Welcome to the Well and Worthy Life podcast. I’m your host, Deanna Pizitz a certified integrative nutrition health coach. This podcast is designed to inspire and motivate you to become a better you through sharing solutions, to your biggest struggles and concerns. In this second half of life, let’s change how we age by focusing on creating a positive mindset that allows us to flourish.
Nourishing our bodies for longevity, optimizing our hormone health for better balance movement that keeps us feeling young and active and managing our stress to improve our mental health. Things are different now in our second half, and we have to do things differently. Welcome back to another episode of Well and A Worthy Life. Okay, so we have had so many amazing guests on well and Worthy Life, but I have missed doing some solo episodes. Actually, the next couple of episodes you listen to are going to be solo episodes. They’ll probably even be a little bit shorter.
I never know until I record these and I hope I don’t ramble too much. But I have a few things on my mind that I would love to share with you. And the first thing that I wanna share is about my own journey as I go through this post-menopause because I am postmenopausal now, I’m 57 years old. I went through menopause.
And if you haven’t heard any of my other episodes about menopause, Then menopause is technically one day. It is the day that you’ve gone 12 months without a period and before that day is perimenopause and after that day is post menopause. So I don’t actually know the exact day I went through menopause because I had an i u D in and once it was taken out I didn’t have any periods again.
So so I am postmenopausal and have known that for the last, at least three years, the average age of menopause is 51. So that’s the average age, but certainly a lot of people can go through it earlier. Some have to go through it earlier because of . Surgery, some can even go through later.
So we’re all different. You know, that’s the biggest thing. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that we are all so different. But as I have been on this postmenopausal journey I really feel like my weight is fairly consistent. I might be up two or three pounds, or down two or three pounds, but within, certainly within a five pound range.
And so, but lately I’ve been really, really trying to focus on building more muscle. We start losing muscle, gosh, really in our thirties. I. You know, I can’t remember the exact percentage that we’re losing, but just know if you’re in your thirties, you are starting to lose muscle. And if we don’t do anything about it, that’s, it’s just gonna get worse.
And our muscle helps us to maintain that metabolism so that we can eat food without gaining weight. We already know. When we hit that perimenopause, the things that we used to do don’t work so much anymore. And so we have to do things a little bit different and and so, so really thinking about all that, and I’ve had to change things up along the way, but I have realized in the last really couple of years how important it is for me to build more muscle.
Because I’m losing it and I want to be strong and I have a powerful why my granddaughter. But more than just that again, if you’ve been following along, you know that my father got cancer eight, died at CA at 59. My mother got cancer at 60 and died at 75. So you know, I’ve got a couple of years till I hit 60.
And I want to live, well, not just live a long time. There was a big difference in my mother once she got cancer at 60. She had been very healthy up until then, and then had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. By the time it was diagnosed, the tumor had eroded into her stomach. She had to have emergency surgery. And they had to take out most of her stomach.
And she lived, like I said, 15 more years, but it was certainly a different 15 years for her than it would have been had she, first of all, not had cancer. Second of all, caught the cancer early. So so anyway, I, I’m really am adamant about trying to live my best. Life, live my well and worthy life. So I want to be strong.
I wanna have the muscle, I wanna be able to do the things. And then if I do get sick, I want to be able to have that muscle to to heal quickly and all those things. So, like I said, I, I, and I measure. A lot of things. I u I wear an aura ring because I know how important sleep is. So I really focus on my sleep.
I really focus on trying to get 10,000 steps every single day. I’m really trying to learn how to manage my stress. Stress isn’t going away. It is what it’s right. And so I have to manage it and, you know, we all have stress. Sometimes it’s worse than others, but know this, if you are stressed, you’re not alone.
It’s just how do we deal with the stress eating. Doesn’t help. You know, stress eating doesn’t help. Being out in nature helps taking deep breaths, help meditation can help. There’s lots of different ways to help with that. So I’m very, Very active on this health journey. But one of the things, like I said, is that muscle and strength training has never been something that I have loved doing.
I just. I don’t know. I don’t know why. I just never love doing it. I love classes. I love going to again, if you’ve been following me, you know, I used to own a Pure Bar studio and taught Pure Bar. It’s just a bar class. If you don’t, aren’t familiar with the term Pure Bar. It’s just, that’s a franchise name, but, I love that.
I love to go to classes. But I definitely know how important strength training and lifting heavy weights is important to build that strength, to build that muscle so that I have a higher metabolism so that I’m lean and so that I can do all the things I wanna do. So today I went, and today is July the sixth.
You’re listening to this a little bit later. But today I went to a wellness screening and I haven’t gotten all the results back, but one main thing he did is I got on this it’s kind of like a a scale. It’s called n. In body test is what it is. It’s in body test. I’ve got my, I don’t know if you can see it right here.
If you’re watching this on YouTube, which I, I am on YouTube, y’all, if you’re just listening to this, but. It’s called an end body test. And you get on this, it looks like a scale, but it has some arms to it and it measures your fat percentage, your muscle percentage, and it can kind of give you some markers that you can see where you are, especially if you wanna increase your muscle and become leaner.
And that’s really my goal. So, To be honest with you, I really put this off because I hate getting on the scale. I’m, I’m gonna share all my results with you, but I, I just really hate getting on this scale and especially, like I said, it’s July the sixth. I’ve had my kids here in town and we have eaten, and I haven’t really.
You know, been, I, I’m never really strict, but I’ve just been living life, right? And so, man, when I got on that scale, I did, I’ll like that number, but, but you know, it happens to us all. But once, Once I did it and learned where I am, then I have something to work with, right? And so if you keep yourself in the dark and you don’t know, then how do you, how, how are you gonna change anything?
And I’m gonna share my results with you, and I’m gonna share with you what I, my plan is, and then I’m gonna do a follow-up episode to let you know how my results turned out. Probably in about three months, I’m gonna give myself a good 12 weeks. But so overall, first of all, he, we did the end, end body test.
That measures, like I said, your muscle mass, your fat mass gives you your B M I, which I don’t know that I’m a big believer in bmi. It gives you But it’s a body composition analysis. Then it tells you how much visceral fat you have. It also, it’s kind of interesting, it segments out your l it’s called a segmental lean analysis.
It tells you in your right arm, left arm trunk, right leg, left leg Oh yeah, there’s a segmental fat analysis.
Like where, where, where do you hold your most of your fat? I guess is what it’s, it’s saying. So anyway, I really got a very good score. My visceral fat level was four, which is low. However my body. Fat mass in pounds was 28 and a half pounds. My weight was 127 and a half, which I hated that number.
I’m five three. On a good day, and I like to be around 120, so it was midday, so, you know, again, you can’t, it’s so hard to tell for sure. You know, if I’d weigh first thing in the morning, maybe, you know, with no clothes. I did have clothes on, didn’t have shoes on. And then one of the other things that I looked at was my skeletal muscle mass was 55.1.
And my personal, my percent body fat was 22.3. Okay. So really overall, that is not bad, especially for a woman my age, 57. But I don’t wanna be that, not that bad. I want to be leaner than that. Because I know I’ll feel better I’ll, I, I just know that I will feel better overall in my clothes. And and like I said, that will up my metabolism if I have more muscle.
So so then the other tests, he did my grip strength which he said was pretty good for somebody my age, again, just pretty good. So the stronger I become then Then the better that should get my mobility was really good. Passed all the mobility tests. Those were just a pass or fail. Blood pressure was good.
My oxygen level was good. All the other th markers were really good. Overall, I am in great shape. But like I said, my goal and everybody I want, I don’t ever want to share this information with you and you start measuring yourself off of me because you know, I’ve done that same thing before. I see somebody else and start measuring myself off of them, and we can’t do that.
We just have to go by what our goals are and how we feel. And so, like I said, my goal is to become leaner, and in order to become leaner, I’ve got to lose some fat and gain some muscle. And I don’t want the scale to go up, so I can’t eat more to gain that muscle. I have to, and I don’t necessarily have to eat less either.
There’s not this calories in, calories out, it’s. All very different, but what we do take in really matters, and then my movement really matters. And my sleep, which, you know, I’m already focused on my sleep. I drink water, I drink tons of water, so those. Our main things that I would, if somebody were coming to me and they said, you know, I really, I wanna become leaner.
You know, the first thing I would ask them is, how are you sleeping? Let’s focus there first. Let’s get that sleep really good. And my sleep is, I am focused on that. So my sleep is fairly consistent, fairly good. Not every night, but, but fairly good. My hydration. Really great. I would give me a, a a plus on hydration and then stress management.
I would give myself a b on stress management, so pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. So, you know, what, what would be my things that I need to work on? How can I work on becoming leaner, losing some fat, and gaining some muscle? Well, first I have to. Do strength training. Right. And I am currently working with a trainer two days a week for 45 minutes.
So that’s great strength training. I’m doing that. I am lifting heavy weights. I’m challenging myself. Well, actually, my personal trainer is challenging me. That’s why I like personal training because I might not push myself as hard as he would. So I’m doing that two days a week and then the other days I’ve just been filling in with pure bar or yoga or something like that.
So I’m gonna change that up a bit. And the other thing I have been doing is at least 10,000 steps a day. So, After doing this wellness exam and talking to Jeff Ford, who he’s the Palmetto Bluff fitness director and has a lot of knowledge they’re getting ready to launch a podcast too soon, so stay tuned for that.
I’ll let y’all know when that’s out. But after talking with him and thinking through like, what, what is it that I could do to Lose the body fat and gain the muscle. So a couple of suggestions after we talked about it. I said, as far as my eating goes, I feel like I eat pretty good. I’m really focused on protein and.
From all my research, it looks like that first meal and that last meal of the day is the most important meals. So my goal is to get at least 30 grams of protein in that first and last meal. So that’s really important to me. And then I usually have a middle meal in the middle. It’s a little bit smaller.
So 20 grams. Now that would only be 80 grams total. I probably get a little bit more than that. I, I want to get a little bit more than that, so but I’m not gonna push myself there. I’m just going to keep, keep that the same. I do. A type of, I would call it more circadian rhythm fasting. I don’t really love that intermittent fasting term because I think that that is overused and used as diets.
So so definitely I think 12 hours going without food and most of the time I’m asleep anyway. Definitely that I really listen to my body, but. Some days I’ll go 14 hours fasting and then the 10 hours eating window, trying to cut my eating window down, you know? Off by seven, eight at the latest, because I like to go to bed by nine, and really I need to quit eating at least two hours before I go to bed.
I think that’s a really important thing. So that’s, that’s another thing I’ll be working on too, trying to at least make sure that two hours before bedtime, I’ve stopped my eating. Because like I said, I, I like to go to bed early and that sleep, that is very important. Okay, so the strength training twice a week, 45 minutes I’m going to really focus on that protein.
But one area as far as my nourishment, I really feel like I need to. Really kind of dial in a little bit better is my sugar. I think I’ve really kind of let it go a little bit and eaten. I eat. Probably too much sugar. And when I say too much certainly less than I used to, but I, I think that’s an area that I could definitely work on.
I’ve kind of gotten in the habit of after dinner, I want something sweet. And I do think that that is a habit. I have replaced that habit before drinking tea, you know getting out of that habit, getting my taste buds changed. So it’s not like I’ve craved that sweet, but I think it’s just almost like a habit.
So, cutting back on my sugar. And then Jeff suggested, and I liked this suggestion, and I, to me it was very doable. Like I said, my goal is 10,000 steps a day, and he said maybe one day a week go for a longer walk, maybe an hour and a half to two hour walk once a week. And I’m like, I can do that. In fact, I love going for walks.
I’ve just downloaded a book that I can’t wait to listen to. So that’s a great time for me to, you know, walk and listen to my book. And even though it is super hot here and it is super hot, I’m sweating, so I’m detoxifying. So it’s all good. Just have to make sure to drink that water, replace my electrolytes all that kind of stuff.
So I like that idea. And the other idea he suggested is once a week doing a HIIT workout. And if you’re not familiar with hiit, it’s high intensity training. So it could be a 15 minute workout, but it’s high intensity where you’re hitting it pretty hard or it could be intervals or something like that. So those are the.
Really, really, I said four things probably that I’m going to change up. So so one, I’m going to try to do that longer walk hour and a half or two hour walk once a week. Do a hi training once a week, 15 minutes, you know, along with all my other stuff that I’m doing. Then watch my sugar. And then that last one, make sure I cut my eating window off two hours beforehand, before bed.
So that’s probably gonna be seven o’clock for me. So I’m hopeful and I, I really believe that. I have to be consistent. I don’t have to be perfect. You know, I always teach that we do you know, that we’re not going for perfection. That none of us are perfect and that perfection is not sustainable and I want something that is sustainable.
So progress is sustainable and not picking too many things to change up, but just enough. To kick it in gear and and see what happens. So that’s my plan, and in 12 weeks I will have this in-body test done again, and we’ll see where I am. My hope is that I have lost some overall weight, to be honest with you.
I, I would like to lose some overall weight, not a lot. Maybe, you know, five pounds at the most. I’d like to lose some overall weight, but more importantly, I’d like to lose some fat and gain some muscle. So I’m gonna keep you posted and love to hear from you what you are going to do. What is it? What is your goal that you need to kick it in gear.
Like it’s time, like you’ve kind of been sitting on the sidelines and you’ve been thinking, huh, I need to do this, or, Like I said, it was not something that I was looking forward to, you know, getting on that scale and seeing, seeing the results. But once you do it, then you have something that you can measure against and then plan and come up with a plan and just do it like, What do you have to lose?
Right? So I’d love for you to share what you’re gonna be doing this summer or even this fall. Maybe you’re just gonna wait till this fall and then really kick, kick in, kick it in gear. Talking about this fall before I go. I do have something new coming up and I’m super excited. We are revamping and balance wellness method is going away.
It’s crazy. I came up with balance wellness method now almost three years ago, and it was great and I loved it. And and then we added some things, but to be honest with you, it, it got To where it wasn’t working for my lifestyle anymore. And I also saw that there was an opportunity to help more women.
And so we’re coming back with something better than ever this fall. And if you want to find out more about that You can, I’ve got a wait list and I will put the link to the wait list in the show notes so that you will, once we release it, you’ll be one of the first people to know when it’s coming, when it’s launching.
But look for it in September. Okay. I’m super excited and hey, Thanks again for joining me. And remember, stay tuned for the next podcast cuz I have another solo episode that I think will be very beneficial to you, especially if you’re getting ready to be an empty nester. See you later guys.
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