#99: 6 Realistic New Year’s Resolutions for Fitness & Health in Perimenopause & Beyond

Are you tired of New Year's resolutions that don’t stick? 

In this episode, I’m sharing six realistic and sustainable New Year's resolutions that will help you improve your fitness, health, and overall well-being—without falling into the trap of quick-fix diets or juice cleanses.

These resolutions are tailored to work with your body at this stage of life, focusing on lifestyle changes that are practical, achievable, and designed to help you thrive in perimenopause and beyond.

Here are the 6 resolutions I discuss:

1. Get better sleep 
2. Increase your daily movement
3. Start strength training at least twice a week
4. Eat more protein 
5. Reduce your stress 
6. Add sprint interval training to your routine

Tune in to hear why each one is so important and how to make these lifestyle changes work for you. 

No juice cleanses, no crash diets—just realistic habits to help you build a strong, healthy, and vibrant body for the decades ahead.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Download my free tracker to monitor your progress
• Check out my walkpad to easily increase daily movement
• Listen to Episode #41: Managing Stress During Menopause

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women
• 0:37 A Story of Health and Priorities
• 4:49 Setting Long-Term Goals for 2025
• 6:22 Avoiding Extreme Resolutions
• 9:06 Six Essential Habits for 2025
• 9:26 The Importance of Sleep
• 11:05 Increasing Daily Movement
• 13:57 Strength Training for Women
• 15:44 Eating More Protein
• 17:29 Managing Stress Levels
• 19:20 Sprint Interval Training
• 22:30 Recap and Final Thoughts

Transcript

#99: 6 Realistic New Year’s Resolutions for Fitness & Health in Menopause

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach helping women in perimenopause and menopause to build the bodies that they want to spend the rest of their lives in.
This episode is coming out on New Year's Eve. So I thought this is the perfect opportunity to talk about New Year's resolutions, because, you know, most of us are going to be making something or have been thinking a little bit about what we want out of this brand new year, 2025.
So before we get into the list, I wanted to share a little story about a conversation that I had with a friend of mine just before Christmas. Now, this is somebody who is very, very dear to me but I see her really, really infrequently because we don't live in the same city. Anyway, I saw her after a long time and it seems [00:01:00] like every time we meet, you know, we're exchanging information about, Oh yeah, new boyfriend. Oh yeah, lost my job, whatever new job thing. But for her, for many, many years, the changes have been that, Hey, she busted her knee. She had knee surgery again. Um, Yeah. And again, and a third time and a fourth time and now when she came and she's my age, so she's 53 as well, she has so many health issues going on that I, I honestly, I'm starting to be very concerned about. about her. So she has a family history of heart disease. Her grandmother dropped dead at age 62. Her father is one of, I think it was four or five boys, and he has outlived all of his brothers and he's, you know, 70. [00:02:00] So they have a very, very strong hereditary component of heart disease. You know, which, which is kind of classic for people who are from a certain area of Finland anyway, and then on top of that, she has had, uh, her knee operated on many, many times. It's been fixed and then she's re injured it, fixed, re injured, fixed, re injured. Now she has high blood pressure, high cholesterol. She's pre diabetic. Her knee is okay, doing a little bit better, but now she has severe arthritis in her hip and is getting in line for hip replacement.
Okay, so here's this and, and me as a menopause fitness coach, somebody who's thinking about, you know, the future and how is she going to manage in the future? Well, first of all, you know, in those shoes, maybe I myself would be [00:03:00] like super careful about what I'm eating and keeping my weight down and making sure I'm weight training and all the things and, and she's really not.
She is very, very busy from her job, but as we talked, it seems that the thing is that her priorities are very different. Her priority right now is her dog, and she spends her free time basically going and training her dog in, I don't know, various things. Obedience and these kinds of things.
And so she doesn't have time for weight training though. She knows she should get in the weight room because she really needs to strengthen herself due to all the knee surgeries and. Getting more muscle on her body would really help with a pre diabetic condition. Plus, if you think about coming into hip replacement surgery, that is going to go so much better if you are [00:04:00] already physically very strong going into that surgery
so, you know, I'm sitting there thinking like. Knowing what is coming, knowing your family history, how can it be that dog training and yoga, which she says she can't even do because her hip is so sore so that she can't really do it properly. Like, how are those the priorities?
And, um, anyway, yeah, sorry. I'm like, I'm so concerned for her. And I don't know, like, you know, as a friend, you can't be like, Hey, Wake up and just get in the freaking weight room and take care of yourself. You have people who love you and want you to be around, right? And you want to not be totally housebound. Your dog needs you. Your kids need you. So. Yeah. So I guess, I guess where I'm leading to with this long story is as you are thinking about [00:05:00] what you want to achieve in 2025, think a little bit longer term than, Hey, I want to look good in a bathing suit in, you know, the summer. Of course, that is, that is a goal that will get you to change some habits, but also think about.
What are the longer term things? Are you pre diabetic? What is your body composition? How is your cardiovascular health? What do you want to be able to do when you're 70, when you're 80, when you're 60? You know, how hard is it for you to walk up the stairs?
Can you get off the sofa easily? What about off the floor? You know, look at your bigger picture of what kind of overall condition you are in and think about setting your goals according to that. 
And I think one of the things that women jump into very, very [00:06:00] easily is in January, they know you've been eating over the holidays. There's been in the States, Thanksgiving, then there's Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever it is that you celebrate around the holidays and new years and lots of eating. And in the U S in particular, like it is. You know, people do gain a lot of weight over the holiday season because they are eating so much more than they normally do.
And the temptation may be that, hey, I need to just do something extreme. You know, to reign this all in and maybe that has worked for you earlier in life, you know, when you were younger, just the same way that a lot of things have worked for you when you were younger, but maybe at this point you've already noticed, like, unfortunately happened to me when I was about 49.
That, that working out and eating a little less like I always have, they weren't bringing the results that they had before. And [00:07:00] the reason is that our bodies are fundamentally changed by the decrease in estrogen, and then by estrogen basically going down to zero as we hit menopause.
So you may be used to starting off the new year with something extreme the latest fad diet with a cleanse maybe a fast or You get a membership to the gym and you're gonna go like five days a week and go all out I tell you those of us who belong to gyms always watch this huge bulge of new people show up in January and fill up the classes.
And we know that is going to be over by the end of February at the very latest, because people just start the habits that aren't sustainable for them. So this year, I would suggest that you consider. Starting [00:08:00] habits that aren't so extreme life makeover type of things and rather choose some lifestyle changes that you do over the course of the year that will help you get to your goals, your long term goals, not just your, you know, eight week goals.
And I think this particularly applies if you have noticed like so many women notice that the things that you've been doing aren't working anymore, that you are going and doing the same exercise routines that you've done before the same diet routines that you've done before, but you're gaining weight, you're losing muscle tone.
And the thing is that your body really is fundamentally changing as you go through perimenopause into menopause, as estrogen leaves the building, so, adapting your fitness [00:09:00] habits to relate better with this new body of yours is a great idea. And I think there are six main things that I would like you to consider starting to do in 2025 if you haven't started them yet.
All right, so let's go through them. So the first one is going to be one that you're going to say, Oh, what a snooze. Well, it's sleep. So many of us Are in kind of the hustle culture that I need to get up before the crack of dawn, two hours before the family wakes up and, you know, do my yoga meditation, journal, have my cup of lemon tea, whatever.
No, what you actually need to be doing is sleeping enough. It will make. Such a difference in your energy levels, in reducing your stress levels, and also in [00:10:00] helping you to maintain or even lose weight. Because when you are sleep deprived, your hunger and satiety hormones go out of whack. And that means that you will feel hungry even when your body doesn't need more calories. And you won't feel full even though you have actually eaten enough. And these kinds of things, I mean, I noticed them just on a day to day basis. If I am sleep deprived, I'm craving carbs. I want caffeine. I want to eat candy. And it is just that I need to sleep more. And if I keep my sleep in balance, then it is so much easier to eat the way that I want to eat. So purposely, purposefully.
And once you've gotten your sleep under control, then we can talk about other habits you can pick up. And actually, maybe the second thing that I'll talk about is something that you can do at the same time as you're [00:11:00] increasing your sleep, because it's not necessarily going to take time out of your day.
And that is increasing your movement. So this is where I like to look at step count because I think that is probably the easiest way to just see did you sit on your butt all day long, immobile, or did you actually move around? I don't really like the thought of, Hey, I need to get my 10, 000 steps. So I'm going to go for an hour and a half walk because if you have an hour and a half in a day, Then I don't want you to be walking.
I mean, you can spend part of it walking, but I'd rather that you go into the weight room or do some cardio, something that will do a little bit more for your health. Of course, if you have been a complete couch potato and You are now going for a walk and yay, that's progress for you. But back to movement.
So most of us are living sedentary [00:12:00] lives. I am absolutely one of them. You know, you're a desk job. You are in front of a computer all day. You're driving to that job. You're at work. You're sitting while you eat, you're watching TV in the evening because you're exhausted or you're back online doing a little bit more work.
So just getting in more movement in your day is going to be really important for burning calories because that non exercise activity, you vacuuming the house or cooking dinner or folding laundry, whatever, where you're moving, like your body, it can be your arms, your legs. It doesn't have to be, you know, literally steps, but where you're moving, that is really going to make a big difference 
for me, one thing that has really helped, and my body feels so much better, and I have to say it's also helped with my work, my ability to focus on my work, is I got a walk pad. And I've talked about this before, but I use the walk pad, not that I'm going for a [00:13:00] walk. It's not like a brisk walk and my arms are waving and whatever, but it's just me not sitting still.
So I'm You know, standing and slowly moving forward on my walk pad. Now, okay. If I'm listening to a meeting, like back when I was still working and there would be like a meeting that I just had to listen to, yeah, I could have my walk pad go quite fast, but nowadays when I have to type at the same time, when I'm creating a reel or whatever, at the same time, I'm going quite slowly, but I'm not. Being sedentary. So that's the big point. And link in the show notes to my walk pad in case you're interested. It's a really cool one that you can fold in half and it stores easily. It's light. It's not going to let you jog on it, but it is perfect for that purpose of moving more. You can, you can take a very brisk walk on it by the way.
But anyway.
Third thing I would do is start [00:14:00] strength training because that's the thing that most women are really missing and I talk about in this and so many of the podcasts that I don't mean just go to a group fitness class where you pick up some weights, right? I am talking about progressive overload, following a set program, doing the same exercises week in week out for at least eight to 10 weeks before swapping those exercises out and really focusing on building muscle and rebuilding your strength.
 I will do a whole separate episode. on the benefits of strength training in general and on the benefits of having muscles. So subscribe so you don't miss those. They'll be coming, I think in January. So,
and about the weight training, you don't need to become a gym rat to get the benefits out of it. In [00:15:00] fact, most of my clients are doing two days a week at home. That's all it requires, but you do need a program to follow and you do need to understand how to apply progressive overload so that you get the benefits from the time you're spending training and of course, if you enjoy strength training, if you want to see the results faster, if you want to get stronger faster, then absolutely, you can train three or four days a week. Or if you love the gym, don't want to do it at home. I have gym options as well. And of course, you can always go get one of the personal trainers at your gym to meet with you and create a program for you.
The fourth thing that I would focus on is eating more protein. And this has two benefits. One is it's gonna, actually I'll call it three benefits. It's going to Allow you to maintain the muscle that you already have. So even if you're not weight [00:16:00] training, it will help you keep the muscle that you have. Second is it will help you to build muscle because muscle is made out of amino acids. That's what you're eating when you eat protein. And if you're not giving your body amino acids, it's not Then what's it going to build the muscle from? It's like trying to build a brick house without bricks. Okay. And then the third benefit of eating more protein is it's more satiating. And therefore you will feel fuller and it'll reduce the cravings for other food.
Now, of course, when you start eating more protein, you can't just like eat everything that you've been eating now. Plus, add on more protein because that will be overall more calories and then you can expect to gain some weight. But replace some of the things that you're eating today with some more protein rich sources. Like if you're eating regular yogurt, go for [00:17:00] nonfat Greek yogurt because Greek yogurt has more protein in it.
And aim to get the one gram per pound of body weight per day, but minimum 100 grams of protein per day. Okay, and that's on days when you train and on days when you don't train. And I know that is not a very easy thing to get. That is not going to happen by accident. You need to be intentional for that to happen.
Fifth thing, reduce your stress load. I know. Yeah. De stress. Don't let yourself be so stressed out. But the fact is that your estrogen has been Helping to balance out the cortisol in your body. And when estrogen declines and then finally walks out the door, your base cortisol levels are higher.
It's one of those changes that [00:18:00] happens in perimenopause menopause. So you just need to learn to live with that, okay? So what that means? As far as learning to live with it is that manage your stress better.
I have a whole episode on stress that I did a little over a year ago. It's episode number 41, but all the tips in there are still relevant. So go ahead and listen to that. If you want some ideas, very practical things like taking a moment to breathe. Box breathing doing a little bit of meditation and also cutting down on all of the crazy cardio.
So that is one of the problems that we run into and why We notice, we cardio queens, I was one of them, that even if you're working out a ton, you're gaining weight. It's because your body is being overstressed. And actually, when you go to perimenopause menopause, [00:19:00] less is more. You're going to get to the body that you want by doing less of that crazy cardio. It's not about burning calories and sweating and feeling like you've been hit by a truck anymore. Those things don't work anymore.
But what does work is number six, which is to do sprint interval training. So if you've got all the rest of these things under control, so you have gotten your sleep under control, you're moving more in your daily life, you're doing your weight training at least twice a week, following a progressive overload program.
You are eating protein and managing your stress, then go ahead and add sprint interval training to your repertoire. That can be done once or twice a week. It doesn't take very long. And here's the formula.
So for [00:20:00] sprint interval training, what you want to do is you want to get to 85 percent or more of your maximum heart rate. Okay? And the formula kind of for doing a sprint interval training session is you spend 5 to 10 minutes warming up. Let me give it with an example of me doing my sprint interval training on the stairs.
We have some steps at this park near me, and I go and I sprint the stairs. So the warm up, 5 to 10 minutes, is me jogging to the stairs. Then, I do the sprinting. So that is 10 to max 30 seconds of all out. I mean, hell bent for leather, go as hard as you can till you just can't. Right? So for me, I start sprinting up those stairs and And I don't make it quite to the top.
Okay. Cause I'm just going so, so hard. You don't want to [00:21:00] think like, Oh, I got to get to this top of that. Or I got to do a whole 20 seconds or whatever. You just go as hard as you can. And when you hit the wall. You stop, then you recover for anywhere from 90 seconds to three minutes, maybe even longer if you're, you know, new to this.
So for me, I stand up at the top of the stairs, panting, feeling like I could hurl. And then I slowly walk down the stairs. And I do it again. And when I started doing the sprint interval training, three sprints was all I could do in a session. Okay, then it was done. Then my cool down was walking back home.
And then I was finished. Okay. And what you're doing for the sprint can be anything. You can jump rope. you can run up a hill, you can run stairs, you [00:22:00] can do a stationary bike. I wouldn't maybe do actual sprinting, like running sprinting, because you could actually Pull something if you aren't used to sprinting and then you're just like, full out sprinting.
So maybe a stationary bike is the safest place to start. And by the way, if you haven't been doing anything cardio before this, then obviously you need to build up to this. But this is the basic formula for sprint interval training.
So the list of things that would be wonderful. New Year's resolutions for a woman in perimenopause or menopause, who's noticed that their current fitness regimes are not getting them the results that they want and they want to prepare their bodies for the years ahead.
So the six things are. Get better sleep. And I know that's easier said than done. There are tricks and [00:23:00] strategies for getting better sleep and you need to start working on what works for you.
Two, stop being so sedentary. Get more movement into your day. Whether it's waving your arms, folding laundry, cooking, cleaning, walking the dog, or getting a walk pad, just getting more movement into your day. And that's where the step count can be very helpful in kind of helping you push to getting more movement into your day. And I'm not talking about taking an hour and a half walk. I'm talking about just not sitting for eight to 10 hours straight.
Third thing, start weight training at least twice a week. Can be at home or at the gym, but following a progressive overload program so that you are getting stronger. over time.
Fourth, focus on eating more protein, at least 100 grams a day, but aim [00:24:00] for the one gram per pound of body weight. This will help to preserve the muscle you have, help you build more muscle and help you keep your appetite under control.
Five is reduce your stress. All kinds of ways you can do this from petting your dog to Mindful breathing to meditation, but find some techniques that work for you to lower your stress levels. This is super important, especially in perimenopause, menopause, Where your baseline cortisol levels are higher than they used to be.
And finally, number six, sprint interval training. So this is this super high intense, short cardio workouts that are wonderful for our health as 40 plus women.
So I hope those sound really doable and something that you could [00:25:00] start doing and maintain doing. I always advocate making lifestyle changes, not just a 12 week fix honestly, if you start on these lifestyle changes, now you are going to be able to build the body that's strong. That's going to take you through the decades ahead that you are going to feel really, really good in. And the point is not to do all six of these at once, but to gradually, you know, start with your sleep. When you feel like that's under control, you're going to feel much better and much more capable of doing the next thing, right?
Cause you're going to have energy because you've slept. And then for example, I focused on the weight training for a year. Now I've added the cardio in because I want to make sure they're sustainable habits that I can carry through for the rest of time. Okay. And with that, I wish you an amazing new [00:26:00] year's Eve and happy new year. And I'll talk to you next year. In the meanwhile, happy training.