MENOMORPHOSIS
A podcast for busy midlifers ready to reclaim their energy, joy, and purpose.
Are you, like me, riding the rollercoaster of midlife and menopause, and eager to get back to living your best life? Are you tired of low energy, a short temper and endless self doubt?
Well, It’s time to stress less and shine more. It’s time ditch the worry, reclaim your mojo and unleash your inner brilliance.
It's never too late to transform, and you’re certainly not too old. And in my opinion, midlife and menopause provide the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Join me each week for uplifting stories and expert insights on how to feel as good as you can and create a joyful, purpose-driven life you truly love.
So when you’re ready, Let the beautiful menomorphosis begin!
MENOMORPHOSIS
#116: Your Secret Weapon Against Aging with Alicia Jones
This week, I’m joined by fitness expert Alicia Jones, a passionate advocate for midlife women’s health and strength.
Alicia’s journey into fitness took on new meaning when she witnessed a striking contrast in her own family—her 72-year-old mother climbing 1,700 stairs with ease, while her grandmother at the same age required full-time care.
This eye-opening moment reinforced a powerful truth: the way we move and care for us today determines our mobility, strength, and independence in the years to come.
In this episode, we break down the myths, science, and simple strategies that can transform your approach to fitness and ageing after 50:
- Why cardio alone isn’t enough
- The “bulking” myth debunked
- Why Balance training needs to be included
- The power of incidental exercise
- How to work with your changing hormones
This conversation is packed with practical, science-backed strategies to help you stay strong, independent, and vibrant for decades to come. Whether you’re a lifelong fitness lover or just starting your strength journey, Alicia’s insights will inspire you to embrace movement in a whole new way!
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Are you, like me, riding the roller coaster of midlife and menopause and eager to get back to living your best life? Are you tired of low energy, a short temper and endless self-doubt? Well, it's time to stress less and shine more. It's time to ditch the worry, reclaim your mojo and unleash your inner brilliance. It's never too late to transform, and you're certainly not too old and, in my opinion, midlife and menopause provide the perfect opportunity to do just that. Join me each week for inspiring stories and expert insights on topics covering all things midlife, menopause and personal development. So when you're ready, let the beautiful menomorphosis begin. Hello, hello, and welcome back to Menomorphosis. I hope you're doing really well.
Speaker 1:This week we are talking on the podcast, all about keeping as strong and healthy for as long as possible, and this is something which is really close to my heart, because, for me, staying strong, staying fit, is an absolute non-negotiable. I do something pretty much every day, firstly because it makes me feel good. It's good for my physical health, but it's also incredibly good for my mental health. It makes me feel like I am taking full control over my future. I'm doing whatever I can to keep myself strong. There is so much research out there now to suggest that when you move your body, when you keep strong, when you keep fit, that so many diseases like cardiovascular disease, dementia, so many different diseases which come with aging, are significantly reduced. I was just doing a presentation last week about menopause and I put up a slide which was the risk of getting breast cancer when you take hormone replacement therapy and there's a slight increase with things like taking the contraceptive pill, taking HRT, smoking, drinking. But the one thing which was just which always blows my mind is when I show this pictogram is that if you move your body and you exercise for at least two and a half hours per week, there is a decrease in the risk of cancer by four out of a thousand women. So even if you were to take HRT and you exercise, you've got less risk of of cancer. So there are so many benefits to to exercising and it is something which just makes you feel good as well. So I was excited to invite Alicia Jones onto the podcast this week.
Speaker 1:Alicia's from Canada. She has she's CEO of her business, alicia Jones Healthy Living, and she focuses on transforming the health and the lives of women over 50 through her fitness and her weight loss strategies as well. She's appeared on various health and wellness television programs, and she has also produced and hosted Health Matters and the View, which is a health and wellness program on a on tv channel. She is very knowledgeable, and she was a real joy to talk to, and actually I learned quite a lot of new things in this conversation.
Speaker 1:We talked about balance, about keeping the importance of keeping a really strong core. We talked about something called incidental exercise, which I absolutely love it. This is about the exercise that you do without really realizing it, so giving yourselves opportunity opportunities to do those exercises which are going to support you so, for example, always taking the stairs rather than taking the lift and, of course, we also talk about the benefits of strength training and why it's so important to keep doing that sort of exercise as we age. We do also, though, talk about high intensity exercise and the benefits of doing some of that as well as we age, and also how we can adapt to exercise as our hormones are changing as well. So, without further ado, please welcome the absolutely lovely and brilliant Alicia Jones. Alicia, it's fantastic to have you here on Men in the Office today. Welcome to the podcast, and I'm very much looking forward to chatting to you today all about fitness over 50.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh, my pleasure. So, alicia, we've had on this podcast. I've spoken to quite a few people about exercise, about strength training during menopause, but I'm excited to chat to you because you really specialize in fitness over 50. And I think the audience has kind of come along with me since I started this podcast. Initially this was called the Positive Perimenopause Podcast. We talked a lot about menopause and now I'm 51 and it's kind of turned into metamorphosis, so it's more about you know, a lot of listeners are still going to be experiencing menopause and but some might be coming out the other side. So actually it's, it's kind of I think it would be really juicy conversation to have. What prompted you to start working with women over 50?
Speaker 2:So I was already in fitness. Already I had, I was working on a degree in kinesiology, which is basically sports, sports and exercise physiology and for me, I was starting to train women of all ages. But I still had a lot of clients that were in their fifties, and so what happened was is I was training them one day and they said to me okay, I'm not going to do this, this charity event that you have, alicia, because the charity event was that you climb up the CN Tower, and the CN Tower has over 1,700 steps, and I was asking all of these women to do the CN Tower climb so that the money would go to charity. There was this huge event for charity and the women would say to me I'm not going to do that, I'm too old. So my mother at the time she was 72 and she was in great health. She is a great house, she's in her eighties now, but she's in great health. She never smoked, she never really drank, and I recruited her to do it. She was like sure, I'm going to do this. And because she was 72, I went back to my clients and I said listen, if she's 72, so can you. And that became my marketing she's 72. So can you. And the reason that this was the moment for me that really impacted me to only work with women, aging women, women over 50 was because it was a contrast of seeing my mother who, at 72, was the my marketing, my, my, the woman that I was saying you can do this, look at what age looks like.
Speaker 2:But growing up, my grandmother was one of the main people taking care of me, and around the same age that my mother was 72, when my grandmother was that age my grandmother growing up in a time when smoking was considered normal, my grandmother growing up in a time when smoking was considered normal she was a nurse and she still smoked. She had COPD, she had cardiovascular disease and she wasn't able to take care of me. We had babysitters at the same time as she was taking care of me, and I think for many of your listeners I'm sure if they have grandkids, you know that that bond is really special I didn't want anybody taking care of me, but my grandmother. So for me, when my mother got to that same age and to see what the difference was somebody who didn't smoke, somebody who didn't really drink my grandmother didn't really drink either, but, um, not.
Speaker 2:My grandmother did not understand how, how harmful smoking was to health, and that was a knowledge is power moment like if we know how to take care of our health, if we know how to take care of our quality of life, then there are many different roads that we can go on. If we don't take care of our health or we don't know how to, then our health suffers, our quality of suffers and our relationships suffer as well. And so when my mother was 72, that moment for me was yes, this is the only demographic I want to work with. I want to show them what's possible. You can do this, you can live this really healthy life and you're never too old.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I love that so much and it's so true. And also the stories that we tell ourselves, you know, by saying to yourself I'm too old to do that straight away is detrimental, because how you think about aging has been proven also to have an effect on your physiology. There's been some amazing studies out there which have shown that. Yeah, it's just knowing what's possible for you and I think our parents are the same. Fitness was probably, you know, aerobics classes in the 80s and that was kind of it, but actually there just wasn't this knowledge of of what we have now, of how important it is for longevity, for aging well, and I think that's what we all want to do. We want to be like your 17-year-old mum, being able to climb up loads and loads of flights of stairs. What is it, alicia, then, that a lot of people might get wrong as they come into later life when it comes to exercise, and there might be people listening who perhaps are regular exercises, but actually they might not be exercising in a way which is most beneficial for them.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I think it really depends on what level you're at. So if you are exercising already and for me this has also been true as I've gone into perimenopause I'm a runner, I love to run and I used to run every single day. But when you're running for an hour or more, you're doing copious amounts of cardio and you're going through the paramenopause transition. Estrogen levels are shifting, progesterone levels are shifting, not to mention our cortisol. We as women can have higher cortisol than men and during this transition time, especially because our adrenals help to to kind of balance out estrogen, when we're starting to drop with estrogen, there's more stress on the adrenal and cortisol system. So one of the things that you know at least I know for myself that I try to do is the same amount I used to do, like, oh, I'm going to run every day and I'm exhausted today, but I'm going to do it anyways, because that's what I need to do, or I should do these shoulds and coulds that I have to do. And especially when you're going through perimenopause, when things are shifting a lot, the formula shifts as well.
Speaker 2:It's really important to strength train and I think there's more of a uh, still this idea, or I don't know if it's getting it wrong, but it's the myth that we need to do cardio, cardio cardio, to maintain a healthy weight, to, to you know, be as healthy as we can.
Speaker 2:And it's not about that cardio cardio anymore, and it even in our twenties. It shouldn't be. If we know in advance, it's good to start as early as possible, but if you, if you haven't been doing weight training, it is so important to bring that in and make that the main feature of your workout plan. And I think for a lot of people that's a hard shift because basically, like you were talking about the aerobics classes, we have been talking about doing aerobics, the Jane Fonda's you know all of these classes our entire life and now it's like, oh no, okay, make sure you're doing your weight training, and that can be intimidating for some. It can also not feel as um, like you're doing as much as when you're doing a run or doing something that's very uh, cardio based. So it's a shift that I think can be harder for women to embrace.
Speaker 1:Totally agree. So I also used to be a big, big runner and I still do run. I still do run, but not to the same extent that I used to run, and I mean, firstly, my joints, my knees, can't take it like in the way that they used to be able to, but I made the switch to doing a lot more strength training when my really when I was in the thick of perimenopause and my joints were so painful and actually I had back problems and lots of different issues. So I went and found a strength training gym and I sort of just was led there and I and it was honestly it saved me because I realized how I needed to strengthen my muscles, that I was doing all this cardio but actually I had very little strength.
Speaker 1:But what was quite amazing is that it really didn't take that long to start getting stronger and that feeling I got from incremental strength gains and it wasn't about building big muscles at all, it was just getting it was just, you know, slightly more heavier on a certain way.
Speaker 1:It felt so good and I agree with you on that, on the idea that when you go for a run or when you do like a really full-on workout, you get the sweat, you get that kind of amazing feeling afterwards and the endorphins, and we all love that. And you don't necessarily get that with the strength, but it's still with certain strength exercises I do, and you can still feel your heart pumping in your chest and you know so. It's not like you're not, it's just a different way of exercising. It is a bit of a mindset shift, isn't it? But actually it's something which we've really all got to consider and I've grown to love, love doing strength exercises now and I love, love, love feeling strong. It's the best feeling in the world and it's not about building big muscles, which I think a lot of women worry about. Maybe you could just talk to that a little bit about. You know, it's more about maintenance rather than building, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, so that is a very common concern. I get that all the time. Am I going to bulk up Ladies? We have 45-fold less testosterone than men. We cannot bulk up.
Speaker 2:Testosterone is what makes us bulky. So if we have high testosterone you're more likely to be thicker or have more muscle. We can't bulk up when you see bulky or big figure competitors. What they're doing is you know, they've got supplements, they've got. Maybe they're doing some sort of AIDS like you know, some sort of drug, maybe not. They're really focusing in on getting big muscles in the gym doing multiple workouts every day.
Speaker 2:So I mean, unless you're doing that, you cannot bulk up. And if you don't have the testosterone for that, you cannot bulk up. But you can enhance a little bit of your testosterone by lifting heavy and that's actually important for women not 45-fold more, not the same amount as men, but we do. When you're lifting heavy weights you increase your testosterone a little bit and that's really important when you're going through menopause and even into post-menopause. It helps with sex drive, it helps with overall strength and wellbeing. It helps us handle stress a lot better in our body. So that is a hormone that declines even more as we go through menopause, but we can kind of mitigate that. So we want a little bit of testosterone, but we will never be at the point of bulking up. I hope that makes sense yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's kind of maintaining what we've already got, because we're going to lose it anyway as we go through menopause. And then we is it something like it's fine, it's um 20. We lose 20 of our bone density in the five to eight years after menopause, something like that. So it's really important to kind of have that resistance to stop osteoporosis and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yes. And on to on your point about if you really love your cardio. If people are listening and they're like I love my cardio. For me, I love running, I, I do. It's the same thing as you.
Speaker 2:I like the strength feeling of strength training. But sometimes I'm like, okay, yeah, it's a little boring, I hate to say it, but it is. I mean, it's not like running when I've got my music on and I've been jetted into another universe or my imagination as I'm running and my lungs are expanding. It's this thing where you're lifting something that at some point you're like eh, really, it's hard and heavy. So what I like to do is I like to add high-intensity interval training sometimes in with my strength training, either at the end of my strength training so that I can have all my muscle power for the strength training, or if I'm doing certain periods of exercise.
Speaker 2:I'm a big believer in periodization, which is you don't stay in the same repetition range or the same type of workout, you cycle yourself, which has a lot of great benefits for your joints, for strength, for overall well-being and also to mix things up a little bit so you're not just in the mundane same workout mode. So I go through periods where I will do a hit in between my next strength training. So if I'm doing a lighter strength training period of, like, let's say, 15 repetitions instead of a very, very heavy one, in between that, because I'm already working on muscular endurance, I will also do my hit in between and then use the strength training as my relaxation, which is not relaxation, it's basically keeping the heart rate up, the lungs expand and it makes the weight training so much more fun when I'm in that phase.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I like that. So you kind of yeah, really vary it. I mean, yes, it's reminded me of a class which I do in the gym, is kind of like circuits, but some of it is you're doing strength training and then you're going to do a little bit of cardio and then you go back to the strength training and, yes, and so your heart rate is is lowering, coming down when you're doing that strength training, and then it's going up again in terms of stress and hit workouts, because we know that when we're doing those type of high intensity workouts, it is a stress on the body more so, you would argue, than strength training, because your heart rate is much more elevated. I don't know what you would say to that. You're looking at saying, oh, I'm not sure about that, is that true? Is that not true? What would you say?
Speaker 2:Any form of exercise is a form of stress on the body, and that is the purpose of exercise to stress our body. It is actually not during the workout that you get any of the benefits. It's afterwards, when you're repairing, because what's happened is your body has gone through this stress. You've hit it with a high heart rate or you've hit it by tearing muscle, and that sounds horrible. But when you're weight training, you are creating these micro tears in your muscle. You're, you're literally ripping apart your muscle, um, in a good way again.
Speaker 2:So what happens is there's this stress, whether it's ripping apart muscle, whether your heart rate gets up in your cortisol gets up, um, whether you're pounding on your joints, whatever the case may be, there's this stress. And then it is afterwards, during your rest period, when your body says, oh, my gosh, she might give this to us again. We need to repair to the next level. So the lean muscle it repairs the tissue, but it makes your muscle tissue stronger and thicker without bulking up for the next workout and, uh, thicker without bulking up, uh, for the next workout. If you're doing cardio, your heart says, oh, my goodness, uh, you know, we, we're good, we have this stress. So you're, you either create longer chambers in your heart or, when you're strength training, you actually create a stronger muscle of the heart that pushes out blood faster. That doesn't happen during the workout. You stress your body during the workout, during repair time and recovery. That's when you see the actual changes.
Speaker 1:And for women over 50, can they be expected to work as hard in a HIIT workout as they could when they're a little bit younger?
Speaker 2:Yes, and you should. Again, it depends on your level. But to put it into perspective, I often use this. When I was once at this big conference, there was a medical doctor, a cardiologist, who was talking about high intensity interval training and he was sharing that all of his cardiac patients, for the specific operation that he gave them, um would do hit afterwards and the hit was not running, jumping, uh, you know doing this, this incredibly hard and difficult exercise, it was literally walking from one chair to the next, because if you've just had heart surgery, your heart's going to be very high doing a simple activity like that.
Speaker 2:We need, again, to stress the body in the capacity that we are capable of at that time so that we can become stronger and, especially with age, we need to work something called our VO2 max system, our lung capacity, because it is in charge of our quality of life. Think about it If you can't breathe, if you have a really bad cold and you're trying to walk up a flight of stairs, you're not able to do that, you can't live your life. We need our lung capacity, and so high intensity interval training is one of the only ways to enhance our lung capacity, and that means pushing our heart to a little bit more of a higher level than we have before. And with age it's even more important because if we don't do that, that lung capacity declines at a rapid rate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what I would say to that is because I do a lot of work with breathing and coaching with breathing and breath stuff it's really important after you've done that high intensity workout to down regulate, to bring your, to bring your nervous system back down to a place of homeostasis. I think a lot. I don't know what you think about this, but a lot of us are operating in midlife from a place of very high stress. We've got a lot going on with that sandwich generation. So when we do go and do high intensity workouts it's very easy to get stuck in that high levels stress. So it's more important than ever to afterwards I would always recommend, you know, do just five minutes of gentle breathing, really bring your heart rate down, bring your stress levels down, and then you will get more benefits afterwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I love that. I love that and I like I mean you can even do that breathing anywhere. You're in your car and you're feeling that stress. Sometimes I've had such a stressful day. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to sit in the car in the parking lot for five minutes and focus on deep belly breathing, get the parasympathetic system activated, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely Okay, so, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So, muscles, bones, it's really really important to keep them strong. But I love what you're saying. It's a kind of a mix. It's variety, isn't it? It's a variety to keep us, to keep us moving and keep us strong, but you don't just have to go to the gym for this, do you?
Speaker 2:No, no, you can do it at home. I prefer doing workouts at home because there's nobody there, I can do my own thing. I do suggest that people have a room that they can kind of again escape or have a boundary, for I've had clients that start cleaning or organizing and I'm like you're supposed to be lifting weights right now. Let's not, you know, because there's so much on the to-do list. So, if you have a different room or if you can go outside and just do it on your garden or lawn or something like that, to kind of change the ambience so that you are sure you're going to work out, but yes, you can absolutely work out at home.
Speaker 1:And, alicia, for someone who wants to work out at home and I know everyone's different and it's going to depend on how strong you are is there other certain weights or types of weights that you would recommend someone to invest in to to get them going? Because I think, I mean, I have a set of weights and actually I know I need to upgrade them because they're not quite right. So, yeah, I don't know if there's some advice on on that um, it depends again on how strong you are.
Speaker 2:If you're very strong and you want to have some pieces of equipment at home, uh, that you can kind of hide away, um, I'd say, challenge yourself. Right now you can't see because my door is closed, but I have a pull-up bar there and so you can do pull-ups. Or even I don't know, oh, this is a. You can't see me, can you? It's a podcast, okay, well, I have a pull-up bar with my door. I have these things called equalizers that are like these little pull-up bars that you can have. Using your own body weight for back exercises is an excellent way for you to get stronger. If you don't have the room, definitely you need dumbbells and it needs to feel hard yet doable for you. I have a lot of equipment, because this is what I do for a living. So I have barbells at home. I have Bosu balls, which are more for balance, which is something we haven't even gotten into but is definitely needed. As we age. You need to work on balance and core.
Speaker 1:I think I started with. So I've got some lighter weights. I got four kilograms and then I had some six kilograms and then I think I had some eight and now I've got 10, but actually I definitely need some heavier ones to as from, you know that as well. But I think just, yeah, someone, just go and get, just start with something and see how you get on. Maybe don't go full out on a load and just try a few and see what, where you're at. Um, yeah, but, and also I love I mix up going to the gym, working out at home, and I think it's very much, it's something that you just got to experiment with and find, find what works for you. Okay, balance, you mentioned balance. So yes, balance and core absolutely is something which is so important. So what can we do to help improve our balance and why is it so important to practice balance exercises?
Speaker 2:Well, let's also bring that into core, because you were talking as well about bone density, right, bone density declines, especially as we don't have estrogen anymore. One of the biggest zones for bone breaks is our lower lumbar, lower spine. So if this area is weakening, we need to put demand on that area in a safe way, but we need to put demand on it. When you strengthen your core, your core muscles include your back and your stomach muscles. So when you are working this area, you're gently pulling on your low spine, which is then going to create demand on the low spine and help stave off osteoporosis or weakness in that low spine. So that's another really important reason why doing core exercises are important. But it also helps us with balance and stability. So think about it If you slump down, all of your weight pulls forward and you're more likely to fall. If you're leaning to one side, which people love to do, they have their purse on one side. They don't even realize it. They've collapsed in their side altogether. For posture, that also makes it easier for you to fall.
Speaker 2:Balance is very important to reduce our risk of falls, to understand where we are in our environment. So we have different ways to balance. We use our eyes. Right, you're looking at something to try, and anytime you're doing a balancing, standing on one leg, you're looking somewhere to try and focus. We have our vestibular system, which is our inner ear. We have proprioception, which is that understanding of where we are in our environment.
Speaker 2:What happens is, let's be honest, with age our eyesight is going to decline. Right, we need to enhance all of the other senses. So we need to be able to create strength in all of the little muscles stabilizer muscles that surround our joints, to give us strength so that our body's understanding of where we are in our environment and if we do like pass on a crack in the sidewalk or a twig, our body can respond quickly and we can hold ourselves up. We're stable. Also, we need to be able to move as we do that.
Speaker 2:So, uh, with balance, if you do certain things like take out your eyes because that that's something that's going to decline with age and start to turn your head side to side, you're getting the vestibular system in. When you're balancing, we want to work all of the different systems of balance. It's really important because in that way, if one starts to fail us with age, we don't care because we have got all of the other systems working together in order to keep our balance, enhance our balance, reduce our risk of falls, which reduces our risk of bone breaks, and, when we're talking about aging, falls that end up in hip breaks. This is a big, dangerous issue. So we need to make sure that we are keeping our balance so that we don't fall, and our strength so we don't break bones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my grandmother broke her hip and that, yeah, and they ended up going to hospital and ended up sadly dying, and that's the case. I mean, there's one in three of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one in three of us will get some sort of fracture as we, as we get older. Oh my gosh, it's my eyes. Since I turned 50, honestly, my eyes have just declined. It's the most frustrating thing. I used to have amazing eyesight, but they just suddenly go so. So should I then be practicing balances with my eyes closed? Is that what I should be doing?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you can do something really simple. To begin with. I have a feeling you've got good balance already. Something tells me you may have been working a little bit on balance at some point in time. I don't know, but have you tried the one leg test, where you stand on one leg, nothing is around you and you put on a timer and if you can do that for a minute, then you move up to the next level.
Speaker 1:No, I've not tried that. I do try and stand on one leg when I'm brushing my teeth and whenever I do a quad stretch, I always make sure I'm not holding onto something, so I'm standing on one leg.
Speaker 2:So I do. I'm conscious of it. So now it'd be interesting if you brushed your teeth standing on one leg and try closing your eyes.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh my goodness, that sounds hard already. I'm going to try that.
Speaker 2:And you'll feel, when I talk about proprioception, a lot of times people say I don't get it. You say it's where we are in our environment, understanding that. We'll try closing your eyes and then you will understand what proprioception is. Because what happens is you start to sway, sway side to side, because your body is trying to understand okay, now I don't have my visual anymore to understand where I am in my environment. So your body is trying to figure out where, where am I? Am I more to the right? Am I more to the left? Am I, am I leaning?
Speaker 2:And you know you get people that are kind of like, yes, I'm balancing, and they're completely leaned over to one side or hopping to the side. That's them trying to get that grasp on where they are in their environment. When that sense has been taken out, if you're not quite ready to close your eyes, if that right away you're holding on to something, then the next step would be, with your eyesight, to turn your head side to side so your eyes can still focus on something. But you're working that vestibular inner ear system because that as well creates the shift in our ability to balance. So if you can turn your head side to side. No problem, then maybe take out the eyes, so do it in increments.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what's the step after the one minute one legged?
Speaker 2:balance. Okay, so one leg balance. You have completed a minute. Then that is when you're going to, with your eyes open, slowly turn your head all the way to the right, yes, and then left, and if that works out well, then close your eyes. And then, if you can do that for a minute, then close your eyes and turn your head side to side.
Speaker 1:Okay, right, I'm going to definitely try those and I'm presuming that good balance is, as you said. It's so important that you've got a strong core, so doing those core exercises is going to help with all of this, because when you're standing on one leg, should one consciously engage the other your core.
Speaker 2:Yes, and when I say engage, uh, when you say engage the core, I want to make sure that people aren't sucking in their tummy Uh, people automatically think, okay, suck in your stomach as much as you can. All that's doing is putting a lot of pressure on your internal organs. Um, what you want to do is abdominal bracing. Abdominal bracing is if, if you can imagine that somebody is hiding on the other side of a door, somebody you know, and they're about to play a practical joke on you, so as you walk through the door, they poke you in the stomach. Your initial reaction is not to allow your muscles to relax and the finger to go in. You're trying to brace yourself. You're basically creating a shield of tension in your core, and that's what you want to do. You don't want to suck in, you want to create tension and contract those muscles. So a way to think about it is through every door, through every nook and cranny, pretend someone's about to pop out and poke you in the stomach and keep that bracing, that tension in your stomach.
Speaker 1:But during core exercises that's. Is that how we should be whilst doing that core exercise, braced in that way?
Speaker 2:Yes, and you love breathing, so this is a great segue into breathing.
Speaker 2:So one of my favorite exercises is the plank, because you are, you're basically completely straight, right as in your core.
Speaker 2:You're not doing these crunches that are bending you forward, you're not doing a crunch from side to side, you are straight and you have this amazing ability to really tense up all of your core muscles.
Speaker 2:If you were to do a belly breath at that time, it wouldn't serve you. What serves you, and I'm sure that you know of this breath, it's called a working breath or an accordion breath, where you expand your ribs out as you inhale and then, as you exhale, pretend you're breathing into a balloon, purse your lips and force that air out. And actually, with some of my clients, I get them to do this with a balloon, which is even harder because then you're holding the balloon with one hand as you're doing a plank. So it is more of an advanced thing to be doing this, but to do it in an actual balloon. You can feel that tension in your core and if you just want to know what it feels like, you can sit up and blow into a balloon just so you get that understanding of what that tension should feel like when you're doing a core exercise.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that sounds like that's good. I've never tried that, actually, but that sounds something interesting. To give it, to give a go, right. So we've talked about weight. No, we haven't talked about weight. We've talked about cardio and weight training and we've talked about balance. We've talked about core. How about movement in sort of everyday life, which is not actually, in inverted commas, a workout?
Speaker 2:what can we be doing to help ourselves as much as we can to keep strong, keep active, as I love that you bring this up, because this is what everybody can and probably is doing some of, and they don't even realize it. And you know I get a lot of people that say I'm not doing enough, I'm not doing enough but I'm so tired at the end of the day. And then when we take a look at their day, they went grocery shopping. They had to take all of their groceries up a huge flight of stairs back down to grab more bags up again down. You know they had to go. You know, instead of taking the elevator the elevator was broken they have to take stairs. In the UK I know that there's a lot of places that don't even have elevators. You know you have no choice but to take those stairs.
Speaker 2:So this is known as incidental exercise. It's the type of exercise that is not structured or planned. It's just a part of our everyday life and these little bursts of exercise together accumulate throughout your day to create a better heart health. They can create better strength. We were just talking about core strength, for example. If you can take one grocery bag and hold that grocery bag not along your side but actually having it out and standing tall as you walk with that grocery bag. You're working your core, which we just talked about. So it's little things like this that you can do throughout your day that accumulate together to create healthy, a healthy life, but without a set specific amount of time to do that in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's it's crazy, isn't it? Because often we'll kind of get in our car to drive to a gym to do a workout and it's actually like, well, can I actually maybe walk to the gym and then do the workout, or can I just not take the? Yeah, as you say, not take the lift or the escalator and walk up the stairs? It's these tiny little habits and these shifts in mindset which makes such a difference and, yeah, that is something I'm really I'm strict with. I will try never to take the lift. That's just one rule I have.
Speaker 1:It's like, if there's stairs, I will walk up the stairs because it's a nice incidental as you call it, an incidental kind of what do you call it an incidental exercise? Yes, I love that. So I suppose it's just really being mindful of when do we take the shortcuts, when do we get someone to lift the heavy shopping out of the car for us rather than do it ourselves? We're absolutely, the more we can do it, the stronger we get, and, as I know that as I get older, I want to be bringing out the heavy shopping out of the car, I want to be able to lift my suitcase up above my head on an aeroplane and put it into the locker. These are all the things that we.
Speaker 2:I know it's really nice when someone offers to do it for you, but it's like just keep doing it doing these actions because they they're going to help keep us strong, I think, being just like you said, being mindful of it. Um, it's funny that you mentioned driving to the gym versus walking there. So sometimes I'll go to a gym because my husband if my husband's on board I will do whatever he wants to work out to make sure he's getting healthy. So if we're going to the gym together, we actually were going to the gym one day and, um, I was like, oh, don't park in that spot, that's far away. There's one right in the front row. And I was like, oh no, wait a minute. There I was. We're about to go into a gym and I'm like park as close as you can so that I can do my workout. Like it made no sense whatsoever and I caught myself, I just think it's funny.
Speaker 1:I know it is funny, isn't it? It always makes me chuckle because I do it too. I mean, we all do it, but it just makes me laugh. It's like I'm driving to the gym where you know I shiver, you're walking, but I know that we're, I know that we're all short of time and I know you know that life is busy, but I suppose it's just really yeah, being aware of being aware of these funny habits, and I actually liked, when I can, to work out outside, because then you get the benefits of being out fresh air, sunlight, all of those extra, extra goods which make us feel as good as we can. Yes, absolutely yeah. So is there anything else, alicia, which we haven't talked about, which you think is important for women over 50? I know, I know.
Speaker 2:Well, I think one thing, because we haven't really talked about any of the hormone shifts and how they affect your workout. Okay, well, one of the things that happens as our hormones are shifting, especially in perimenopause. Perimenopause is a really hard time because you're not at a stable when you're postmenopause, at least you're stable at that point with your hormones. When you're going through paramenopause, one day you can feel great. The next day you're exhausted and what we see from the research is that body pain starts to come in a lot more during this time. So when you were talking about how you were going through menopause and that's when you really felt it in your knees and your joints, this is common. It actually happens all the way to post-menopause because basically, our nerves, our understanding of pain, are different. So I think it's also about giving us grace on how you're feeling for that day.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying it's an excuse not to work out. You really need to know yourself and know how you're feeling. But if you have had a horrible night's sleep, then maybe doing breathing and a stretching is going to help you a lot more than doing a very stressful catabolic breakdown of muscle workout, because you won't have the ability to repair afterwards. If you have sore joints, what exercises could you do to enhance blood flow? Or maybe you do a little bit, or maybe that day you do need to take a day off from the run. If you're doing that, it's giving yourself grace at a time when I think it's easy to say my body is failing me. What's going on. You're not alone with that. You need to follow your body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really agree with that. There's a fine line, isn't there, of giving yourself grace because it's really important that you do, because you don't want to push it and you need to really listen and tune into your body but also of going. I don't really feel like doing the workout today. I'm not going to do it, whereas actually you could do something. You don't necessarily have to do a full blown workout, but you could do something. So it's just tuning in and listening and just questioning it. Is it because I genuinely need to have a rest and do something which is going to support me rather than stress me? Or actually, is it just because I don't really fancy it and actually it will do me good at the end of the day?
Speaker 2:Yes, I love the 10 minute rule. So if I had a workout that was planned then, ok, I will start that workout. I will do my warm up. Am I starting to get more blood flow, feel good, feel less achy, be like, ok, I can do this next step, or is it? Am I feeling really drained? Am I feeling horrible? Maybe I'll do a set of a workout after that and I'll see. Am I feeling good or is it actually painful? It's taxing and I can't do this. So it's not about giving yourself an excuse not to do it. It's about, okay, how about you give it a try, maybe, and after 10 minutes?
Speaker 2:10 minutes is peak because that's when our epinephrine and norepinephrine rise up in exercise. That's that, those coffee hormones. If they're not helping you out after 10 minutes, when those hormones are high, then they're not going to help you out throughout the whole workout and that's when I call it a day.
Speaker 1:You mentioned stretching.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:In terms of stretching. That is something which, for me personally, has been transformational. So when I was having all these issues with my joints and my back in my early 40s, I did actually go and see a back specialist and they were talking about operations and all sorts of things and I kind of was like no, I just don't think that's the answer. So I went and did some strength training for the first time, but I also started gentle stretching every day, five minutes a day. I would literally roll out of bed. It was just kind of intuitive that I was doing it. I started stretching and I kind of continue that really to this day and I kind of continue that really to this day and it has been transformational. I've completely sorted out my back issues. I don't have any back issues anymore. Touch wood and I at the same time see so many people who don't stretch, who don't do anything for their mobility. So yeah, I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So stretching tends to be the first thing that goes. So if we've gotten ourselves up to do the workout and again we're short on time, then having that five minutes at the end, a lot of people are like, oh, I'm done now, clocking out, going to work, doing whatever. They're not stretching. And especially with age, we lose that elasticity in the muscle and we start to lose mobility as well. We need to be stretching and it can be transformational. It can stave off any sort of injury. But more than that, if you have pain, like you were talking about, knee pain, a lot of knee issues come from tight muscles pulling on the knee cap, which is a floating part of your knee, pulling it to one side or the other, or your quads, the front of your leg, are tight and it's pulling on the tendon that goes over your knee. And just simply by stretching and working on different stretches for your legs, stretching out the back of your legs, your hamstrings, you can reduce your knee pain or even eliminate that knee pain if it is something that was more of a mechanical issue with your knee. So, yeah, I definitely believe in stretching.
Speaker 2:I think for me it's something that I use. It's not incidental, because it is on purpose. But I don't sketch out 10 minutes or half an hour to stretch. What I do is throughout my day. You know you were talking about brushing your teeth and balancing on one leg. For me it's. I'm waiting for something to come out of the microwave, I'm going to hold onto the counter and do a quadriceps stretch where I'm grabbing my leg, or I pass a door and I'll grab onto the top of the door or the door frame and I'll stretch out my arms. For me it's really easy to, because it feels good to grab onto something and stretch a little bit just when I'm going through my day-to-day life. And short little bouts of stretching throughout your day work wonderfully. Like you know, if you've ever done physiotherapy, they give you three sets of the exercise to do and it doesn't take a lot of time if you're doing one or two of those exercises at a time.
Speaker 1:So that's great. One of my favorite things. We also have a pull up bar here and one of my favorite things just to literally hang from the bar, you can feel yourself just stretching out and it just feels so good. I definitely lost an inch yeah, an inch of my height, and I'm sure it was during that early perimenopause time where I was having back issues. It was like lower back, and I've definitely lost an inch of my height. But so when I stretch myself out, honestly it's just I can feel all the pops and the clicks and it feels incredible. Alicia, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this chat because actually, as I said, we've had lots of people talk about fitness on this podcast before, but actually you've definitely brought something different to the conversation and it's been really, really lovely to hear from you. If anybody wants to find out more about you or come and work with you, tell us how they can do that yeah, um, okay, so I have a free master class.
Speaker 2:Actually, I don't know if, um, if anyone's interested in starting strength training and nutrition. I have a free master class called the three-phase food and fitness formula. Every woman over 50 needs to know, so I'll give you the link for that, for the show notes. If you just want some information, maybe some easy workouts, some balance and I do have a balloon exercise workout on youtube it's the place to go. I have so many videos on there for workouts, so I'll give you the link for the YouTube as well.
Speaker 2:Or you can just go to aliciajoneshealthylivingcom, and of course, I'm on Facebook and Instagram as well, so aliciajoneshealthylivingcom.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Thank you, I'll put all of that in the in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did and perhaps, following from this, just take one thing that you feel like it would be really beneficial for you to incorporate into your everyday life, whether that is a pledge to always take the stairs rather than the lift, or whether that is to start balancing on one leg more, or whether that's just to do a little bit more strength training. Whatever it is, make that pledge to yourself now and stick to it, because you will notice the difference. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could hit that subscribe button. It really does make such a difference. If you'd like to get in touch with Alisha, I put all her details in the show notes. If you'd like to get in touch with me, you can come over to Instagram at pollywarrancoaching, or you can email me at info at pollywarrancom. Have a wonderful rest of the week and I really look forward to speaking to you next time. Take care, lots of love. Bye.