#27 💪 Walking is Great, But is it Enough to Conquer Aging?
We got bad news...
Good vibes for your mailbox!
It appears that Donna and I are WAY too lazy to ever look like this!
This is Killer Sally by the way, a worth watching doco on NetFlix. It is a story of domestic abuse and men being dominated and wrestled in hotel-rooms!
Hello Girls,
You know how your periods are steady, steady, steady, steady, and then, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, and boom, it’s back? Well, so are we! Instead of rocking up in your mailbox at 6:03 AM sharp on Sundays - we will (for now) be like the peri-menopausal period (sporadic or maybe not) except we are hopefully way more fun!
This week, Lynne, our beloved fitness expert, explains why having muscles is important. She is not happy with me (at all) when I say “I just want to be skinny”. She says I want to be strong. And to be strong for now and strong for the future: resistance training is the go. I wish Lynne were wrong, but I’ve looked enough into the “good aging” space to know she is right (cry). It breaks my heart nearly even more than accepting I am menopausal. But like a good girl, I joined a house of pain (gym) and most weeks, I drag myself in there 2 or 3 times a week. I lift, I breathe heavily, I sweat, I suffer, I whinge and I get it done! And… I see Lynne twice a month to make sure I do it right.
If I can do it, so can you! So sisters, get started with something, doing nothing isn’t sustainable. Lynne’s articles give you heaps of tips. You’ve got this.
Until next time,
Donz and DD
Is walking enough? 💪Why is muscle so important? By Lynne Allen PT
Hallelujah! We are finally seeing the light and understanding that muscle is vital as we age.
As a society, we have been so obsessed with obesity and being over-fat that we have neglected the one organ that can make an enormous difference to our longevity, muscle.
The biggest problem we are facing is not that we are over-fat, it is that we are under-muscled.
Muscle is an active organ. The healthier the muscle, the greater survivability you have, and I for one want to be functionally independent as I age.
Society pushes into our faces that aging is a bad thing. Anti-aging creams, take this supplement to help anti-aging. I am 100% for Pro-aging because last time I checked, you can’t stop aging but you can do it bloody well.
Pro-aging is about surviving and thriving. Pro-aging is about having muscle. We improve our muscle mass, we improve our balance, we have good bone density and all diseases such as Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes can be improved on by being fitter and having improved muscle quality.
How do we build muscle in the peri-menopause/menopause years?
Building muscle is about creating a stimulus. There are multiple ways to stimulate muscle tissue but none of them are easy (sorry!). To create stimulus you need to lift heavier than you have before. You need to do multiple joint movements, such as squats, deadlifts, rows over doing single joint movements such as bicep curls or tricep pulldowns. That’s not to say these isolated exercises don’t do something, it’s just that they don’t do enough. Big bangs for our bucks ladies.
If you are reading this and it all seems too much, remember something is better than nothing and everyone is at different stages.
A training stimulus for one person might be sitting to stand on a chair, while for someone else it might be adding another 10 kg to their squat at the gym. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else as they are 100% on their own journey.
Our body needs challenges at this stage of life, so if you are sitting back and telling yourself; “I’m getting older, I don’t need to do things to stress out my muscles. I don’t need to change my nutrition.” Well I don’t want to say you are wrong but I do want to say you need to build up your body armor now so you can live a functionally independent life in another 20 years. So that was saying you are wrong but in a nicer way right?
Another question I was asked was: “Is walking enough?”
No, it’s not. It’s great for health, both your physical and mental health but I don’t consider walking as training. It is 100% beneficial for moving your body and if you work in an office and the only option is to go out for a lunchtime walk then absolutely get your butt out the door but we need more in our 40+ years.
So what do we need to do?
Lift some weights. Do some HIIT. We need to induce adaptation.
The cool thing about this is though, as I’ve said before everyone is at different stages so lifting weights might consist of lifting two water bottles bottles above your head multiple times in the garage, or it could consist of getting under a bar at the gym and doing the same thing but with a heavier load.
It may be sitting to standing has your legs shaking after doing it 10 times or it might be grabbing a heavy kettlebell and seeing how low you can goblet squat will challenge you. It doesn’t matter as long as you are challenging your muscular system to adapt.
HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is the same. You don’t have to do a million burpees (and who wants to do that anyway?!?). You can do something as fast and as hard as you can for 20 seconds then rest for anywhere from a measly 20 secs (ouchy) to a few minutes. The key is to go as hard as you can when you are working.
Your weekly schedule could look something like this:
Monday: Strength Training
Tuesday: HIIT
Wednesday: Good for the soul movement. Tennis, hill walking, running, surfing, whatever you enjoy doing that you get that ticker working.
Thursday: Strength Training
Friday: Pilates/Yoga
Saturday: Strength Training + cheeky wee HIIT intervals to finish.
This may look unachievable depending on your other commitments but there are heaps of ways we can fit movement into our weekly schedules. If you are new to this then start small, your strength training could be doing squats when you brush your teeth and your HIIT could be doing step-ups on a wee step as fast as you can for 20 seconds.
Remember adaptation is the key. Do the hard things. You’ve got this!
Lynne x
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Meta Trends #POV
Sadly, most POV aren’t that good!
Replace the banana by Chocolate and you have Donz and Delph instead of monkeys!
POV stands for point of view. On TikTok and Instagram, POV is often used in videos or as a hashtag to indicate that the video is meant to be watched as if the viewer were present or the viewer is in a specific situation.
Remember those days when the only POV you worried about was your "Point Of View" in that awkward family photo? Well, on TikTok and Instagram, POV is often used in videos or as a hashtag to indicate that the video is meant to be watched as if the viewer were present or the viewer is in a specific situation. Because Gen Zers throw this one around like candy because they all have a POV about everything.
POV is all about seeing the world through someone else's eyes. Kinda like watching a movie, but way shorter and filmed on a phone (probably vertical, because who holds their phone sideways anymore?).
These POV videos can be anything from a first-date disaster (from the cat's perspective, naturally) to a heart-stopping skydiving adventure.
As a GenXers, this makes no sense to us! Most of the time, we don’t seem to see the difference between a POV and normal social media stuff.
Below are a few POV we found.
POV: you just got yelled at by your boss
POV: you’re having a mental breakdown and no one is answering your FaceTime calls
POV: when you finally complete the task you’ve put off for weeks and it only takes 5 minutes
POV: debating whether I should go outside or rot in bed
POV: me risking my entire future for an extra 5 minutes of sleep
POV: you’re a child actor in 2004 and you’re recording the wand ID for Disney Channel
POV: you think you’re home alone but your mom walks in on you singing karaoke
POV: you’re reading SparkNotes because you didn’t feel like
POV: that one friend who can’t hear anything
POV: that friend who never understands what’s going on
POV: your friend when she says she’s “only 5 minutes away”
Non review - Boosh trimming by Delph
Butt? Like in between the butt cheeks? I am the only one who just is not getting there?
Several of you read my newsletter about pubes... And the one about chin hair. As I mentioned, I recently discovered that you can use a men’s shaver to trim your pubes. I do feel mildly guilty borrowing my partner’s shaver for something used on my downstairs operations to then be used on his face. The guilt doesn’t last more than 10 seconds.
Problem solved: check out what I found! A product called Boosh!
Firsteval, it is pink: that screams to your men and teenage boys: “It’s mum, it touches her vajajay, don’t borrow it” - perfect. The name Boosh is simply excellent. They got me at “For your legs, for your nose, for a trim, for tight space.” Claiming to have ceramic blades that are designed to be extremely gentle, gliding over your skin and minimizing the risk of ingrown hairs and razor burn. I WANT ONE!
About resistance training
➡️ Lynne got us on resistance bands and OMG, my (hairy) bum!!! You need resistance bands? Check this review of the “best” ones.
➡️ If you don’t know where to start with your resistance training journey, read this.