#108: FAQs: Training Frequency, Supplements & Fat Loss after 40

In this FAQ episode of 40+ Fitness for Women, I answer some of your top training, nutrition, and fat loss questions—including what really works and what’s just hype.

I answer these questions:

• Is strength training 2x week enough? (or do you need more)
• What supplements do I recommend - and use - in midlife? (and what I don't buy into)
• Is fat loss possible in menopause? (or do we need to resign ourselves to being heavier)

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Join my Fat Loss Workshop >> 
• Recommended episode #54: Perimenopause: what it is and how I survived it.

Transcript

#108: FAQ - 2xweek - Supplements - Fatloss

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ fitness for women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I am a certified menopause fitness specialist. And today we're doing a frequently asked questions session, though I guess, yeah, some of these are frequently asked, but I got on my Instagram yesterday and I asked, Hey, what are some podcast topics you would like to hear about? And this is what you answered. So I am going to talk about these things.

The first question is about, is strength training twice a week enough? Is it really enough? And the second is about supplements and what are my thoughts on supplements and what supplements do I use? And the third is about fat loss in menopause.
So yeah, let's get into it. 

So the first [00:01:00] question was about how often should you train and is twice a week actually enough? And I have to say that If you're starting out weight training and you haven't done it for a while, or you haven't done it systematically, and for sure, if you have been a couch potato, my recommendation would be to start out twice a week with two days of full body strength training.
Now Why twice a week? I mean, I offer the options to start two, three, or four times a week. And women do choose more frequent schedules as well. But I think, you know, twice a week is my most popular option. But I'll tell you why I think it's really good, especially if you haven't been strength training before.

Well, the first reason is that when you first get started, you are going to experience some soreness and [00:02:00] That, that you do it twice a week is going to give you like the ability to space out your strength training sessions so that you can actually recover between them. And the other big reason is that it's, it can be hard to find the time to fit in a new habit in your week.

And, you know, I've been strength training four times a week for years now. And it actually requires me to sit down with my calendar every week and juggle the other things that I have to do, like cooking dinner and working, picking my son up from hockey, all the things that I can fit it into my week.

So I know that that requires a lot of discipline from me to be able to do that And I don't expect that somebody who's just getting started on this [00:03:00] journey for whom this is maybe going to feel awkward. Uh, they're gonna, you know, they're not going to love it from day one. Maybe, maybe, maybe they will, but, but it's. Maybe not fun, like going to a dance class or something like that.
So I feel like the twice a week is a realistic amount to actually fit into your schedule. And even if you don't want to be giving up the other activities that you're doing, then you could do the twice a week. in conjunction with already being at your gym. Like if you're going to do a Pilates class, for example, go ahead and do a strength training session before that.

Cause the Pilates is more about the core, which you're going to use to some degree in the strength training, but it's not like in the same way, right? So it can be quite complimentary to have the Pilates afterwards. Or if you're going for a stretching class or you're, going to [00:04:00] go do a spin class, dance class, whatever.
you could do the weight training session before that.

And for sure, if you can see results with just two times a week, You, you do get stronger. And I've seen this over and over again with the women that I work with, even in the first 10 weeks that they are strength training, when they start to get systematic and they have a good program to follow, then they do start to feel the results and you will feel the results long before you see the results because the muscle, you know, mass takes a while to come onto our bodies but already you'll start to feel stronger in the 10 weeks.

Now over time, if you are doing the two weeks and you're like, Hey, I'd like to throw in a third week. If you have a two times a week program, where both of the days are full body days, then you can just like speed up [00:05:00] how quickly you're going through those sessions. So that's what I recommend to my customers and clients that have the two times a week.

then they decide that some weeks they'd like to train three times, then fine, just do the next full body session. That's perfectly fine. You still need to take a day off at least in between, you know, doing one session and the next, but you could definitely do that like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, or whatever, you know, and still be able to train the next week.

And if you know that you want to like be training more often, when you bump up to being regularly three to four times a week, the kind of biggest difference is that you have more time to do things like, uh, work on your arms or your shoulders or calves. Uh, whereas when you [00:06:00] have a small amount of time, you're doing a lot of compound movements.

Which is different from a combo exercise compound movements, so things that are like squats or presses where you are moving multiple joints at the same time and You have time to do some more focused exercises like Bicep curls and tricep extensions because I know a lot of women they are frustrated by you know What do they call them in the UK?

It's like bat wings or something like that, that hanging on the underside of your arm, that that's like floppy and jiggly. So those are the kinds of things that you can start working on more when you have more days in the week that you're training. So I myself lift three or four days a week.

So if I'm lifting three days a week, it's some upper body, lower body and a full body. [00:07:00] So on the upper body and lower body days, I have enough exercises that I can do the compound lifts and then do isolation exercises as well. And then if I'm just working out three days a week, then the full body is compound exercises on upper and lower body. 

So that's kind of the difference there, but absolutely twice a week, you can get amazing results. 

It'll come a little bit slower than if you are training more often. But I still think that if I'm going to pave out the perfect starting path, I would probably start with a two days a week and do that for the first few months, three months to get your body used to the weight training, and then ease into maybe another day per week.
And then if you're going through a phase where, okay, we're working into summer, and I really want to get more muscle tone, then you could, up it to four days a week. So that's [00:08:00] my thoughts on that question.

Question number two was on supplements. So what do I think about supplements? And this question came from, I guess there are a lot of people online and social media who are targeting this demographic, you know, perimenopause, menopause women with these supplements that promise to be like a magic bullet.

Take this and you're going to have all the energy and all, you know, your skin's going to look great and, and your muscles are going to, and the fats going to melt off and all, all this
And yeah, I don't take anything like that, and I don't believe in anything like that. So, so I'll just give you my very candid opinion on those things.

Now that said, I also believe that our minds are so powerful that if we are really [00:09:00] convinced that this is going to work, then it may actually work, even if there is . no actual medical or scientific reason why it would work. Have you heard of the placebo effect? So that's what I'm talking about.

So it may be that some women take that and they just think like, Oh, I took it. So of course I'm more energized. And so they feel more energized and they convince themselves they're more energized and they become more energized and great. If that's what you need for it, or you could decide that, Hey, I'm going to take a five minute walk in the morning and decide that that's the thing that's going to make you feel more energized.

And, and probably has scientific evidence to support it as well. Not just some marketing claims and placebo effect. 

Yeah, but that said I do take pills and I guess this isn't a pill, but the, I think the biggest thing that made a huge difference in my life. 
And [00:10:00] I really believe there is just mounting, mounting evidence that this is something that pretty much everybody should be looking into and deciding for themselves and talking with their health care provider or Somebody who actually knows something about the topic I think is important as well is hormone replacement therapy, right?

I mean I went through a Miserable perimenopause I have a podcast episode on it and I'll link it in the show notes absolutely nightmare Uh, perimenopause. And I mean, I, I had depression and I was put on antidepressants and I got more depressed. When I got on HRT, life finally started looking up because that was the problem, 

I was losing my hair and getting fitted for wigs. I couldn't remember anything. I had to write everything down. My colleagues from the time can attest to the fact that I was like the most ridiculous note taker they'd ever met at that point in my life. So [00:11:00] um, yeah, and sex drive was gone, all, all kinds of things that HRT just, I felt like myself again, you know, I mean, that's the best way to describe it like it gave me my life back,

and I don't think that that is a crazy thing to think because they're hormones and when other hormones in our body go haywire, uh, like our thyroid hormones, we supplement, we adjust them. to make our body work the way it should. So why shouldn't we be doing that with our sex hormones?

For sure they do that with men. If they start to feel tired, menopause, they give them testosterone to give them a boost. 

So that, that I think has been the biggest game changer for me. But I'm not a doctor. You need to make your own decisions about those things. , but it has also been shown to help with [00:12:00] osteoporosis or avoiding it and maintaining muscle mass better.
I was on HRT when I lost all my muscle. So I will say that about it. So it is not some magic like, Oh, I'll just take that and I'll be fine. I was on HRT for years and doing my body pump classes and my random workouts at home with weights and boot camps and all those things and still became a Undefined, fluffy person, and had to start weight training.

So, so it's not like some magic pill or patch. I have a patch. Um, that, like, you take this and you don't need to worry about losing your muscles. Yeah, you do. You still need to worry about losing your muscles. It may not happen right away. I mean, for me, it happened in post menopause when I was 49. 
But it is not gonna stop that from happening. So [00:13:00] don't think that. 

 Next one that I'll talk about is I use whey protein powder. I don't know whether you consider that a supplement or not, but I use that. I don't represent a particular brand, but I look for whey protein powders that are as close to being pure protein as possible.
And what I mean by pure protein is that you can find these powders that are recovery powders and of course they have the protein in them, but they also have a lot of other stuff. So they have a lot of calories that are not from the protein. 
So if you can find a powder, that has five calories per gram of protein that it provides you, that is a really good one to choose.
And then you need to pick one that you like the flavor and that works well with you. And it is worth experimenting because there's one I use two different brands and the one of the brands I have many different flavors. I've tried the non flavored, the chocolate, the strawberry and the [00:14:00] vanilla.
And what I've noticed is that the non flavored one. It gives me a stomach ache if I take it on an empty stomach, but their strawberry one doesn't do that. So, so like who knows why? 
So you just need to kind of play with that and find the one that works for you. And I take it every day, even on the days that I don't lift and on the days that I do lift or do cardio.
I take the powder in a shaker to the gym with me and I add the water right after my class, shake it up and drink it there. And I put the creatine in that because creatine has kind of this bitter taste. So, I stick the creatine in my protein shake. That brings you me to the next supplement that I do take which is the creatine.
And I do take that for performance. It helps our muscles to Uh, give out more effort, so it'll make our [00:15:00] training sessions more effective. It is, uh, a highly studied supplement, and there don't seem to be any downsides. And now there is some, some evidence that it may even help with our brain function. But I take it mainly for the performance that it provides, like, so the muscles can really do the job when you're in the weight room.
And I take that every day with my protein in my protein shake. So, that is one of them. And then, as far as, like, vitamins and minerals, um, I take vitamin D. Now, I live way up north, so up here, we, you know, vitamin D is naturally, uh, produced. When sun hits your skin, and if you live in a place like I do where, you know, half the year, you are not going to be outside in the sun, like [00:16:00] in a way where the sun actually hits your skin because it's so cold, you have all the clothes on and in the summer, we have plenty of sun, but nowadays you're wearing sunscreen everywhere. So that prevents the vitamin D synthesis in your skin. So the recommendation here is to take vitamin D year round.
And so I've done that for years ever since I moved here. So that is something that I do on a daily basis. There's a little container of the pills that sits on my breakfast table and I take one every morning while I'm having breakfast. It's No big deal because they're teeny tiny they're easy to swallow 
and then Two things that I do at night which Helped me with my sleep are I take magnesium and melatonin and a little bit different reasons for the two The magnesium is because I noticed that I was getting crazy [00:17:00] cramps.
I would get foot cramps, calf cramps. So I started taking magnesium for them, and then only afterwards read about, oh, it's very good for helping with sleep, and so you should take it in the evening. So when I go downstairs, to brush my teeth before I brush my teeth, I take my magnesium and I also take melatonin.
And for me, I've taken melatonin for a long time. I had a lot of sleep issues in perimenopause and one of the things that I really struggled with was that I would lie in bed and totally relaxed. No stress whatsoever, and mind empty, but it was like the light just wouldn't switch off. And when I started taking the melatonin, I could actually fall asleep.
So for me, that is very important. In fact, last night, I forgot to take my melatonin [00:18:00] and my magnesium. And I'm lying there in bed, cuddled up to my boyfriend, and he's already fallen asleep. And I had been really tired when we got into bed and feeling good and all that. And then I'm lying there, I'm like, Okay, why am I not turning off?
Why am I not falling asleep? And then I suddenly realized, Oh, no, I forgot my magnesium and my melatonin, so then I took them and by then I was like a little bit stressed out. Oh my god, it's getting late and whatever. So my evening was a bit ruined by that. 
But anyway, so those are the only supplements that I used And yes, I'm approached on a weekly basis by supplement providers who want, hey, this supplement for menopause women or this protein or whatever.
Yeah, I'll probably put some protein [00:19:00] powders on my website that I can recommend, but they're going to be recommendations from my clients who've been using them. And then I will study that, you know, the nutrition label to make sure that they are really protein and weight protein and a nice amount of protein, not just a lot of empty calories in them.
Um, Yeah. And, and I will kind of finish this off by saying that the most important thing is to eat healthy. And one of my clients, oh, I wish I remember the number. She had a goal of, I need to eat 17 different vegetables a week or something like that. And I was like, Wow, I've never heard somebody express it that way before but I loved that because the thing is that the vegetables and fruit are where we're going to get all of our vitamins and minerals. 
And that [00:20:00] kind of diversity is amazing. I am really making a concerted effort to have. Veggies and fruit always available at home and changing seasonally up here up north.
It's a little bit harder to get good tasting stuff, but I eat blueberries, carrots, uh, pears, oranges, strawberries, you know, on a, on a regular basis , and tomatoes are the ones that I eat the most broccoli. Yeah, so, so those kinds of things, but try to get it in through your food, that is going to be better than taking pills.
I mean, just as far as like, how well your body absorbs them as well. It makes a difference. you're meant to take them in. Your body is designed to take them in through food, not through pills. 
Okay, so that was about supplements. And then the last question was about fat loss. And is it possible in [00:21:00] midlife?
And. Absolutely, 100%. And one of my pet peeves is this idea that, oh, you just need to resign yourself to this. Yes, there are things that are going on in your body. Yes, the loss of estrogen means that your body is signaled to move your fat stores more to the middle of your body and you start to accumulate the visceral fat and the belly fat.
But there are ways to get that moving and weight training. Lifting heavy, right? So not the small pink dumbbells in the group fitness classes, but lifting heavy, which is what I am moving women towards in my learn to lift courses and in my membership. You, you don't go in lifting heavy on day one. Okay, guys, don't do that.
You're going to hurt yourself. It is a journey to get your [00:22:00] body strengthened and get your form down and then start to lift like what they really mean by lifting heavy and it may take you a couple years to get there even longer if you're inconsistent with your lifting 
Yeah. And then the other thing is the sprint interval training that also has been shown to help with that visceral fat.
But then there are so many other factors that really play into this. I mean, there are lifestyle things, the amount of stress that you have. If you have a lot of stress, your body is holding on to fat harder. If you're not sleeping, that is a stressor on your body. And then a lot of women say that, hey, I've tried everything, but then when you kind of investigate, so what is the everything that you've tried, have you tried all the gimmicky, uh, magic bullet approaches, like these [00:23:00] supplement companies are trying to feed you and those haven't worked okay.
Well, the thing about it is that losing fat takes some concerted, consistent effort. It is not going to happen overnight. There isn't a magic bullet. Okay, yes, there are these shots nowadays that make it easier for you not to eat, but that's what they're doing. Actually, those shots is they are controlling your appetite so you don't eat. In other words, they're putting you into a calorie deficit or making it easier for you to be in a calorie deficit. 
And so that's really what you need is the calorie deficit. And then also not to forget all the other things that are going on around you. So it is a little bit of a complex animal.
Like I wouldn't start a calorie deficit if you know that. You know, you have a terrible divorce going on or something like that, like why, like stress your [00:24:00] body out even more that, that, that doesn't seem like a recipe for success.
I am going to be doing a fat loss workshop in March. So this, I'm just thinking when is this episode going to come out, it might be, yeah, it'll be in March.
So it is happening in March. So join that and the idea there is that I, I mean, it is not some enormous program, right? What it is, is a step by step guide, basically, for you to set up your fat loss, uh, calorie deficit and just kind of walking you through how to do that successfully. And then it's up to you to follow that and get it done.
Kind of the same way that I can give you all the information about how to do weight training. I can give you the program. I can give you the demo videos. I can explain to you how you need to, increase your weights and, and take rest days and [00:25:00] eat protein and all those things, but then you need to implement it.
That's where you're going to get the results. So if you haven't signed up for the wait list for that yet, then go ahead and sign up. I'm gonna have to put out this podcast next week. I'm recording this on the 26th of February. So, and yeah, I just realized that that fat loss workshop is going to be happening very, very soon.
So, so that you don't miss it. I'll put out this episode next week. So sign up for that. And I'll teach you everything you need to know, but it is going to take calorie counting. It is going to take tracking. 
It's not going to happen otherwise. Or I feel like that is the best tool that you have to understand what you are putting in your mouth, because that is really the key. And then once you understand that, then you can start changing your eating habits to maintain that weight, that [00:26:00] level of fat that you have over time. 
So, all right. So those were the three questions for this week, and I hope this helped you, and I hope to see you in the fat loss Workshop if weight loss before summer is interesting for you because don't leave it till the last second because even that takes some time.
All right. Just like building muscle does. And with that, I leave you till next week and wish you happy training.