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and hopefully a perspective that feels empowering rather than dismissive.
• 1:46
  Philip Pape: I've been accused of being too positive, but I hope that comes into play today to benefit you.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: Because this is what I've observed.
• 1:55
  Philip Pape: Many women are being told a story, a narrative about menopause and about muscle that is making things harder.
• 2:03
  Philip Pape: It's not making it easier.
• 2:04
  Philip Pape: The story goes that once your hormones shift, your body stops responding, right?
• 2:09
  Philip Pape: The drop of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, that building muscle becomes close to impossible or, you know, at least dramatically harder, and that you're now fighting your biology.
• 2:20
  Philip Pape: And that, you know, when you believe that story, and I get that the industry thrives on negativity, uh, often to sell products and services, you often then stop doing the things that would actually help.
• 2:31
  Philip Pape: It kind of becomes a scapegoat, and your training might become something that you feel is not as beneficial.
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: Your protein, you know, you may not feel like you have to eat as much protein and like all the little things add up.
• 2:43
  Philip Pape: And then because all these inputs change, the outputs tend to get worse.
• 2:47
  Philip Pape: And then it's a vicious cycle that seems to confirm the story.
• 2:51
  Philip Pape: So today I want to offer a different narrative.
• 2:54
  Philip Pape: Not one that dismisses what you're experiencing, of course, but that separates what is genuinely caused by hormones from what is actually changeable.
• 3:04
  Philip Pape: Because there is more in that second category than many of us are being told or sold.
• 3:10
  Philip Pape: So I'm breaking it down into five factors that actually drive midlife muscle loss.
• 3:17
  Philip Pape: Where HRT fits into that, right?
• 3:19
  Philip Pape: Hormone replacement therapy, spoiler alert, it's not the first thing you're necessarily having to do.
• 3:25
  Philip Pape: And then specific practical things like training protein targets that work for really work for everybody, but specific to postmenopausal women because there might be some subtle differences that might be helpful.
• 3:35
  Philip Pape: And the research here is extremely encouraging.
• 3:38
  Philip Pape: And then at the end, I've got three quick yes or no questions you can ask yourself to tell you exactly where to focus this week.
• 3:46
  Philip Pape: Takes like 30 seconds.
• 3:48
  Philip Pape: So stay until the end for that.
• 3:50
  Philip Pape: All right, let's get into it.
• 3:51
  Philip Pape: And I want to talk about the narrative, right?
• 3:53
  Philip Pape: The menopause narrative, post-menopause, pre-menopause, whatever.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: It's it's it's a common pattern out there.
• 4:00
  Philip Pape: You know, many of you women are in your mid-40s, 50s, and you notice some changes, right?
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: This is perimenopause can start as early as mid to late 30s and goes all the way the time you hit menopause, which is one year without uh period, and all the time in between, there are changes that happen with hormones and then the symptoms that occur from that, like lower energy, like all the other symptoms that some of which I mentioned in the in the teaser, maybe your scale has gone up.
• 4:28
  Philip Pape: Resistance to weight loss is a big, widely reported frustration, right?
• 4:33
  Philip Pape: Your clothes fit differently because of the different body fat distribution, right?
• 4:37
  Philip Pape: Maybe more belly fat.
• 4:38
  Philip Pape: And right around this time, you know, simultaneously, all the other symptoms are happening along with the physical changes.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: And so it's easy to say that menopause causes these changes.
• 4:52
  Philip Pape: And I understand why that's very appealing because it does provide an explanation that, okay, it's not your fault, it's your hormones.
• 4:58
  Philip Pape: And we don't want to say any of this is your fault, right?
• 5:01
  Philip Pape: It's it's not about fault, really.
• 5:03
  Philip Pape: It's just about understanding what how things work.
• 5:06
  Philip Pape: Where I think it gets complicated is that the fitness industry, the wellness industry, that to me is kind of a dirty word these days, has taken this and run in a very harmful and dangerous direction because now there is kind of a Wild West, you know, cowboy or cowgirl or whatever set of functional doctors and hormone panels and menopause-specific workout programs and supplements targeting all your hormones that may or may not be safe or do what they they purport to do.
• 5:35
  Philip Pape: And we're all chasing lab work instead of symptoms.
• 5:39
  Philip Pape: It's just kind of a mess.
• 5:40
  Philip Pape: And at the same time, you have a lot of great people, doctors, professionals, healthcare people, uh coaches that are trying to do the right thing and do it in the right way, but it's hard to separate the signal from the noise, let's say.
• 5:53
  Philip Pape: And so the implicit message is this is where I think it's a problem.
• 5:56
  Philip Pape: Your body is broken now, and you need some sort of expensive, complicated intervention to fix it.
• 6:02
  Philip Pape: And I'm the only one that can help you.
• 6:04
  Philip Pape: And that's where you sell products and services.
• 6:06
  Philip Pape: But I think it also strips away agency, all right?
• 6:10
  Philip Pape: Agency, self, you know, efficacy, as we call it, which self-efficacy combined with self-regulation is the way that we do things and get consistent with the lifestyle changes we're trying to make occur.
• 6:22
  Philip Pape: When you look at the actual research, it tells us something different, as you would expect, something a bit more subtle.
• 6:28
  Philip Pape: There's more nuance, and we have to understand that.
• 6:32
  Philip Pape: Okay, so what is the reality from the research?
• 6:34
  Philip Pape: First, yes, muscle loss does occur, roughly three to eight percent per decade after age 30.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: I actually bring that up a lot on podcasts, not to scare people, but to let you know what's going on with your body so we can do something about it.
• 6:47
  Philip Pape: This is sarcopenia.
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: Now, sarcopenia is not just loss of muscle mass, it's also loss of the function from muscle mass.
• 6:53
  Philip Pape: That's a different topic.
• 6:54
  Philip Pape: But just in general, we start to lose our muscle mass.
• 6:57
  Philip Pape: We've known this for many years, since probably the late 80s in the research.
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: The nuance that we leave out is that this decline is not just driven by age or and or by menopause.
• 7:10
  Philip Pape: It's associated with the changes in behavior, the five factors we're gonna talk about, that tend to happen during this time of life.
• 7:18
  Philip Pape: And they happen to men as well.
• 7:19
  Philip Pape: For women, it does get exacerbated because of some of the hormonal changes, and that's where the reality is, right?
• 7:25
  Philip Pape: We're gonna look at that.
• 7:26
  Philip Pape: And there's a lot of things that are happening as we get older through our 30s, into our 40s and 50s.
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: A lot of them are because life gets complicated, right?
• 7:36
  Philip Pape: It's not just because of hormones.
• 7:39
  Philip Pape: And when we look at studies on resistance training in postmenopausal women, we find always that guess what?
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: Resistance exercise increases skeletal muscle mass and strength and physical performance.
• 7:54
  Philip Pape: And this is in postmenopausal women, okay?
• 7:57
  Philip Pape: Their muscles responded perfectly fine to the stimulus.
• 8:00
  Philip Pape: One of the things I love sharing on podcasts, especially geared toward women, is that women can increase their muscle mass at the same rate as men and at the same rate, regardless of age.
• 8:10
  Philip Pape: And that's really empowering if you're aware of that.
• 8:12
  Philip Pape: There was a study just last year, 2025, that looked at training outcomes across different menopause statuses.
• 8:21
  Philip Pape: And they found that training adaptations were not significantly different based on hormonal status.
• 8:26
  Philip Pape: So, again, the stimulus response relationship still works.
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: And I know a lot of things are not working as we get old.
• 8:32
  Philip Pape: Our joints get a little less pliable, right?
• 8:35
  Philip Pape: We have a little more aches and pains and some other things happening, but this is one thing that continues to work.
• 8:40
  Philip Pape: Your muscles don't forget how to grow in response to that stimulus.
• 8:45
  Philip Pape: So, what is actually happening is more of a correlation causation problem.
• 8:51
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 8:52
  Philip Pape: Menopause happens to arrive around the same time as a lot of other changes.
• 8:57
  Philip Pape: For example, tell me if any of these sound familiar to you.
• 9:00
  Philip Pape: Career and job demands are often getting super complicated and stressful in your 40s and 50s, especially for those of you who have professional careers.
• 9:11
  Philip Pape: This is where you're really hustling to get, you know, climb the ladder.
• 9:15
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're in leadership and management positions, you have a lot of responsibility, you're negotiating, you're trying to find jobs, trying to take interviews.
• 9:22
  Philip Pape: Like all of that stuff is happening much more at this time of life than it probably did in your 20s and 30s when you were a little more entry-level and just getting into it and had more energy for it.
• 9:32
  Philip Pape: Kids, kids, kids, guys, kids maybe, first of all, having kids, right?
• 9:36
  Philip Pape: You're in your 40s and 50s.
• 9:37
  Philip Pape: I'm 45, a dad of two daughters, and this it takes a lot of your time, devotion, energy.
• 9:44
  Philip Pape: I love it.
• 9:44
  Philip Pape: I love being a dad.
• 9:45
  Philip Pape: And I wouldn't have it any other way, but it is an important part of my life, and it could be part of yours.
• 9:50
  Philip Pape: And then depending on your age, kids may be leaving home, going to college, going to their jobs, living on their own, or they are hitting their most demanding years.
• 9:58
  Philip Pape: Or you had an oops baby, as we call them, where your kids are many years apart, and now you have a younger kid.
• 10:03
  Philip Pape: So there's kids.
• 10:04
  Philip Pape: What about your own parents are starting to get older and maybe need care and attention in your time?
• 10:10
  Philip Pape: Maybe you have to be driving around, traveling, housing them, maybe assisted living, like all that stuff, medical care.
• 10:17
  Philip Pape: What about sleep?
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: Sleep tends to become more fragmented as we get older.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: Oftentimes it's linked to all these other issues, including stress.
• 10:24
  Philip Pape: Some of you have sleep apnea, insomnia, you know, supplementation medications interfere with it.
• 10:30
  Philip Pape: Maybe your drink, whatever.
• 10:32
  Philip Pape: And then we, of course, we have exercise that tends to become less consistent or training becomes less consistent because life is just harder and you're trying to fit everything into your schedule.
• 10:42
  Philip Pape: So that might be just the tip of the iceberg for a lot of you, but I hope I hit on the big reasons why life may be different in your 40s, 50s, and kind of this age range.
• 10:51
  Philip Pape: Now, let's talk hormones because I'm not saying that estrogen doesn't matter.
• 10:56
  Philip Pape: That's a very important hormone that we should be talking about.
• 10:58
  Philip Pape: It does.
• 10:59
  Philip Pape: Estrogen decline can modify quite a few outcomes.
• 11:03
  Philip Pape: Your recovery, your connected tissue health, some aspects of body composition because of the redistribution of fat.
• 11:09
  Philip Pape: Of course, it creates a bunch of symptoms, but for most women, it's not the primary driver of muscle loss.
• 11:15
  Philip Pape: And that's that's the key for today's episode.
• 11:17
  Philip Pape: The primary drivers are the things that you can actually influence.
• 11:21
  Philip Pape: And that's great news because if it were purely hormonal, you'd be stuck, or at least like everybody would have to have, you know, estrogen replacement just to avoid muscle loss.
• 11:32
  Philip Pape: And that's not the case.
• 11:33
  Philip Pape: That's not the case.
• 11:34
  Philip Pape: There's nothing wrong with saying, you know what, it could be hormones and lifestyle, just like GLP1 meds, it could be medications and lifestyle.
• 11:42
  Philip Pape: These things don't have to be mutually exclusive.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: Now, if it is mostly behavioral and environmental, right?
• 11:48
  Philip Pape: If if you take a pie chart and one slice has hormones, but all the rest are behavioral and environmental, that gives you a ton of options, right?
• 11:56
  Philip Pape: So what are these five factors that I've been mentioning?
• 12:00
  Philip Pape: Because if you identify which have shifted for you, that's like the first, that's the first step toward reversing course, which is probably why you're listening to or watching this podcast.
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: So we know the menopause steals your muscle narrative, is at best incomplete.
• 12:16
  Philip Pape: It's not that hormones are irrelevant, right?
• 12:18
  Philip Pape: They are part of the picture, but they're usually not the main driver.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: Now, what is?
• 12:22
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 12:22
  Philip Pape: So I'm gonna list these factors, and the goal isn't to make you feel guilty, right?
• 12:27
  Philip Pape: Life in your 40s, 50s, beyond is legitimately harder for many to manage than in your 20s.
• 12:32
  Philip Pape: And so a lot of it's circumstantial or evident environment based, but you still need to recognize them.
• 12:38
  Philip Pape: So factor number one is your training volume and intensity.
• 12:42
  Philip Pape: And this happens gradually.
• 12:43
  Philip Pape: Now, if you don't even exercise at all, well, that's your biggest low-hanging fruit right there.
• 12:48
  Philip Pape: By exercise, I should have said train.
• 12:50
  Philip Pape: If you don't use resistance training in your life, ladies, right now, you probably haven't been listening to this podcast, I'm guessing.
• 12:56
  Philip Pape: So definitely we have a whole library on training, but that's gonna be your probably your biggest lever for many of you, other than maybe sleep and stress, because that is how you build and hold on to muscle, period.
• 13:09
  Philip Pape: Now, many of you have exercised in one way or the other, or you have trained, or you go to the gym.
• 13:16
  Philip Pape: And now it's a matter of are you doing it the right way?
• 13:19
  Philip Pape: Are you training the right amount of time?
• 13:21
  Philip Pape: You know, are you lifting heavy enough?
• 13:23
  Philip Pape: Are you progressing and all of that?
• 13:26
  Philip Pape: Are you doing it in a way where you're you're not avoiding it because you think it's gonna injure you?
• 13:30
  Philip Pape: Or, okay, you have back issues, so that's why you don't train, not realizing that training can help with your back issues.
• 13:36
  Philip Pape: And there's all of that going on.
• 13:38
  Philip Pape: There's also a subtle psychological shift that happens for some women where the menopause symptoms, fatigue and joint aches and disrupted sleep, and there's a lot of symptoms, right?
• 13:49
  Philip Pape: And they they tend to make hard training itself then also feel less appearing, appealing.
• 13:55
  Philip Pape: It seems exhausting, it seems like not something you want to do, you don't like it, so you unconsciously back off.
• 14:00
  Philip Pape: And of course, that's understandable.
• 14:02
  Philip Pape: This is the human condition, right?
• 14:04
  Philip Pape: Responding to those things.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: But then the result is, of course, you don't have what you need to hold on to build muscle.
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: And again, your muscles don't know your age, they don't know your hormone levels, they will respond.
• 14:15
  Philip Pape: If you go into the gym, train hard close to failure, get that mechanical tension, okay?
• 14:21
  Philip Pape: You know, not just the pink dumbbells for 10 reps every time.
• 14:25
  Philip Pape: You have to adapt and force your body to grow.
• 14:28
  Philip Pape: That's the biggest factor is training, volume, the approach, whether you're doing it or not is a huge deal.
• 14:35
  Philip Pape: And we're gonna touch on this again when we get to the practical tips on what to do.
• 14:39
  Philip Pape: That's the biggest one.
• 14:40
  Philip Pape: Uh, the second factor is your nutrition, especially your protein intake.
• 14:44
  Philip Pape: I just had an interview with Steph Mager.
• 14:46
  Philip Pape: She's an all-time world record squat holder, and she doesn't really track macros and calories, but she does make sure she gets enough protein.
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: She weighs around 180, and so she gets around 180 grams of protein every day, right?
• 14:58
  Philip Pape: One gram per pound.
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: And so this is this is kind of sneaky, right?
• 15:02
  Philip Pape: Because if you haven't been tracking it before, you probably didn't have enough to begin with.
• 15:06
  Philip Pape: And even if you have, the same what you had before may not be enough anymore.
• 15:10
  Philip Pape: This is one thing that can change as we get older, and that we get something called anabolic resistance, where you have a slightly blunted response to the muscle building signal from protein.
• 15:20
  Philip Pape: So it just means you might need a little bit more.
• 15:22
  Philip Pape: Think of it like your muscles becoming a bit harder of hearing.
• 15:26
  Philip Pape: They need a louder signal from the the amount of protein that you eat.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: But if you have enough protein intake, you know, gram per pound, let's say, or even less than that, 0.8, 0.7, it's it should be more than enough to give you that signal.
• 15:40
  Philip Pape: But for many of you, you're eating even less than that.
• 15:42
  Philip Pape: So if you're a 150-pound woman, that means let's say 100 to 120 grams of protein, you know, on the on the lower end.
• 15:50
  Philip Pape: More than that is fine.
• 15:51
  Philip Pape: It's great.
• 15:52
  Philip Pape: And many women I start working with, you know, they're getting like half that and they don't realize it because they're not tracking.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: And then also they might try to shove all that protein into dinner.
• 16:01
  Philip Pape: And I always encourage distributing it throughout the day because it's gonna help you with your fullness throughout the day and also help you get the protein.
• 16:08
  Philip Pape: You're not trying to catch up and you're not binging and things like that.
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: Factor number three is just your daily movement.
• 16:14
  Philip Pape: So again, this time of life, we tend to get more sedentary.
• 16:17
  Philip Pape: You know, all the all the movement outside of your workouts tends to decline around this time of year.
• 16:22
  Philip Pape: It's not that you're lazy, it's because we have desk jobs, less physical housework, you know, things are more convenient now with uh ordering things online and driving instead of walking.
• 16:32
  Philip Pape: And we don't, you know, we always try to find the closest parking spot.
• 16:35
  Philip Pape: And, you know, we're not maybe not chasing our kids around anymore, right?
• 16:38
  Philip Pape: There's a lot of reasons for it.
• 16:39
  Philip Pape: Whatever reason it is is personal to you.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: But you know what?
• 16:43
  Philip Pape: Your muscle and supporting your muscle mass and your strength and recovery and your health and longevity are all affected by your overall activity.
• 16:53
  Philip Pape: It affects your recovery, recovery, your insulin sensitivity, how your body processes nutrients.
• 16:58
  Philip Pape: So we're trying to get up in that seven to nine thousand steps a day minimum, minimum.
• 17:03
  Philip Pape: This is one place where I do like to set a threshold for people, find a way to get there.
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: And if you haven't checked your step count recently, that's step one, just to find out what it is with your phone or wearable.
• 17:14
  Philip Pape: But if you're down in the three, four, five thousand steps a day, that's a big lever for you.
• 17:18
  Philip Pape: All right, then factor number four is recovery, all right, especially sleep.
• 17:23
  Philip Pape: This is where hormones do play a direct role because this it's a chicken and egg, right?
• 17:29
  Philip Pape: For you ladies and peri and postmenopause, sleep often gets more fragmented and difficult to come by because of the hormone changes, or you have hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, racing thoughts, all of these things might, they might prevent you from falling asleep or wake you up.
• 17:44
  Philip Pape: Maybe you have sleep apnea, lots of things, reasons, right?
• 17:48
  Philip Pape: And this is genuinely a difficult thing.
• 17:49
  Philip Pape: It's it's a challenge, and I don't want to minimize it.
• 17:52
  Philip Pape: But I also want to frame it as another problem that we can solve, right?
• 17:57
  Philip Pape: Rather than just an inevitability that we can't control that we have to accept.
• 18:01
  Philip Pape: Because all of this stuff is in your control.
• 18:03
  Philip Pape: The stoic philosophy of what can I do, not what can't I do.
• 18:07
  Philip Pape: When recovery is compromised in any way, and that could be the amount of sleep, the amount of deep and REM sleep, interrupted sleep, too much stress, too much training and fatigue and not enough rest or deloads or whatever, then your capacity to build muscle is just reduced.
• 18:24
  Philip Pape: It's reduced.
• 18:24
  Philip Pape: You could do all the things right in the gym, and you're not gonna see the results you want if you're chronically under-recovered.
• 18:30
  Philip Pape: By the way, not eating enough is also a form of under-recovery.
• 18:35
  Philip Pape: So simply stop dieting for a while and fix on fix these things when you're in peri postmenopause.
• 18:41
  Philip Pape: That could be the solution.
• 18:43
  Philip Pape: And there are interventions, there are hacks, there are tips, there are strategies.
• 18:47
  Philip Pape: Having a cool bedroom, having a wind-down routine.
• 18:51
  Philip Pape: You know, some of you may need medical support for severe symptoms or a CPAP machine, right?
• 18:55
  Philip Pape: Whatever it is, the point is that poor sleep is a direct constraint on your muscle building activity.
• 19:03
  Philip Pape: Factor number five is actually the body composition changes themselves.
• 19:07
  Philip Pape: Now, this is another kind of interesting chicken and egg situation because fat gain is probably happening as you get older, right?
• 19:16
  Philip Pape: Because we gain a little bit of weight, it drifts up over the time for most people, because you're not not, I'm not gonna explain why you're doing it.
• 19:23
  Philip Pape: You know why.
• 19:23
  Philip Pape: It's it's overconsumption combined with the lifestyle changes and everything else.
• 19:27
  Philip Pape: And then it creates a feedback loop that makes it even harder.
• 19:32
  Philip Pape: Now, for women in perimenopause, for example, the changes in estrogen will change body fat distribution and could make it more difficult to, you know, you have more body fat than than you'd like.
• 19:43
  Philip Pape: And this is this then leads to it's harder to lose weight and et cetera, et cetera.
• 19:47
  Philip Pape: And then having more body fat, and for men, this might be like you've got the beer gut, maybe you drink too much, you've just had, you know, more sedentary lifestyle.
• 19:55
  Philip Pape: This then increases your inflammation and your insulin resistance.
• 19:59
  Philip Pape: And Might reduce your tolerance to training, right?
• 20:02
  Philip Pape: You just can't do as much and it's kind of a vicious cycle.
• 20:05
  Philip Pape: It also makes you less motivated, you have less energy, you're down on yourself, maybe talking bad about yourself and you don't like how you look, right?
• 20:11
  Philip Pape: It all adds up.
• 20:13
  Philip Pape: This factor, though, it often gets blamed on a slowing metabolism.
• 20:19
  Philip Pape: But that's not really what it is.
• 20:21
  Philip Pape: These are cause correlation, not causation.
• 20:23
  Philip Pape: The slowdown in people's metabolism is largely caused by the lack of muscle mass and the lack of movement, uh and all like a lot of the things we just talked about.
• 20:33
  Philip Pape: Because if those things were held steady, we know that people's metabolisms are also pretty steady from the age of 20 to 60.
• 20:41
  Philip Pape: Okay, and so the loss of muscle caused your metabolism to drop, the the loss, the lack of movement, et cetera.
• 20:48
  Philip Pape: Okay, but so those are the five factors.
• 20:50
  Philip Pape: Now, here's what I want you to notice.
• 20:52
  Philip Pape: Every single one of those five factors is something you can address.
• 20:56
  Philip Pape: It's not necessarily easy.
• 20:58
  Philip Pape: I'm not pretending that fixing your sleep during menopause is simple, ladies.
• 21:03
  Philip Pape: But it's possible.
• 21:04
  Philip Pape: You're not powerless, you can get help.
• 21:07
  Philip Pape: There are tools.
• 21:08
  Philip Pape: Some of this is just a matter of intention, and some of it is a matter of understanding how do we get friction out of the path.
• 21:16
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 21:17
  Philip Pape: So the question now for you becomes which of these five factors has shifted the most that you want to start with?
• 21:25
  Philip Pape: And we'll get back to that self-check at the end that might be helpful.
• 21:28
  Philip Pape: But first, I want to talk about HRT.
• 21:30
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 21:31
  Philip Pape: Now, before we talk about HRT, I do love tools that can help you track and hold yourself accountable with less friction.
• 21:41
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 21:42
  Philip Pape: And I have an app called Fitness Lab that is like having a coach in your pocket.
• 21:47
  Philip Pape: It's like having an intelligence layer that takes all of this stuff happening in your life, your training volume, your recovery, your biofeedback, how you're sleeping, your hormones, everything.
• 21:57
  Philip Pape: And it gives you a few simple tasks to do each day.
• 22:00
  Philip Pape: It helps you breathe, helps reduce some stress so you know what to do, what things are drifting in the direction we don't, and the app will gently nudge you back.
• 22:10
  Philip Pape: We recently added the Apple Health integration.
• 22:13
  Philip Pape: It was in beta.
• 22:13
  Philip Pape: Now it's out to the public, so it's in everybody's version if you want it.
• 22:17
  Philip Pape: It can pull in your sleep data, your steps, your workout history.
• 22:19
  Philip Pape: So again, that also reduces your stress because you don't have to think about that stuff.
• 22:23
  Philip Pape: It pulls it in.
• 22:24
  Philip Pape: The app is available on Android.
• 22:25
  Philip Pape: We don't have the health stuff integrated on that yet, but I thought I'd mention it.
• 22:30
  Philip Pape: And the thing about the five drifting factors in midlife that I just mentioned is a lot of us are just not aware of them.
• 22:39
  Philip Pape: They are accumulating over months, but probably over years.
• 22:43
  Philip Pape: And it's great if you can catch them by measuring the right thing.
• 22:47
  Philip Pape: So my app Fitness Lab, I think, helps with that tremendously.
• 22:50
  Philip Pape: A lot of women have been reporting how helpful it's been as an assistant for them in taking off the stress and allowing them to finally make progress.
• 22:59
  Philip Pape: And it's built on these principles and the evidence and body composition, you know, thinking about how do we get your training and nutrition to give make this the best time of your life.
• 23:10
  Philip Pape: So there is a special link exclusive to podcast listeners in the show notes.
• 23:14
  Philip Pape: Click that link to check out Fitness Lab and get a nice discount for listeners.
• 23:20
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 23:20
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about the hormones.
• 23:22
  Philip Pape: Hormone replacement therapy specifically.
• 23:24
  Philip Pape: And I know this is a charged topic today, right?
• 23:28
  Philip Pape: This is a lot of a lot of controversy, a lot of opinions on it.
• 23:31
  Philip Pape: I've had guests talk about it here.
• 23:32
  Philip Pape: I've gone on podcasts about HRT.
• 23:34
  Philip Pape: My own thoughts have been coalescing over the years.
• 23:38
  Philip Pape: Many of you are on HRT, or TRT is specific testosterone for men, for example.
• 23:43
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're considering it.
• 23:44
  Philip Pape: Maybe you have strong opinions about it one way or another.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: This isn't going to be an HRT episode.
• 23:48
  Philip Pape: I think HRT hormone replacement, especially the big three, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, in a few limited ways, right?
• 23:57
  Philip Pape: Creams and patches and things like that.
• 23:59
  Philip Pape: There are some methods that I'm not a big fan of from what I've learned from healthcare professionals and how they work.
• 24:06
  Philip Pape: But again, we're not going to solve that here.
• 24:08
  Philip Pape: I think if you need it, it can vastly improve your quality of life.
• 24:12
  Philip Pape: It can reduce all the symptoms.
• 24:14
  Philip Pape: I think it should be symptom-based primarily, not just lab work-based.
• 24:17
  Philip Pape: You can have labs that are a little off, but if you don't have the symptoms, you may not need as much treatment.
• 24:21
  Philip Pape: But if you have the symptoms, who cares what your lab says?
• 24:24
  Philip Pape: You may need help with that.
• 24:25
  Philip Pape: And I think really good menopause professionals will focus on the symptoms.
• 24:29
  Philip Pape: So we're talking hot flashes and night sweats.
• 24:32
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, you've got osteoporosis you're worried about.
• 24:35
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, you're concerned about weight gain, weight loss, body composition, muscle, all of that stuff.
• 24:39
  Philip Pape: There's a million other symptoms I'm not even going to go into.
• 24:42
  Philip Pape: There's libido issues, all of that.
• 24:44
  Philip Pape: And if your doctor has recommended it or the professional you're working with and it's working for you, right?
• 24:49
  Philip Pape: Thyroid Medicaid, there's so many, then that's awesome.
• 24:52
  Philip Pape: Like I want you to pursue those things and be very in control of your destiny and very educated on this and talk to enough people.
• 25:01
  Philip Pape: And look, if you're not sure who to talk to, please reach out to me.
• 25:03
  Philip Pape: One easy way to do that is on Instagram at Wits and Waits.
• 25:06
  Philip Pape: And I can point you to a few professionals I really like, some of whom helped me and people in my own family.
• 25:12
  Philip Pape: And I trust them to do that.
• 25:14
  Philip Pape: So you know that I'm giving you a good recommendation.
• 25:16
  Philip Pape: But it HRT is not a replacement, right?
• 25:19
  Philip Pape: It's not a replacement for doing the lifestyle.
• 25:21
  Philip Pape: And the best hormone experts I've talked to on the show have the same message.
• 25:26
  Philip Pape: It is an additive thing, it's not foundational.
• 25:29
  Philip Pape: You need the tools to support you along with the lifestyle changes.
• 25:34
  Philip Pape: And don't roll your eyes at that, please, because if you're not doing the lifestyle changes, the hormones are just going to have a very minor impact.
• 25:41
  Philip Pape: Maybe they'll reduce some of those symptoms, but they're not going to help with the big things, with the muscle mass and the strength and the function and the health and longevity long term into your 80s, 90s.
• 25:51
  Philip Pape: You know, what you want to be your golden years is when you're older.
• 25:54
  Philip Pape: And when we look at studies on HRT and outcomes for muscle mass, for grip strength, for physical performance, it's kind of mixed.
• 26:03
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 26:04
  Philip Pape: You thought I was going to say, oh yeah, everything improves.
• 26:06
  Philip Pape: It's kind of mixed, right?
• 26:07
  Philip Pape: Some markers improve in some studies and some in others or go the other direction or don't improve at all.
• 26:13
  Philip Pape: I'd say there's currently today the body of evidence doesn't say, hey, HRT itself reliably improves strength or physical performance.
• 26:20
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 26:21
  Philip Pape: It helps with many, many other things.
• 26:23
  Philip Pape: But also there are methodological issues and variability and how these hormones are given during these studies.
• 26:31
  Philip Pape: So it's just hard to say.
• 26:32
  Philip Pape: And so if something's hard to say, you can't make a claim.
• 26:35
  Philip Pape: That's my point.
• 26:36
  Philip Pape: There's uncertain benefit for muscles specifically.
• 26:39
  Philip Pape: There was a randomized controlled trial last year that combined estrogen replacement with a resistance training program.
• 26:47
  Philip Pape: And that's a very useful combination.
• 26:49
  Philip Pape: It sees it lets us see how those two things interact.
• 26:51
  Philip Pape: And what they found is that resistance training drove the improvements.
• 26:55
  Philip Pape: The HRT was additive for some markers, but training was doing that heavy lifting, pun intended.
• 27:01
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 27:01
  Philip Pape: So here's how here's let me tell you how I think about it and my mental model, so to speak.
• 27:06
  Philip Pape: Think of your muscle building capacity as having a foundation and then it has like modifiers on top of that.
• 27:15
  Philip Pape: So the foundation is, of course, your training, your protein, your recovery, your movement.
• 27:19
  Philip Pape: So those are the like the big rocks.
• 27:21
  Philip Pape: HRT is a modifier, optimizer, right?
• 27:24
  Philip Pape: It can nudge certain outcomes in a positive direction for some women in this area, in this area.
• 27:30
  Philip Pape: But if the foundation isn't solid, if you're not training with progressive overload, not eating enough protein, not sleeping well, the modifiers kind of like on a squishy pit of slime, in that it has not nothing to work with.
• 27:43
  Philip Pape: I don't know how good of an analogy that is, but you know, here's another one.
• 27:47
  Philip Pape: If you have a car and you put gasoline in your car to get it to run, but you have never changed the oil and never changed the tires.
• 27:55
  Philip Pape: And I actually know somebody I'm thinking of who had that.
• 27:57
  Philip Pape: So of course her car didn't get as nearly as many miles as it could have because she ran it into the ground despite putting gas in.
• 28:02
  Philip Pape: It's like the gas is not the problem and it's not the solution, right?
• 28:07
  Philip Pape: So I think of HRT that way, where if you're taking it, but you're still having issues with your physical self, with your body fat and your muscle mass and everything else, it's probably not more hormones or different hormones, probably the five factors we discussed earlier, which is again where I'm trying to go with this episode without too many words.
• 28:28
  Philip Pape: I hope.
• 28:29
  Philip Pape: I do want to say something about the the menopause fitness space.
• 28:33
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 28:34
  Philip Pape: Some of the content out there is it functions as a nocebo.
• 28:39
  Philip Pape: You ever heard of the term nocebo?
• 28:40
  Philip Pape: You've heard of placebo.
• 28:41
  Philip Pape: A nocebo is like doing nothing.
• 28:44
  Philip Pape: And I think it makes women afraid to train hard sometimes.
• 28:47
  Philip Pape: And I hear it in the language of like, I'm worried about training too heavy for whatever reason.
• 28:53
  Philip Pape: Now, some of it is about getting bulky, some of it is about injury or safety or thinking that you don't need to or whatever.
• 29:01
  Philip Pape: I don't know, I don't know the exact reason it is for you if that if you've told yourself that, but you know, your body, just because it changes in that way, it can still respond quite incredibly.
• 29:13
  Philip Pape: And by saying that it can't, it's a very discouraging message, and then it creates the outcome that it describes.
• 29:19
  Philip Pape: Because if you believe something, then it's true.
• 29:22
  Philip Pape: You've heard of that, right?
• 29:23
  Philip Pape: If if you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're true.
• 29:26
  Philip Pape: It's true.
• 29:27
  Philip Pape: So if you believe you can't build muscle, that's your identity, and you're not gonna train in a way that's gonna build the muscle.
• 29:33
  Philip Pape: You're not gonna eat in a way or live, live that way.
• 29:35
  Philip Pape: And that's the identity shift that we talk about here.
• 29:37
  Philip Pape: It's not a woo-woo thing.
• 29:38
  Philip Pape: It literally is like I can do this, so I'm gonna act the way that expresses who I am, as opposed to I'm gonna try to force behaviors on myself to get an outcome.
• 29:49
  Philip Pape: That that's not sustainable.
• 29:50
  Philip Pape: What is sustainable is yeah, I can build muscle, I want to get stronger, I want to be athletic as I as I age.
• 29:57
  Philip Pape: So I'm gonna do the things that that need to be done to get there.
• 30:00
  Philip Pape: Obviously.
• 30:00
  Philip Pape: Like, obviously, I'm gonna eat better now because it feels better to eat better, and I train better when I eat better.
• 30:06
  Philip Pape: So that that that's like the menopause space, it just drives me crazy.
• 30:11
  Philip Pape: The principles, the principles don't change.
• 30:13
  Philip Pape: I'm all about principles, first principles.
• 30:15
  Philip Pape: Like how you get it done can change, but the principles don't.
• 30:19
  Philip Pape: You know, do you have enough mechanical tension when you train?
• 30:22
  Philip Pape: Do you have progressive overload?
• 30:23
  Philip Pape: Do you have enough protein?
• 30:24
  Philip Pape: Do you have enough recovery?
• 30:25
  Philip Pape: Right, all of that.
• 30:26
  Philip Pape: I'm kind of repeating myself, but they work after menopause, just like they did before.
• 30:31
  Philip Pape: The margins might be a little different.
• 30:33
  Philip Pape: You might be a little night might need a little more protein, a little bit more recovery, more attention to sleep, right?
• 30:39
  Philip Pape: But that's just adjusting the inputs, which is very different from oh, my body's broken now.
• 30:44
  Philip Pape: All right, so enough about what doesn't work as well as advertised.
• 30:47
  Philip Pape: Let's talk about what does work practically.
• 30:50
  Philip Pape: All right, I'm gonna give you some just specific things.
• 30:53
  Philip Pape: Talked about these before on the show.
• 30:54
  Philip Pape: It's worth repeating, and they work as well for post-menopausal women, pre-menopausal women, men, anyone.
• 31:01
  Philip Pape: Okay, it's just gonna work.
• 31:03
  Philip Pape: That's the great thing about it.
• 31:04
  Philip Pape: So training.
• 31:05
  Philip Pape: Minimum effective dose for training is probably at least two, if not three days a week.
• 31:11
  Philip Pape: And you're using resistance training of some kind, whether it's barbells, dumbbells, machines, probably around 10 hard sets per muscle group.
• 31:20
  Philip Pape: Anywhere from five to 15, depends on your responsiveness and whether you're in a fat loss phase and all that.
• 31:24
  Philip Pape: But say around 10 hard sets per muscle group per week, and then go up or down based on your recovery.
• 31:30
  Philip Pape: And you're gonna prioritize compound lifts, ideally, especially when you're a newer lifter.
• 31:34
  Philip Pape: That would be some sort of squat pattern, a deadlift style pattern, could be Romanian deadlift or even hip thrust, but you know, a hinge type pattern, a press, benching, and overhead.
• 31:44
  Philip Pape: I like both.
• 31:45
  Philip Pape: And then maybe a rowing pattern eventually or pulling pattern, like pull-ups.
• 31:49
  Philip Pape: Some people also like loaded carries and core work and all that.
• 31:52
  Philip Pape: I think that gets more on the hypertrophy side, but we can we can have that argument.
• 31:56
  Philip Pape: Execution of this is training within two to three repshive failure.
• 32:02
  Philip Pape: Now, you might have heard me say two to four, one to three.
• 32:04
  Philip Pape: Training pretty darn close to failure.
• 32:07
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 32:07
  Philip Pape: Don't leave gains on the table and make sure you go up in weight, reps, or sets over time.
• 32:14
  Philip Pape: Something needs to progress.
• 32:16
  Philip Pape: So that's the first fix.
• 32:17
  Philip Pape: Protein, we already talked about it.
• 32:19
  Philip Pape: I'll just give you the range again 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight.
• 32:23
  Philip Pape: Don't overthink lean mass, target body weight, all that stuff.
• 32:27
  Philip Pape: Just 0.7 to 1 grams a pound of your current body weight, and then work from there and really use your biofeedback and experience to adjust.
• 32:35
  Philip Pape: And this is where, by the way, other people, whether it's coaches, communities, training partners, can be really helpful.
• 32:41
  Philip Pape: I mean, you guys should be talking to and thriving in and among a group of like-minded people are trying to do the same thing.
• 32:47
  Philip Pape: It's gonna accelerate your results.
• 32:49
  Philip Pape: So that's protein.
• 32:50
  Philip Pape: And then I think I mentioned before, like distributing your protein throughout the day, it can be really helpful for hunger.
• 32:56
  Philip Pape: And yeah, it's helpful with for muscle as well, but it's really more about the practicality of making sure you get enough protein.
• 33:03
  Philip Pape: Well, you have recovery, and that's just getting enough sleep and good sleep.
• 33:07
  Philip Pape: If you're disrupted because of hot flashes or night sweats or something, you're gonna have to address those things.
• 33:12
  Philip Pape: Now, there are a lot of over-the-counter and supplement and herb-based solutions to some of these things, like hot flashes, night sweats, even like vaginal dryness.
• 33:22
  Philip Pape: And I don't know why I threw that in because it has nothing to do with sleep, but I'm just thinking of all the conversations I've had with the menopause experts.
• 33:27
  Philip Pape: There's a range of potential solutions.
• 33:29
  Philip Pape: You've got to go with the symptom and try to address that and then do before and after.
• 33:34
  Philip Pape: If it doesn't help your symptom, then it probably isn't the right solution, regardless of what your blood work says.
• 33:41
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 33:41
  Philip Pape: So you have to address all the things that are disrupting your sleep.
• 33:45
  Philip Pape: Don't just accept it.
• 33:46
  Philip Pape: You know, I have a client who like thought she says she snores a lot.
• 33:49
  Philip Pape: And I said, Well, that may be sleep apnea.
• 33:51
  Philip Pape: You should probably get it looked at.
• 33:53
  Philip Pape: She did, and she's like, Yeah, that's what it was.
• 33:54
  Philip Pape: CPAP machine, boom, so much better sleep, right?
• 33:57
  Philip Pape: Little things like that can go a long way.
• 33:59
  Philip Pape: You just have to address them.
• 34:01
  Philip Pape: And stress management, you know, rest days, deloads, they all are part of this whole recovery thing.
• 34:06
  Philip Pape: Stress is its own thing.
• 34:08
  Philip Pape: I did a whole article, a whole episode recently about sleep and stress in the context of hunger hormones.
• 34:14
  Philip Pape: But really, what we're talking about is how do you get yourself to get into that rest and digest mode on a regular basis, whether that's breath work and meditation, walking, therapy, some sort of relaxing movement or practice.
• 34:29
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 34:29
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, rest days.
• 34:31
  Philip Pape: You have to have the right balance of training days and recovery days.
• 34:36
  Philip Pape: And if you really train hard, you know, you may have to be creative about your training schedule.
• 34:42
  Philip Pape: I spoke to Steph Mager, powerlifter, and she was talking about how she puts her heaviest days on like Monday and Friday, so they're far apart, and then two lighter days Tuesday and then like the weekend.
• 34:54
  Philip Pape: You kind of have to get smart like that to maximize your recovery.
• 34:57
  Philip Pape: Now, if you're dieting, if you're in a fat loss phase, just be extra conservative about all this stuff.
• 35:02
  Philip Pape: Don't assume you can't do them.
• 35:04
  Philip Pape: Don't like give up or use it as a cop-out or excuse, but just understand that that's an extra stressor to all of the other things we've talked about.
• 35:13
  Philip Pape: Protein needs to stay higher.
• 35:15
  Philip Pape: You don't want to cut too aggressively.
• 35:17
  Philip Pape: And, you know, you have to be smart about how often and how aggressively you're in a fat loss phase.
• 35:24
  Philip Pape: Okay, here's what I want you to take away from this episode.
• 35:27
  Philip Pape: I started by acknowledging that I have not lived the menopause experience.
• 35:31
  Philip Pape: But what I have seen through working with women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, through the research, through hundreds of conversations, is that the defeatist narrative isn't going to serve anyone.
• 35:44
  Philip Pape: It's not helpful other than the people making the money off of it.
• 35:47
  Philip Pape: Yes, of course, menopause is real, perimenopause, all the symptoms.
• 35:51
  Philip Pape: I would I have people that are close to me who I love who are dealing with these kinds of issues, and it's hard to find the support you need.
• 36:00
  Philip Pape: It's getting better.
• 36:01
  Philip Pape: Some of the research is getting better.
• 36:02
  Philip Pape: Women's health, though, is still somewhat in the dark ages compared to just general health.
• 36:07
  Philip Pape: I'm not even gonna call it men's health, just general health, just women haven't been studied as much for a variety of reasons.
• 36:13
  Philip Pape: And so I totally acknowledge all of these things as being a frustration, right?
• 36:18
  Philip Pape: The symptoms and the challenges that result.
• 36:21
  Philip Pape: And I'm not dismissing it, but the other thing that's real is your capacity to build muscle.
• 36:28
  Philip Pape: And the research showing post-menopausal women that gain strength and lean mass because they're training are right there to look up yourself.
• 36:36
  Philip Pape: The evidence that protein, progressive overload, recovery, they work no matter your hormone status.
• 36:41
  Philip Pape: And so don't worry about your genetics or your biology or your metabolism or anything else.
• 36:47
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 36:48
  Philip Pape: Test the narrative.
• 36:50
  Philip Pape: Ask, may say that I'm gonna see if my body still responds by trying it out.
• 36:56
  Philip Pape: That's the best thing you can do, okay?
• 36:58
  Philip Pape: Because you're gonna discover that it does.
• 36:59
  Philip Pape: Uh, we had Lauren Calenzo Semple on the show quite a while back.
• 37:02
  Philip Pape: I love her work.
• 37:03
  Philip Pape: Check her out because she's been making the point for years that the fitness industry profits from complexity.
• 37:09
  Philip Pape: Telling women that menopause requires new approaches, special protocols, specific supplements, cycle-based training and food, which I get questions on all the time.
• 37:18
  Philip Pape: It sells products and programs, but what matters is the principles and how you, as an individual, need to apply the principles, right?
• 37:26
  Philip Pape: Your menstrual cycle may be erratic or maybe extreme and cause you to have to change the way you do things.
• 37:32
  Philip Pape: And that's true for you, but it's not necessarily true for the next woman.
• 37:35
  Philip Pape: The principles, though, are the same.
• 37:37
  Philip Pape: What changes is the method and the margin for error, right?
• 37:41
  Philip Pape: You may have to be more intentional about certain things, like how much protein you have, how much recovery you have, how consistent you are with training, all those.
• 37:47
  Philip Pape: You may have to be more intentional, but that to me is an empowering thing related to self-efficacy.
• 37:53
  Philip Pape: It doesn't limit you.
• 37:55
  Philip Pape: It means you have levers to pull.
• 37:58
  Philip Pape: It means you are not at the mercy of your biology.
• 38:02
  Philip Pape: So the question isn't can you build muscle after menopause?
• 38:05
  Philip Pape: The research says yes, absolutely.
• 38:06
  Philip Pape: The question is whether you will do the things that make it happen because you have the power to do it and I know you can do it.
• 38:12
  Philip Pape: And before I share one final thing, I've got I've got three quick yes or no questions that will tell you where to focus this week.
• 38:20
  Philip Pape: And we're gonna get to that in a second.
• 38:22
  Philip Pape: But I will say, if this episode resonated with you, if you like my message here, if you agree with it, if you think it's positive and empowering, and you're looking for a tool to help track these things and help you before they accumulate, and you want the same voice and style that I bring to this and the evidence-based nuance that I'm trying to inject into this process, check out my app Fitness Lab.
• 38:45
  Philip Pape: Use the link in the note show notes.
• 38:47
  Philip Pape: You can take a free quiz to see if it's right for you.
• 38:50
  Philip Pape: It's one of my favorite tools available because of how it works.
• 38:55
  Philip Pape: You get daily briefings and tasks that are unique to you.
• 38:59
  Philip Pape: You and the next person using the app will have completely different tasks because it's like having a coach who is watching your training and your biofeedback, your recovery.
• 39:07
  Philip Pape: If you have Apple, it's now integrated with Apple Health as well.
• 39:10
  Philip Pape: So it can pull all that data in sleep steps, resting, heart weight rate, activity data.
• 39:15
  Philip Pape: Um, and and I'm but I'm behind the design elements of it.
• 39:18
  Philip Pape: So I'm continuing to add features, and then we have a great support team in case there's any bugs or things like that.
• 39:24
  Philip Pape: We're getting great feedback on it.
• 39:25
  Philip Pape: You don't have to manually log a bunch of this stuff, and you don't have to guess at what to do next.
• 39:31
  Philip Pape: It tells you what to do next.
• 39:32
  Philip Pape: It says, today is your day.
• 39:33
  Philip Pape: Here are the few things you've got to do to be successful.
• 39:36
  Philip Pape: Let's get them done.
• 39:36
  Philip Pape: If you don't, no judgment, but we're gonna talk it through and figure out how to get it done.
• 39:40
  Philip Pape: So go use the link in the show notes for 20% off, exclusive to you, the podcast listener or viewer on YouTube.
• 39:47
  Philip Pape: All right, here is that quick check in.
• 39:49
  Philip Pape: I promise it's three questions yes or no.
• 39:52
  Philip Pape: One, did your last training session include at least one exercise where you added weight or reps from the previous session?
• 39:59
  Philip Pape: Two, did you eat at least 25 grams of protein at breakfast and lunch yesterday?
• 40:06
  Philip Pape: Three, did you sleep at least seven hours last night?
• 40:08
  Philip Pape: Very simple questions.
• 40:10
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 40:11
  Philip Pape: Did you have an exercise where you added weights or reps?
• 40:14
  Philip Pape: Did you eat at least 25 grams of protein at breakfast and lunch yesterday?
• 40:17
  Philip Pape: Did you sleep at least seven hours?
• 40:18
  Philip Pape: If you answered no to two or more of those questions, you found your starting point.
• 40:24
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 40:25
  Philip Pape: Pick one of those and fix it this week.
• 40:27
  Philip Pape: And I know it's easier said than done, but you've got to start from awareness.
• 40:32
  Philip Pape: And I don't want you to fix all of them.
• 40:33
  Philip Pape: Just pick one.
• 40:34
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 40:34
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 40:34
  Philip Pape: That's where you know your support for this lifestyle is going to come from.
• 40:39
  Philip Pape: Just those.
• 40:40
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 40:40
  Philip Pape: I want you to run those questions over each week if you want to stay honest with yourself.
• 40:46
  Philip Pape: Obviously, there's a lot more you can track and you can think about.
• 40:48
  Philip Pape: If you don't want to think about, grab my app, link in the show notes.
• 40:51
  Philip Pape: The bottom line is that menopause does change things.
• 40:54
  Philip Pape: That is true, but it doesn't close the door completely on building muscle because the principles are still going to work for you.
• 41:01
  Philip Pape: Margins might be tighter.
• 41:03
  Philip Pape: You might have to be more intentional.
• 41:04
  Philip Pape: That's it, right?
• 41:05
  Philip Pape: More intentional doesn't mean impossible.
• 41:07
  Philip Pape: It just means more intentional.
• 41:09
  Philip Pape: And honestly, we could all be more intentional about things.
• 41:11
  Philip Pape: That's probably what got us here in the first place.
• 41:13
  Philip Pape: Just, you know, even besides things like menopause, age, and whatnot, if we are truly honest with ourselves.
• 41:19
  Philip Pape: So I hope this episode gave you the evidence, but also the encouragement to test this theory out for yourself.
• 41:27
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights.
• 41:31
  Philip Pape: And remember that your body is capable of building muscle at any age.
• 41:35
  Philip Pape: It just needs the right inputs.
• 41:37
  Philip Pape: My name is Philip Pape, and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.