Low Energy Availability in Menopause? Eating Too Little to Feel Good or Age Well
Release Date: 03/08/2024
Pelvic Floor Health in Menopause and Exercise
The Flipping 50 Show
There’s a good chance you have concerns about pelvic floor health in menopause or before or after and either don’t know it or don’t talk about it. If you don’t know it, it’s because you’ve never associated gas or inability to control your urge to go with pelvic floor for just one example. Most of us don’t talk about it. Not with our partner, our friends or even our doctor. I know because for years I was a trainer who didn’t ask this question. And needed to. And it’s only recently I realized that women don’t even associate a need to tell this with the type of exercise they...
info_outline
Why a Trainer May Not Get You Results in Menopause
The Flipping 50 Show
Fitness Shifts in Menopause: When Your Trainer May Not Get You Results Your trainer may not get you results in menopause. Rethink your trainer-led workouts. It’s not his or her fault, but it’s critical to understand that what worked for you in your 30s or 40s might not be effective now. It wasn’t until I created Flipping 50 in 2013, and then finally created the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist in 2018 that I knew of training in existence for trainers or health coaches of midlife women. Some trainers, often fitness enthusiasts themselves, may venture to advise based...
info_outline
Can You Fast and Prevent Muscle Loss in Menopause and Beyond?
The Flipping 50 Show
If you’re juggling the desire for longevity benefits of fasting with the need to prevent muscle loss in menopause, this is for you!! Prioritize your fasting and lean muscle goals and objectives! In this episode we guide listeners on how to set their health and fitness goals based on their current status, determining when fasting is a suitable approach, and balancing the benefits of fasting with the necessity to prevent muscle loss in menopause. Exertion Levels During Fasting? What should and can you do during physical exercise when fasting? Fasting for Women Aged 45-70 is unique. Yes,...
info_outline
Overdoing Exercise in Menopause: The Struggle to Scale Back
The Flipping 50 Show
If this is you overdoing exercise in menopause, it’s very possible you might be saying that you love exercise so it’s not you. In this episode I’m going to talk about: Low dopamine receptors Addiction You see it in those recovered from drugs or taking a break from drugs only to become obsessed with exercise. It’s the similar phenomena. They want to feel good. The only time they do feel good might be when they’re at the gym or running depending on the activity of choice. For midlife women, exercise sometimes goes flat. The same exercise they use to do no longer gives that sense of...
info_outline
Reverse Biological Age with Dr. Olga Stevko's Methodology
The Flipping 50 Show
Reverse biological age with the concept of a secret clock within your body. Imagine it can make you look and feel older or younger than you are. It's like having a magical switch that can change how old your body seems. Believe it or not, our unconscious mind holds a lot of sway over our health and aging process. Hidden emotional traumas play a big role. But here's the exciting part: we have the ability to change how we respond to stress and emotional challenges, effectively hitting the rewind button on aging. It's all about taking control and making small shifts that can lead to big changes...
info_outline
Lean Muscle in Menopause: 7 Supplements I Use
The Flipping 50 Show
Here are the supplements I use daily for lean muscle in menopause. And it’s made a difference. A big difference. In the recent previous solo episodes on less belly fat, I pointed out that muscle loss is essentially fat gain. My 60th birthday also prompted a mental inventory of well, everything from the major changes in my life and business, and I also looked at my most important moments and happiest memories… and my physical health. So if you didn’t listen to the solo last week about how since 50 I gained 4lbs lean muscle and lost 4% body fat… plus a whole swing to bad and back to good...
info_outline
A New WeightLoss Mindset: From Ballerina to Dietitian
The Flipping 50 Show
A new weight loss mindset is critical to navigating the shifting sands of midlife. Just eating less or in moderation might not work for us like it used to, and it's important to understand why. Instead of sticking to old ideas, we need to rethink how we approach food and weight loss. Let's talk about the myths that hold us back and discover the truths that can help us move forward. Starting with a new weight loss mindset is key. We can find better ways to take care of our bodies and manage weight. So when the doctor says, "Start with the mindset," believe it. It's true. My Guest: Dr. Ashley...
info_outline
I Gained Muscle After 50: How I Lost Fat
The Flipping 50 Show
Time Flies: How I Lost Fat and Gained Muscle After 50 In this episode, I'll share how I lost fat and gained muscle after 50 and discuss how I improved my body composition. There's a winning score at the end of this decade, but I was down by some significant points halfway through. Here's how I Caitlin-Clarked the strategy and came out ahead. How I’ve added 4 lbs of lean muscle, lost 4% body fat from 50 to 60 I’ve added 4 lbs of lean muscle and lost 4% body fat this last decade. In between, I gained 12-14, or 13 lbs, of inflammation and also lost that! Before I start, you need to know that...
info_outline
How Toxins are Disrupting your Sex, Stress and Thyroid Hormones
The Flipping 50 Show
Toxins, like unwelcome party guests, invade our systems, disrupting crucial sex, stress, and thyroid hormones. This reminds us of the damaging effects of toxins and the preventive steps we may utilize to lessen the impact of toxins that could disrupt the hormones in our bodies. It all boils down to equipping ourselves with facts and simple solutions to support our body's natural detoxification processes and improve our sex, stress, thyroid hormones, and overall well-being. My Guest: Dr. Wendy Myers is a Naturopathic doctor and founder of . She is an anti-aging, heavy metal detox, and...
info_outline
Less Belly Fat: Muscle Loss is Fat Gain in Menopause
The Flipping 50 Show
For Less Belly Fat, Lift Weights: Muscle Loss is Fat Gain in Menopause For less belly fat, the deep visceral type that isn’t just vanity, it’s deadly, lift weights. While yes, High Intensity Interval Training (or HIIT) is notably recognized by science as a means for removing fat, it may have more positive impact on the over-the-top, er muffin top fat. Weight training improves total body fat, abdominal belly fat and improves lean muscle resulting in “re-composition.” The influence of weight training decreases the risk of heart disease associated with waist girth. For women 35 or more...
info_outlineLow energy availability in menopause is a key concern, especially if you’re both trying to exercise and combine that with fasting and you could easily be there.
In this episode I’ll help you answer whether you’re in a state of low energy availability leaving you with too little energy to feel good during or after menopause.
Exercising too much without results? Try a reset. The 5 Day Flip is free. https://www.flippingfifty.com/5dayflip
Low energy availability or LEA, is defined as having limited energy available to support your normal body functions once your energy expended through exercise is subtracted from your total dietary energy intake.
Living too long or too often in LEA will negatively impact your skeletal muscle as well as your bone because osteoblasts and osteoclasts can’t properly do their job. More injury in connective tissue, stress fractures, and increased risk for osteoporosis or accelerated bone loss and inability to reverse losses.
LEA also can lead to other health disruptions that are commonly blamed on the umbrella of “menopause” or hormones. They include irritability, depression, brain fog, poor immune function, low libido, and GI issues like constipation and diarrhea.
How do you know if you have low energy availability in menopause?
Here’s a simple equation for figuring EA.
EA = (EI − EEE)/FFM
Dietary energy intake (kcal) minus your exercise energy expenditure (kcal) divided by your fat free mass (FFM) in kilograms (kg)
Suggestions are for total to be 45 calorie/kilogram ffm
Anything less than 30 calories/kilogram ffm is considered LEA and putting you at risk for real health concerns within days.
Track your calorie intake for 3-5 days to get an average. I don’t recommend doing this excessively. But it can be valuable periodically. Find that average by adding all the days total calorie intake and dividing by the number of days you tracked.
Plug your calories burned into an app to determine for a female with your weight the calories expended for activities beyond daily activity of life. Play pickle ball 2 hours? Count it. Worked out 45 minutes? Count it. Walked 30 minutes at 3mph? Count it. Get a total calories expended in exercise for the day.
It’s easier than you think to check for Low Energy Availability:
- Use that average total calories.
- Subtract your daily caloric expenditure from exercise.
- Divide that number by your fat free mass in kilograms. (remember kilograms is weight in pounds divided by 2.2)
Calculate fat free mass. Take Body fat % x body weight. If your body fat percent is 25%, then .25 times your body weight.
So 130 lbs with 22% body fat. Fat mass is 28.6 lbs. 130-28.6 = 101.4 lbs ffm
101.4 divided by 2.2 = 46.2 kg ffm
If average daily calories consumed 2100 kcals.
Energy expended with a 45 minute walk + weight training + 10 minutes intervals = 108+ 159 + 120 = 387 kcals expended (rounding up to 400kcals)
2100- 400= 1700 kcals divided by 46.2= 36.7
So based on this, I’m not in an alarmingly low state but low enough to be aware I should consciously start adding quality calories especially around workouts. When you do the calculation, about 45 is a good number to aim for or 50 if you’re training hard regularly. I’m not and some days much less than I’d like to but we all have to remember we may be slowing our metabolism by eating too little and compromising our body’s ability to regulate thyroid, proper immune function, metabolic function, mood or more.
Your exercise may or may not be affected. At first. If you’re an athlete, performance most likely will be negatively impacted. The rest of your life and physical function will suffer first. It might be happening at such a low level you don’t notice it, until cumulative effects set in.
Helpful? Share this with a friend. Low energy availability isn’t something talked about openly often enough. Instead we’re bragging about how long we’re fasting or doing HIIT. Potentially, we’re contributing to the problem: keeping score in the wrong game.
RESEARCH:
Resources:
Other Experts who discuss this that you might also find interesting:
Dr. Stacy Sims (doctor of science) https://www.drstacysims.com/
Steph Gadreau https://www.stephgaudreau.com/
Betty Rocker https://thebettyrocker.com/
Other Episodes You Might Like:
How to Be Confident Now with Betty Rocker | #508 https://www.flippingfifty.com/the-betty-rocker/
More Strength, Less Cardio in Menopause & Beyond https://www.flippingfifty.com/less-cardio-in-menopause/