Latest / Fit for Hiking / Ep. 127 Finding Your Spark in Mid-Life with Heike Yates
Transcript
- Finding your spark in mid-life with Heike Yates Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential and become inspired to live your most vibrant life. You're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for Hiking podcast. What is up you guys? Welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. This is your host, Brady, and today we have a very special guest I'm very excited about on the show. We have Hika Yates, who is a midlife fitness expert, author and creator of the Spark Framework, known for helping women in midlife reclaim their confidence, rebuild their energy and live fully on their terms. She has over 35 years of experience in fitness, nutrition and mindset coaching, and she supports women who specifically are feeling stuck in the start over cycle to create realistic, empowering habits that fit their lives. Right now, as the host of the Pursuer Spark podcast and author of Pursue Your Spark, Hika inspires women to step out of survival mode and into a life that feels clear, strong, and truly their own. Wow! I'm so excited for this conversation. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Brady. It's my pleasure. Awesome. So I have a lot of questions to get into today with you, but if you could just start by kind of telling us a little bit about your backstory. I mean, you have so much amazing experience. What made you so passionate about this field and kind of led you to where you are today? You know, I never thought in a million years, and that would be like 40 years ago when I started my career, that I'd be doing what I do now because the idea of teaching people exercise was probably the it was the last thing of my on my mind. And, you know, I grew up in Germany where a lot of times you hike, you walk, you do your errands on a bike, and you were always active. So the idea that I had to do something in a gym or in another place to actually exercise never occurred to me until I moved to the States where everybody was jogging and I was like, oh, they're all jogging out there, so I should be jogging. And I had the worst shin splints of my life. So I said, oh, this is. This is definitely not for me. And so I just, you know, ditched that. Mhm. And just, you know, back in the days I was young and single and my form of exercise back then was exercising, I was dancing. Mhm. Um and so until I met my husband and we got pregnant and I was gained a lot of weight during my pregnancy, I gained £50. Mhm. And you know when the baby comes out it's only £9. There's just a lot of weight that sits there. And I had no idea how to get the weight off. And um, I was just like oh it will go off. I just do diets because everybody in the States diets and I. Okay, let me tell you, I know nothing about exercise, nothing about fitness. Nothing of what you would do when you had a child and you wanted to get back in shape. Yeah. And so everybody was on a diet. So I tried all these diets only to get the gain the weight back quicker than I could imagine, until a friend of mine said, why don't we just go to the local YMCA where they were teaching as a satellite program. Classes in the church basement. And back then there were called dancer size. Yeah. Which which relates a little bit to Zumba. Yeah, but when you think it's almost 40 years ago now is somebody shows up like you imagine Jane Fonda with tights and with a headband and a t shirt with a little nod on the side and a little boombox and a mat underneath their arm and a £3 pair of weights. And that was the teacher, and it was in the church basement. And everybody at that point knew what they were supposed to bring, and I had no idea. I was like, oh, I'd just bring them out. That's what they said. And it was so much fun. It was just like dancing. And we were learning routines and grapevines and all this stuff. And that's how I really got started with that whole business of fitness. Yeah, just finding what worked for you during that time. Yeah. And, you know, I had no place to put my kid. I had no family close by. So my son would come with me to the church because they had a nursery. And he was probably, as far as I remember. Still, he was the only baby there. Put the woman in the nursery. Always would say he is crying as soon as you drop him off. I said, fine, I don't hear it. I'm downstairs at some. He will at some point just chill out. This is my time. This is. Yep. I have to really put my foot down and say, no, don't come running. Find me. Do you know you? You're working here. You know what to do with babies. Yeah. And it's so important to have that time as a as a mom. You know, you gotta you gotta put your health first at some point, because otherwise you're just depleted and pouring from an empty cup all day. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of what sparked it. And then from there you got very interested in, you know, female fitness and health. You know, I am just always curious. I am a very curious person. I want to know about everything. And so as I started doing those dancer size classes, they asked me if I wanted to teach those classes. So I had to learn to dance or teach to music and know what I'm supposed to do with those weights. I know you guys are listening to this. You're probably laughing. You're like, yeah, but back then there was not that much information available to us to what to do, or you didn't Google. What do I do? And I mean, there was Jane Fonda was there. That's all we knew pretty much. And then step aerobics came around. But I was just, you know, I felt the difference in my body. And I wanted other women to feel that, too, because I felt energized, I felt strong, I felt so proud of my arms. And I remember one day I went back home and I flexed my arm and I said to my first husband, I said, go feel my arm. And he was like, what am I looking for? I said, look, my tricep in the back of my arm. And he was not impressed, but I was like, I never had that before. Yeah. Wow. So I learned it's exercise feels good, it's work, but it feels good. And I wanted to know more about weights. I wanted to know more about like step came along. I don't know if you remember. The slide was very popular for a while. Kickboxing with Tai Bow way back when. Yeah, my mom and I would do those workouts with her when I was a kid, and we had so much fun with the Tai Bow videos. And and so it all just you know accumulated. Mhm. That all these things were just fun and they were interesting. And you can offer something to somebody that fits their lifestyle. And I taught pre post-natal classes for the moms like I had when I had my second child. So I would go to class pregnant with all the other pregnant moms and had my younger child with me, just like some of the other moms. And it was just always interesting. And so as I got older, I also said, you know, I'm no longer 30. In my 30s, I was a bodybuilder. I thought that was really cool to become a bodybuilder. So I tried that. And then as I was in my 40s, I was like, oh, this is really cool to run marathon. So I ran an ultra marathon. Wow. And then in my 50s, I think I became an Ironman triathlete because I was just curious about all of this. Yeah, but it's really curiosity. Curiosity that drove my where I'm going in my career. Mhm. Yeah. So how did you get to this place of being so passionate about midlife for women and what that looks like for health. So many women in midlife. And let me paraphrase this midlife to me, is not just being 50. Midlife to me is 40 and up. And when you sometimes look at women in their 80s, they're still in midlife. For me, because their mindset is so fresh and they're so young and they're keeping up and and hiking you you're brand is hiking. I love hiking. A lot of older air quotes. I mean, we're not older, love hiking, being outdoors in fresh air. You know the workouts, the walks are challenging. The hikes are challenging to also easy ones depending on your ability. And so when I see how frustrated women get when things just don't work out, when things are not happening like they used to. It's like I'm not as tight. My arms get flabby. Of course, through menopause, you gaining, many of us gain belly fat. And the frustration that sets in of saying, you know what? I just don't have any energy to do all the workouts I used to do. Now I'm sitting there and I can't even go for a hike. I can't, I just can't get myself together. The frustration that we feel at times and it needs that needs to be addressed. Yeah, definitely. That's I think a lot of women that I talk to who are, you know, maybe interested in our program or our clients who are older or in that midlife category. Um, they a lot of women are just kind of like, this is just how it is. I don't have energy and they've almost like, resigned themselves to just this existence of not feeling good in their clothes, not having energy, not feeling like they used to, or feeling strong when that just doesn't have to be the case. Yes, there will be changes, but there's so much that we can do to prevent some of those negative, um, you know, side effects and things that we start to feel when we don't take care of ourselves properly. Yeah. It's also, I think, Brady, that, that we expect too much from ourselves. We live up to this idea. Maybe somebody on on the internet. Somebody on social media that we see and we're like, wow, look at this person. She's my age. I should be able to do that. Yeah, I mean, I should be able to look like this, but we're also individual and we also age differently. We go through, you know, some women have really hard menopause phases. Others breeze through it. Yeah. Some people get arthritis early. Others never get arthritis, it seems. Yeah. And so we have to take an account. Where are we personally and then go from there and say, you know, I build on that. I don't have to give up and I don't have to be like somebody else. Yeah. That's where the personalization and really meeting people where they are. I think it's valuable in all stages of life just trying to do the cookie cutter like, oh, this person, that's what they eat in a day. That's what works for them. So I have to try to make that fit into where I'm at. It just doesn't work. Um, yeah. So tell us a few of the main misconceptions that you see and you've heard thrown around in the fitness and health space for women in midlife that I can't. Be stronger or I can build muscle. And I know that some women shy away from the term build muscle. They go, woo! I don't want big muscles. I know it's such a shame and I keep saying this wherever anybody will listen, you will not get big and bulky. Remember I touched on when I was a bodybuilder, I was bodybuilding for three years and I was trying to get as big as humanly possible. Yeah, it was the hardest thing I've ever done to actually pack size on my body, right? It's hard. It's so hard. I mean, I'm looking at the weights that I pushed back then was like, I'm not anywhere near them at this point. But the size never matured to the the way I thought I should mature, grow them into. And that's that's also your muscles will not get ginormous. Yeah. You will get stronger. You will you will see some some muscles, you will get toned and all the I mean some people mock at the term toned right stronger. But we know what that means right. Like the, the lean look that so many women want, you have to have muscle to achieve that. Um, and yeah, I mean, I think that hopefully that myth is kind of being debunked, but I do still think in the back of our minds, a lot of women do think, oh, but if I live. But for me, I all get bulky. Like that might not happen for her, but it will happen for me when the reality is, if you're lifting weights three times a week, you're not going to get bulky. You would have to eat for that. You'd have to be training like six plus times a week specifically to gain muscle. And a lot of the women that we see that are quote unquote bulky are also taking testosterone, you know, so it's just there's so much more to it. So I'm glad that you touched on that. Yeah, it's very different. And so don't shy away from the weights because they're also good prevention and osteoporosis. So things strong bone structure. The other thing that I see often is that this whole thing of I don't have energy, and you touch this on this a little bit already as well. I don't have energy. I can't get energy no matter what I do. I don't have energy. And there is so there are so many different steps that we can take to regain our energy. And I sometimes talk about the energy leaks. So energy leaks are negative people. Energy leaks are people, I'm sorry, that are activities that drain us rather than fulfill us. Yeah. Just to name those two, that drains our energy too. It's not always about just the eating, and the exercise is what's happening around us. What stress is draining or leaking your energy. So as a whole, not sleeping is an energy leak. Mhm. And so when we're looking at it from a holistic perspective, these are the things that are leaking our energy. And if we don't plug those holes so to speak, we keep not having energy but that you can't have energy or more energy. It's not true. Will you maybe not be as perky in your 20s? Probably. Yeah. But then who needs that? So. Right. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. So. Okay. Go ahead. And then I'm too old for this. I can't start anything new. Yes. I shouldn't be trying something new. Because what if I fail? Which goes? Could get us down a rabbit hole. But, uh, I'm too old to try new things. I think it's a third one that really is coming up a lot. And it's so easy to slip into that mentality, even, you know, I'm in my 30s. Like, it's easy to even get into that mentality once you just settle into, like, I'm a mom now I just have to check my list every day. And like, it can be really tempting to just be comfortable and never do the hard things, even though they're so rewarding. Um, but, you know, when I moved to Colorado, I started seeing all these people that were, you know, older, like 70 to 80 year old women out on hikes with their friends, summiting 13,000 foot peaks. And I was amazed by that. And I was like, wow, that is what I want my life to look like at all ages. I don't want this to be something where the older I get, the more I just sit at home and I stop challenging myself, and I stop thinking that I'm capable of doing these amazing things, you know? Yep. You know, one of the things that I recently thought about is I was, uh, I live in a Washington, D.C. area in Maryland, and we have a hill when we go biking just around where we live, it's it's called the Mormon Temple because there's the Mormon temple on top of the hill. But this this hill is really steep to go up. And as I was biking up and I hadn't, you know, I was slacking on my biking and my lungs were working and I'm like, oh my God. And I was sore the next day just from breathing. And I'm thinking, oh my God, breathing so important, which I teach in. And of course all my programs in Pilates as well is the breath is super important and that people really learn to breathe better is such a great thing at any age. And we've become such shallow breathers that in my mind, as I went up the hill and then I was like, oh my God, my rib cage, I need to do more of this because my lungs are finally expanding. It gives me more energy because I breathe better. And when you say at 14,000ft, you need to breathe up there, you need to have really good lungs. Very true. Yes. Yeah. So how would you say, you know, do you have any tips for women who are maybe getting into midlife and, you know, you have this awesome active lifestyle that you've been able to maintain and kind of shift, um, you know, as you've gotten older, how have you done that? What keeps you adventurous and active, and what tips would you give for women who want to incorporate more of that into their lives? I hear a lot. I used to be able to, um, which is great. I used to be able to play tennis. And many women have that sorrow about what they used to be able to do and can't any longer, and don't move beyond that. Yeah. About three, about three years ago, I had to stop running. I have a really, really bad arthritic knee. And the doctor at that point said, knee replacement make an appointment. Now we booking out three months ahead. So you should you should definitely, you know, plan on getting a new knee. And I was hell bent not to get a new knee so soon. So I did my Pilates. I did my strength training. I focused more on flexibility and alignment. I went to some of my physical therapists and was like, hey, what do you guys suggest for the knee? And so I've been able knocking on wood to prolong a knee surgery for the last three years. Do I miss running? Heck yes I do. I mourned for about a year. Literally. Oh, my God, I can't run anymore, dummy. And then I tried a little bit, and then my knee would really hurt. And then I'm like yours. Really? You know. Don't be silly. Don't push it. Start hiking. So I got more into hiking. Yeah, and faster walking. Yeah. And I still get such a great workout. Yeah. But then I said, you know, let's move beyond that. Let's see what we can do now. And let's leave that behind. I used to be able because we identify with that persona. I used to be a tennis player. I used to be a skier or whatever it is that you did when you were active before. If you never were active. That doesn't apply to you. If you're like, well, I just dabble a little bit. I do a little bit here and there. Then that scenario may not apply to you, but if you have been active, there will be a time of mourning. But then there will also be a time off if you continue to be curious. To move forward. Curious. Like we said earlier, check stuff out. You may just like it. You know, a lot of people are now pickleball. Oh, I know. It's so big. The old former tennis players are like, I can't run the court, but now I can pickleball. I know it's perfect. Yeah. I think being able to pivot in all seasons of life, you know, like it's constantly going to be changing for me like this, that pivot has been from being, you know, single in my 20s, being able to work out whenever I felt like it's, you know, having two little kids and running a business. And I have very minimal childcare. I don't have family here. Like what you were mentioning. So I'm not working out nearly what I used to. And if I just kind of like, let those things drag me down and say, well, I'm just I can't do what I used to, so I'm just not going to do anything. Oh my gosh, how negatively that would impact my life. And that would change so much. I think you know how strong we feel, how confident we feel in our bodies affects almost every other aspect of our day to day life, and it's so important to just find what avenues you can pursue right now in this current stage. Absolutely. Yeah. So. Okay. A lot of women want to be able to stay strong for hiking or travel, but they don't really know where to start while juggling so many things. You know, maybe, um, there's some listeners who are in midlife and they kind of let their good habits fall by the wayside. Um, what has worked best for you as far as actually being consistent and showing up for yourself? Doing the simplest things. And I teach this to my clients and my blueprint program as well. Start where you're at. If you've totally fallen out of shape, okay, that's where you start. So don't give me the story. I used to play tennis, and I know this was clients that started working with me. I said, oh, what are you exercising? Oh, I used to play football and I play Super Rugby and I used to. What about you? And I'm like, well, what do you do now? Well, you know, that's why I'm here. Yeah. And so it is starting where you're at. If you're completely out of shape, there's no shame in this. It just is. If you have been dabbling a little bit great, it's maybe a little easier to push forward. But I always feel that we're overlooked. We are all thinking that we should do. I should do 30 minutes. I should do an hour of working out whatever it includes. And I'm like, if you're just starting out and if you need that kick, you got to start slowly, you're going to burn out, you're going to be so sore and you're not going to love it. So what did you do? I always recommend start out with counter push ups in the kitchen. Ear squats in your office chair. You know, every time you go to the bathroom or you finish a meeting, you do five air squats. Yeah. Or you mean it sounds really silly and I know everybody else will be laughing at you but don't care about this. Do lunges. Go to the you know, go to the next meeting. Doing lunges. Uh, there's so many options you can do that doesn't involve number one, changing your clothes. Number two, having to get on the floor, which I always find is a hurdle for many people. Yeah. If I say, oh, let's do some Pilates work. Everybody looking at me going, oh, we have to lie down, right? Yeah. And nobody's excited about this from the beginning. Don't want to be in their regular clothes, and they all want to stand up and do stuff. So do all push ups, do wall squats? Do you know, uh, tricep presses with one arm against the wall? There's so much we just don't credit the benefit of that to what we do. We assume that this is not stacking up for our health and for our strength. We assume that's not enough. That's just a little bit. But I always feel like a little bit goes a long way once you get the taste back. Then you might just want to do more. And that's how you can build with those little baby steps to do a little more each time. Absolutely. I think people setting out to do too much too fast is one of the biggest ways to fail. Because especially if you're just starting out and you burn out quickly or you're crazy sore or it feels unrealistic, that's when you just go back to what you were doing before, which is nothing. And so I love that you mentioned that. And I think removing barriers, like you said, is so important of if if the changing clothes is a barrier in the beginning. Okay, let's not do that. If going to the gym is a barrier, let's not go to the gym figuring out how we can work this so that mentally you can get over these, these hurdles and just start doing what you can right now. Absolutely. Okay. So mindset kind of like what we were just talking about definitely plays a significant role in how we show up for ourselves. How can women in midlife maintain a yes to adventure attitude? First off, remove those negative people. Yeah, I think we touched on that a little bit. Um, negative people need to go. People that do not support your healthy lifestyle, whether it's. Well, it's hard to see your husband. You probably can't remove it because you maybe or your wife, but, you know, friends that don't support your work. They'd rather want to drag you to go drink wine. But there's nothing wrong with drinking wine. But if that's the only activity and you say, I don't want to drink right now, let's use this as an example. Well, then let's go to the gym. Or let's go do a yoga class. Or let's go again for a hike. Let's do a Pilates class, whatever it is. Have people that support your mission. Have people around you that support your healthy lifestyle and really kick all the other ones by the curb. Yeah, and make it easy for you. And like you said a minute ago, the hurdles make it easy to and accessible for you. Don't expect that. You might. You might not like the first time. But if you keep going back, you create that consistency. You create something that may feel like you like it. And the other thing too is you can always switch direction. If you start with pickleball and it's not your thing, you can do something else. Yeah. So this this guy is the limit. Yeah, absolutely. And I think just doing those little things to build up, like I call them mini adventures. Like when you're, you know, I think a lot of people hear adventurous lifestyle and they think you have to be jet setting across the world to do these crazy hikes or all these things. And it's like, no, just look for like, what's around you to start out. Yeah, you can start planning some cool things if you start to get in better shape and feel confident. But also what are the local state parks by you or like, what are some easy things that you can just incorporate every single week that will bring a bit of adventure and are outside of your just daily checklist? Yep, yep. And I think sometimes people are embarrassed to go to the playground. Mhm. Uh, when I hang around there they kind of look at me sort of like what's she doing there? But there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, feel like a kid again. What did you used to like to do? Like, maybe, you know, you have a hula. I got a hula hoop. Yeah. And sometimes you see me hula hooping around in my garden and walk around the neighborhood. People just like. What was she again? So I have a hula hoop, and I walk around to have my music on and I hula hoop through. I love that room through the my garden. I'm like, it's great. So as far as training smarter, not harder kind of finding what works for you now, how do you personally balance staying fit with giving your body time to rest and kind of mitigating injury, things like that? My rule is always you can I work out six days a week and I rest one day. I don't do anything. My clients always say, you don't do anything. I'm like, no. And when I say six days working out a week, that may mean 20 minutes of upper body weights. That may mean a half an hour Pilates session that I teach myself or math work. That may mean, um, and that doesn't include my cardio. So I do my cardio separate, which is my walking and my hiking or my biking. Yeah, depending on the week. But I spread out a little bit. If I feel that I had a very stressful day, I'm probably not going to do weights. I'm probably going to hit the bike or usually go outside. So how I feel is really important to me to to to see what you need to do. And, and it's a great story. A client came in today and I said, well, how was your week? You know, what did you do? Did you do your homework as I assign homework to many people. Uh, did you do homework? She says no. You know what? I still have this niggling back, and she. She lifted weights, and she somehow messed up her lower back a little bit. And then she said, you know what? I just decided not to lift weights this week, let it heal and just hang out and do nothing. Don't. Don't do the weights. Don't do the heavy lifting. Don't go to the class. Then she goes to the gung ho class that she goes to. And I said, well, how do you feel? And she's like, yeah, I feel better. And I feel like I'm not stressing over having to keep up with the class. Yeah. So a lot of is it really listening to your body. And she also said, which I found interesting. She says I paid for this unlimited membership and to make it worth my while, I have to go eight times a month to break even with my expenses. If I go ten times a month, then I'm ahead of it. And I said, well, how does it work out this month? And she's like, well, I'm going to be short with my visits. And I said, well, how do you feel about this? And she says, actually, I feel good about it. And I'm like, good for, you know, guilt of spending the money and not using it. Listening to your body, hearing that you're back after almost two weeks is still not in good shape, no matter what you do. Doing gentle stretching and just leaving it alone? Yeah, absolutely. Best decision. Yeah. Got to be flexible with the the different things that come up. The times of life managing stress, all of that. Yeah. So if someone listening right now wants to feel more energized and confident starting today, what's one simple thing that they could start doing right now? They can start breathing. We touched on that. And please, listeners, do not roll your eyes. You will be amazed how awesome breathing is. If you're thinking of, just breathe in. Breathe out. I want you to think of breathing in squares or rectangles. I like to prefer it. So you take a long, deep breath in, and then you take an exhale at the top, and then you take a long inhale back down and then an exhale at the bottom. And so you could think of it as a 6 to 8 or 4 to 8 depending on how deeply you breathe. And do that just for a couple of minutes. Number one, you will relax, you will slow down, you will feel better because you will have more energy getting more oxygen. And you will also say, well, how do I want to say that you will de-stress is probably the best way to describe it. You will de-stress because all you're focusing on is your breathing. Yeah. The nervous system. Benefits are so amazing. It's so simple, but it's like, how often do we go through our day just with shallow breaths, moving from one stressful thing to the next, never actually taking the chance to get our body out of that fight or flight and take deep breaths. Yep, yep. And many people say, oh, it's just breathing heavy. And I'm like, yeah, and breathing is good. Joseph Pilates was teaching to breathe in, breathe into the lungs and not into the belly like a lot of yoga practices for for meditative purposes and nervous system purposes. But he's like, breathe into the lungs, get air into the lungs because that will give you energy. And when you think about your lungs, they have all these always envisioned like little bubbles in them. And you fill all these little bubbles inside your lungs if you open up both of your lungs. I don't know if it's true or not, but I, I heard one Pilates teacher telling that they are your lungs are as big as a tennis court. Probably not quite. But as you spread out those bubbles, and I envision that you open up your lungs and you have this field where you can breathe and it's alive and it feels great and it's not stressful. How great is that? Yeah. Absolutely. We all need to be thinking just bringing more awareness to that throughout our day goes such a long way. I try to do it while I'm on a walk outside, so I'm getting the benefits of being outside. The nature noises, the fresh air, the walk, and the deep breathing all at once. Yep. I mean, why not do you right there and then? Because you could chew, just breathe shallow and or normal. Let's not put a negative content on on breathing, but it's, you know, it's a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, where can listeners find you and connect with you? You can find me everywhere at haiku. Com which is h e k e y. That's also where you can find my book, Pursue Your Spark, where you can find a lot of the lessons that I taught or talked about today as well, and or pursue your spark, as my podcast is called Pursue Your Spark. My book is called Pursue Your Spark. We're all about pursuing your spark in midlife. I love it, awesome. And we'll link those in the show notes to so listeners can find you. Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been such a great conversation. Thank you Renee. All right you guys, I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.