Part 1: Are you eating enough and running on fumes?

A common misstep for midlife women, especially in the current generation is undereating. Both Cam and Amelia have personal and professional contacts for whom this is true. We grew up in diet culture, so can you really blame us?
But there is a better way. Join us for this enlightening episode on calorie intake and expenditure. You might be surprised at what the dial-movers really are!

00:00 Didn't eat enough, heart raced at night.
04:30 Improve diet: less fat, more carbs needed.
07:05 Balance muscle, calories, and exercise for results.
12:02 Exercise only accounts for 5% daily calories.
14:11 "Diet encompasses more than just food intake."
18:42 Using side vegetables as appetizers is great.
23:35 Busy helping daughter clean, forgot to eat.
26:55 Be conscious and intentional with food choices.
28:03 Special occasions no longer justify overeating.
32:13 Cycle in, track protein, prioritize intake sources.
33:49 Track trends weekly, not daily, for accuracy.

In this episode, you'll hear: 

• Understanding BMR: Learn what basal metabolic rate is and why it’s crucial to know how many calories your body needs to function.
• Myth-Busting: Discover the truth about the "starve yourself" myth and how it affects us midlifers, leading to physical and mental exhaustion.
• Nutritional SOS: Get actionable tips on how to recognize hunger cues and improve your eating habits to support your midlife journey.

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Amelia

• Website: https://www.thehelpfulplate.com/
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Cam

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Midlife Mommas IG: https://www.instagram.com/midlife.mommas/

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Transcript

0:07

Hi. I'm Cam, Holistic health coach, mom to 2 humans and 4 pets. Hi, I'm Amelia, Laboratory scientist by day and food scientist by night. Welcome to our show. Join us as we share our holistic approach to life after 50. You can expect real life stories with a dash of humor and a ton of truth. If it happens in midlife, we're going to talk about it. So hit that subscribe button and follow along. We're the Midlife Mommas. Hello, everyone. Are you running on empty today? We're gonna be talking today about your eating and whether or not you're eating enough. I know people think they're always eating too much, but maybe you're not eating enough. Yeah. A 100%. And so we're gonna talk about running on fumes. Have you ever run on fumes, Amelia? Absolutely. And this actually we always kid one another that when things come up in threes, we clearly need to talk to our audience about it. And so recently, I was visiting my daughter, and she introduced me to pickleball, which was way fun. So after pickleball, we had a tremendous breakfast with an egg scramble and lots of good veggies, and then we cleaned all day. She's moving into a new apartment, and I kind of forgot to eat after that. So, for the bulk of the day, I'm hanging out, you know, cleaning out the fridge, wiping down all the shelving, And the bottom line is I had a great dinner, but when I went to bed, my heart was racing. I was like, what is up? Like, I'm not stressed, and I don't think I ate enough. I'm texting Cam going, what is wrong with me? Like, why can't I sleep? And she's like, did you eat enough to fuel all that activity? And I think the answer was no. Yeah. The it's it's really interesting because, again, it's a badge of honor to be, like, starve yourself and not eat all day. It's like this stupid myth that we used to, I don't know, subscribe to, I guess, or believe. And then what happens in midlife, the bandwidth is very narrow. And when we are really busy, sometimes we do forget to eat. Like, we were installing the basement floor and it happened to me. And that night, I went to bed, and I was physically exhausted. Mhmm. But my brain would not shut down. Is that what happened to you? Was it your brain? Well, I don't know that it was my brain. I'd physiologically felt it, but my muscles were tired. So I couldn't figure out why my heart was racing because I didn't do the the cardio exercise late in the day. So I was like, this shouldn't be a cortisol spike. The other thing for me, and this is something I tried to figure out, is I had had a glass of wine, and I don't really drink that much. So I was like, is it that? We also this is something I probably didn't tell you is we shared a dessert. Again, I don't eat dessert, so I had sugar at, like, 8 o'clock at night. It was like I literally probably had 3 tablespoons. It was creme brulee. It was delicious. It wasn't like I ate it all. Yeah. So I just couldn't figure it out. But, in retrospect, I probably honestly, the fueling during the day sucked. Like, it was terrible because I didn't eat enough, and then maybe I overloaded my stomach at night. I mean, I didn't overeat. It was just kind of a normal sized meal. So I don't know, but I this is that was one. Then when I reached out to you, Cam, you said one of your clients had a very similar story. And then the the cycle of 3, a girlfriend of mine that I've known for 35 years, she's trying to drop some of her belly fat, and I asked her to keep a food journal. And when I looked at it, I was like, I don't think you're eating enough food. So this kind of seems to seems to be a recurrent topic where us and our peers are undereating. Yeah. And so this is gonna be part 1 of a 3 part series. So today we're gonna talk about are you running on fumes part 1. Part 2, we're gonna talk about how eat less, exercise more is keeping you stuck in menopause. It's a big fat lie. And then part 3 is how to actually do cardio to address that belly fat without taking your hormones because there's like this fine line. We're walking on a tight rope in menopause. Yeah. And until you've lived it, there's so much there's so much garbage out there that we believe for so long. And if you're still in that mindset, you kinda got to hit a wall kinda like I did in order to debunk it and really believe this because it's so counterintuitive to what we learned in the eighties. I love that. So I have two questions for you. What was your girlfriend's reaction about you're not eating enough calories? How that how'd she respond? I mean, I think she recognized it, and I think we need to improve on what she's eating. I think she's probably eating too much fat because it's satiating, but not enough carbs. Mhmm. And I'm not sure if she's bought she kind of swung in the other direction of, like, the pseudo keto, but, like, I think one one meal included nuts and peanut butter. And I was like, well, maybe we could choose one of those just because it's so high in fat. But I didn't study it too much because she didn't give me it wasn't as complete as I would have liked. But lunch might be a tablespoon of peanut butter and and 4 crackers. Like, that's not enough. That's No. Very little food. So so I think her reaction was, I'm willing to do what you tell me because I think that what I am doing is not working, but I think she was surprised to learn that she wasn't she wasn't eating enough. I think that's so common. I think we were supposed to eat like a bird Yeah. Survive and just doesn't work. Yeah. So my second question, it really was a was a comment, and now it's gone. So menopause just took over. I don't know. That's alright. It'll come back. It'll come back. Okay. Okay. Yep. Well, the first thing, besides all of these questions, and I already told my story about, you know, my elevated heart rate, which for me is a hallmark of something's wrong. You know, I kind of know well, kind of. I do know my body pretty well, and like you were saying, I can be really physically tired, but there's something going on that's keeping me, like, elevated. But one of the things that I talked with my friend about is a basic I don't know if it's basic or basal metabolic rate. So can you tell us what that is, Cam? Yeah. So it's enough calories for your body to stay alive, and that doesn't include pickleball or clean out your daughter's refrigerator. It's literally your heart beating, your your lungs breathing, your eyes blinking. It's like literally if you laid on the couch all day, it's the minimum amount of calories you need just for your body to function. Which is really cool. Now, so my son-in-law is 28, I think, and we actually discussed this last night because my daughter and her husband are really into fitness, and they track lots of things. And at his age, a young male, his BMR, he says, is around 1800 to 1900 calories. Now that's if he's lying in bed all day long. Mhmm. Mine is somewhere around 11 or 1200. So I'm actually surprised that there's not a larger differential, but I think the reason is because I've maintained good muscle mass. 100%. And I was going to say that. The more muscle you have on the body on your body, more muscle on your skeleton, the more calories you need to maintain that. So every time you strength train, you're actually depositing in your 401 k for your you know? The way I like to think of it is I wanna eat as many calories as I can and do the least amount of exercise I can and get the results I want. So we're trying to teeter. We don't wanna go too far in the calories, and we don't wanna go too low on the calories. We don't wanna go too far on the exercise, and we don't wanna go too low on the exercise. So it's like this teeter totter balancing the most food I can eat, the least amount of exercise to get where I need wanna be. So then you have room to move your metabolism around if you will. No. And I love that. And the thing about calories and and food, you know, we we can get into the sources of calories because you need energy, which is what calories is. It's energy to function. But if they're crappy calories, if they're, you know, junk food calories, you're not getting the micronutrients and the plant nutrients or phytonutrients to actually help your cells function optimally. So there's something to be said for that. And I also wanna point out here that carbs and protein have 4 calories per gram and fat has 9 calories per gram, just as you're kind of just doing some loose math. Yeah. That's important to know. And also, I wanted to say for the digestion part of it. So you have your basal metabolic rate, your base, like, your bottom line, and then we have other things that change on a daily basis. So let's just talk about those for a minute. We have nonexercise activity, which is like just moving, standing, doing chores, cleaning your daughter's house. Yeah. That's about 15% of your calorie burn a day. The second category is the thermic effect of food, and that's about 10% of your calorie burn, and this is what I wanted to point out. Not all macronutrients are created the same. So some macronutrients burn really fast. Carbs. Right? Instant energy. Woo hoo. Let's go. And protein, on the other hand, burns the most calories in digestion, which is crazy. 30% of the calories you eat of a protein is actually burned in digestion. So math people, if you ate a 100 grams excuse me, a 100 calories of a protein, 30 of those calories would be burned in the digestive process alone. Your body needs energy to actually digest the food. So you're at 70 calories instead of a 100. Just by eating more protein, you're, like, getting yourself nutrients, vitamins, all the things, energy, and also you're burning more calories. So muscle and Yeah. Muscle and protein are like magic. I absolutely love that you broke that down so well because I think most of us are not eating enough protein. And I see this over and over and over regardless of how much I try to practice it and I preach it. I mean, it's got to become a habit, I think, to actually do it. Like, this morning, I've already had, a a smoothie. It did it had a peach, protein powder, yogurt, like Greek yogurt. I actually grated some zucchini in there for some vegetables and phytonutrients. I didn't have any nut milk because I'm at my daughter's house. I usually use nut milk. I had to use a little bit of orange juice and some water. I also had collagen, as I'm probably thinking that you did, Cam. So I think currently and we're recording in the 9 o'clock in the morning hour, so I'm thinking I'm between 35 and 40 grams of protein so far today, and that's great. I think so often we have breakfast that maybe have 9, you know, grams of protein, if if it's a carb heavy one. Right? Yeah. Me, I'm guilty of. I'll just grab a bar, but I've been breaking that habit. We did a challenge inside move the dial method, and we started with a savory breakfast this last month in August. And I think I've broken my bar habit, Amelia. It's so amazing. Yeah. Those bars are kinda like glorified candy bars Yeah. They are. If you really think about it. And I like the RXBARs because there's protein in there and there's whole foods and stuff. There are natural flavors. I know that's, you know, illegal in some people's worlds, but it's better than the other things I found. So it's the closest I can find that's easy to grab. Anyway, where was I going? No. No. No. No. That's okay. That's okay. We're talking about getting approaching, and I wanna point out also to our listeners that we tell you guys all of this stuff, but we struggle to. It's not like we're the perfect models of midlife. We're just trying, and we're trying to all of these pitfalls, all of these things that we've tried and have not worked or that we're struggling. We're sharing just so that you will be like, okay. Well, you know, it's hard someday. Sometimes it's just harder than others. Yeah. My breakfast is similar to yours. I've had the collagen already, and I had a big bowl of Greek yogurt, and I added, raspberries because I had more fiber. Fiber also helps with your, you know, being satiated. Plus raspberries, come on. They're beautiful. They are. Who doesn't love beautiful food? There's one more thing I wanna talk about, the parts of the changeable metabolism. So we talked about nonexercise activity, 15%. Thermic effect of food is 10% around, but exercise is only 5% of your daily calorie burn. I know. What we grew up thinking, it was a whole it was everything. Like, I have to exercise off that dessert, and the truth is it's about 5% of your calorie burn. And as we mentioned earlier, if you invest in strength training, you're also changing the, basal metabolic rate, the big one. The one that doesn't change, the 70% that's kinda like set in stone. Yeah. And I think that's we're gonna cover that really in-depth when we talk, in our part 2 about eat less exercise more. So so just keep that little tidbit of why and how, and then you'll listen next week when we actually cover the subjects. Yeah. That's the other teaser. Yeah. Right. And the other thing is we do repeat ourselves, and we've been repeating ourselves for 3 years. But the reason why is Amelia and I are really good at learning things, but we also have to implement it. And that's a lesson for all of us. Like, having all the knowledge in the world does nothing if it's not in if you haven't embodied that into your life, if you haven't practiced it. Exactly. And we goof up. We totally goof up sometimes. We were way far from perfect. We'll never be perfect. So No. We none of us are. And that's the other thing, my friend who I'm helping, she's having a little bit of trouble loving her body right now. So we had to talk about you know, I told her I'm gonna ask you to do some things that you're not gonna like. And one of the thing is self affirmations, that we can't change a body we hate. And so she's, you know, 57 years old, and come on. I mean, you've had 2 kids. Her life's work is a charitable organization. Like, she does so much for her community and has a generally good outlook. And I said, people love you because of who you are. Not not not it has nothing to do with whether or not you have an extra £5 riding on your middle. Like, we love you. So I think that's important as well that even when you're trying to change, you have to love yourself because this change is about love. It's not about, displeasure or hate. That reminds me of I was writing something for my daughter. I'm gonna speak at the chiropractic club next month for women. So I'm gonna talk to a whole bunch of 20 some year olds, anyway, about menopause, which is funny. But one of the things I wrote in my notes yesterday to submit, was the You diet, which we've mentioned. Mhmm. And the You diet is literally finding the macronutrients that work for your life and your energy, but also the You diet includes the things you read, the things you watch on social media or on TV, the people around you, all of that is part of your diet, if you will. So diet has a way bigger let's let's change that. Like, diet is way more than what you eat. It's what you consume in all the ways. Yeah. I love that. I think it's really important. It shows balance. But I kinda wanna kinda scale back. There's a couple of things that you you've already we've already talked about macros, but, just so that everyone understands that macros, we consider generally to be carbs, protein, and fat. And the second thing to pair with that, which, Cam, you've talked about quite a bit is food order. Mhmm. So the first thing is is I will offer that for my macros, which I'm currently not tracking because if you've been listening to us for a while, you know that we tend to cycle tracking of our nutrients on and off depending like, for me right now, I'm traveling quite a bit, so it's it's harder and a little more depressing. So to your point, Cam, if I'm actually tracking that and consuming that, it might it might make Yeah. If it messes with you mentally. Exactly. Screw it. Sorry. So, you know, in a couple of weeks, I'll get back to that for for a little bit of time. But, anyway, I aim for somewhere between a 100 a 140 grams of protein a day. Now I know that's a huge range, but I feel like by getting 40 grams in the morning before in my first meal or the first couple of hours, I feel like it gives me a better chance of achieving my protein goal. I'm less strict about my carb and fat goal. And the other thing about that is you're setting yourself up for more steady energy throughout the day. Because if you feel horrible, you're not gonna be moving, and then, like, your nonexercise activity is gonna go down, down, down, down, down if you're not even moving. So I think that, like, starting your day with a healthy, savory breakfast with a lot of, calories I don't know if calorie is the right word. Definitely protein sets you up for success, and if if you do nothing else, just give that a try for a month. Like I said, I think I've broken my bar habit. Yeah. Good for you. I think that's great. But tell us something about food order because up until I met you, I didn't know that this mattered. Yeah. So one of the things, stress is a big deal, but also blood sugar. So starting your day with savory breakfast, including a lot of protein helps, and food order is my favorite blood sugar hack. I can look at any plate of food and decide how I'm gonna eat this to lower the blood sugar effect. So fiber is your best friend. So anytime you can add fiber or eat fiber first, what happens is it forms a mesh in your digestive system literally, like, blocking the food getting into your blood sugar or the blood the food into your blood system turning into blood sugar. So it's like a mesh, if you will. Protein is also good. If you have a choice, I would start with maybe the fiber and then the protein. Those would be my choices. And then, like, the carby carbs. Like, yesterday, I had an egg sandwich, which was amazing. It had I had 2 eggs, maybe 3. It was a big. And, cheese, so I ate that first and ate the sourdough sec last. So I deconstructed the sandwich to make sure that I was eating for blood sugar, and I enjoyed the heck out of the sourdough at the end. It was like my dessert. Yeah. That sounds amazing, and I was telling my daughter last night, you know, American restaurants tend to do things not to help with blood sugar. Efforts. Yes. Because they bring you they ask if you want a cocktail, which is, you know, empty carbs, and then they they bring a bread basket. So we're Or chips? Yes. Or chips. Exactly. So we're right away spiking our blood sugar. What we should be doing is getting a a plate of vegetables first. Right? Yep. Like so when we talk about fiber, we're more talking about those natural things like vegetables. Is that correct? 100%. 100%. Like and if you're out to eat, one of the places you can look is the side menu, the sides to see if there's something on there, or is there an appetizer that's more veggie forward, if you will, because that's gonna help, you know, slow the digestion of the sugar into your bloodstream. I love that. I've never thought about using the vegetable side menu as maybe an appetizer menu. So one of the places that I love my husband's not a big fan of beets, but I love beets, and they've got roasted beets or brussel actually, the brussel sprouts are probably fried, so that's probably not a good idea. But, anyway, you can find things like that, and sometimes, you know, you're, you know, you can get raw vegetables with hummus or, like, can if you went somewhere that they didn't have a vegetable forward thing, could you go with something like meatballs as an appetizer, which is a protein, or would that be a bad idea? No. I mean, that would work. It just depends how do they make the meatballs. Is it loaded with bread crumbs? Like, the other That's true. You know, you just don't know. I've we went to an Italian place here, and I had meatballs, but I had a side salad first so that never mind. Okay. Okay. Well, I just I just want people to understand how important the food order thing is because I think that we weren't ever taught that. No. And when you go out to eat, it is not usual. And you know what else you could do, I'm guessing would work, is eat a small salad before you go out Mhmm. Or something like that, and then you're not as hungry, and you've also started with that fiber rich. 100%. In my vegetarian days or pescatarian days, I would eat a handful of nuts when we were going out somewhere to a a pitch in dinner or something because you never knew what was gonna be there. And so a handful of nuts is something, or a cheese stick is one of my, organic cheese stick right now is one of my go to. Like, okay. I'm gonna eat that. It's protein. It's not gonna spike my blood sugar kind of thing. Speaking of that, so that's dairy. Full fat dairy is another way that you can eat something that, is less likely to spike your blood sugar because of the fat. So full fat dairy might be a solution. Or if you're looking at the yogurts and there's a half fat and a full fat and a no fat, maybe pick the half fat and see how you feel about that. So, because of the fat, it will slow the, blood sugar spike as well. And, you know, that's another thing we've got to teach ourselves and relearn because we were the fat free kids. Oh my gosh. Yep. And so telling yourself that the full fat is good, you've got to experience that satiety in order to believe it. I did. Like, you could tell me that, and I just could not pick up that full fat dairy. And then finally, when I did and it happened for me, Cam, with really nice cheese. Mhmm. You know, and I was like, this is so good. And I was like, why like, you if you buy the lower fat stuff, you just wanna eat volume. But if you can embrace the idea that something very rich and creamy and yummy is better for you, it's so much better for you. Because for decades, Cam, I was a I don't care. I want more volume. So if I can eat, like, 18 cups of popcorn, I'm gonna do that rather than, like, a cube of really good cheese. So, anyway, that's that's a whole mindset change. It is. It's a total thing. And if we were to go back to, like, how our hormones are made, our hormones the grandmother of our hormones is cholesterol. Now if you listen to media, they you cholesterol is bad and evil, and and we need cholesterol in our diet, like, let's say, whole eggs, for example. Right. You know, they've been villainized, but actually, like, the micronutrients, chlorine, and healthy fats, and a good source of protein, and all of those things actually help build our hormones. It's like the grandmother, the cholesterol is. So important. But while we're on the subject of how we used to eat and how we used to feel, I want to just bring up something that we talk about seemingly every week, which is the awful awesome test. Yes. And it's the easiest way to like check-in with your intuition, get in touch with your body. Is this for you or not for you? And it works with people. It works with food. It works with exercise, everything. Literally, ask yourself, do I feel awesome or do I feel awful? And then be quiet. You know, let the thoughts settle and then you'll have an answer. And I think some of this has can be an acquired taste. That's one of the things I've learned when I've hung out with people is I think sometimes we don't realize how bad we feel until we actually make a change and we feel so much better. So this is a really good test, to understand, like, kind of on an individual level how you're feeling, and I had to really tap into that. It took me a little bit of time. It wasn't an instant win. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't instant I wasn't instantly like, oh, yeah. This is great, and this is bad. I had to, like you said, sit and be quiet and pay attention. Right. If you eat something and your stomach hurts and you're bloated and you look pregnant, like, you know, slow down enough to go, oh, I ate this, and now I feel like this. So it helps you connect your own dots because, honestly, there's no right or wrong answer. Like, the you diet, for example, is gonna be individualized towards you. Are there guidelines? Absolutely. You know, but you have to figure out what works for you and your life right now. Absolutely. So let's kinda go back to what I my personal story about, I was too busy to eat because I was helping my daughter clean. You know, I don't think I would have ever if you'd asked me in my thirties, you know, would that ever happen? I would have told you no. But I do have friends like this girlfriend that I'm helping. She that happens to her a lot. And I've always thought that people, like animals, some are really food motivated and some aren't. So I wonder, Cam, if this is particularly a problem for people who aren't food motivated, who eat to live and not live to eat, And then they really forget because I typically don't. It was just an anomaly for that for me to forget that day. Yeah. And I view not eating as like a form of stress. And I'll go back to my Okay. Yeah. It's stressful if you eat too much or too little. So we'll talk about that coming up in part 2. But in my divorce days, I wasn't eating, and I was exercising like crazy, but wasn't eating. Like, I didn't have an appetite because of the stress in my life. So I kind of view that those go together. And also, I'm pretty good at spotting who's going through divorce because their body changes. And typically, whether you're a man or a woman, I've seen in both cases, they just tend to lose weight because of the stress of it's interesting because sometimes people overeat, but when it comes to divorce, I feel like it goes the opposite. Maybe I'm wrong. And I would agree with you because I've learned a long time ago that moderate stress for me, I overeat, major stress, I stop eating. Mhmm. And I've seen it with my mother-in-law. She's lost, I know, 15 to £20 since my father-in-law passed. Yeah. So it could be the death of a spouse or a loved one, I think, could do it. But really deep trauma or grief, I think, can cause someone just to forget or not to eat at all. So pay attention to what's happening around you. I think that's really valid. Like, if it's a a small amount of stress, then the chips are my best friend. Exactly. Exactly. Again, awesome, awful, like check-in with yourself. Am I eating my emotions? Because sometimes we do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. And for me this week also, I'm also in quote vacation mode, which just means that I'm going a lot of places and doing a lot of things. I'm sleeping in strange places. So change in routine, I think, can alter your eating habits, and all of those great habits we've built into routine. And we talked we've talked many times, Cam, about triggering behaviors. So I think one of yours is there's something about drinking your water. Was what is With my coffee. Yes. I mean, I I stack those together, but here I am Stacking. That's what we call it. Well, I have a I have a sparkling water this morning instead of a a regular water, but it's yeah. That that's certainly helpful when you're traveling to control what you can control. Like, I bring collagen when I go places. I bring my hydration little packets when I go places. So at least I can control some of the things. Yeah. It's really important. I mean, I do that too. I have a whole, like, gallon ziplock bag full of packets of things that I keep with me. Uh-huh. But for for I found this time, I for even though I have the collagen packets, there's something about the habit that's not quite there. I've I did have it this morning. I think yesterday morning, I didn't. But those things can affect your food intake either for the better or for the worse. If you're with your girlfriends and there's wine o'clock, if you will, and there's, you know, chips and all of that sort of stuff, just be conscious. I'm not saying don't partake. I'm saying be conscious in making an intentional choice, and then use the awful awesome test. Did it help you or did it not? So, you know, I drank wine a couple of times with my daughter over the last few days. I didn't feel great. I refrained from wine when I went and visited my girlfriends a couple of weekends ago, and I felt pretty good. So for me right now, I have to be really careful. Wine's a slippery slope for me. Yeah. Yeah. It's still a slippery slip on my world too, for sure. The thing about vacation mode, I wanted to go back for that. The old me, vacation mode meant drink all the drinks, eat all the foods, just go crazy. You're on vacation from everything that you normally do, and I would say that that's not true anymore. It may be a slippery slope, but it's not as extreme as it used to be. Do you identify with the vacation most A 100. Because I use that all the time, Cam. It could be a birthday party, a wedding shower, a baby shower. Oh, this is a special occasion. I can eat what I want. And I I no longer feel that way, and it's because of the awful awesome test. Because I know that I will feel bad because I've actually experienced for me, I don't get as much bloating, but I feel almost nauseated, like, a little, like, green around the gills as it were. I remember your Christmas cookie story where your skin I literally was green. Oh, it was gray. Green. Whatever. So I do pay attention to that because there's still something, and I think it might be some sort of innate thing in humans. That stuff still looks good and appeals to me. Like, I'm not even gonna say, ew, I hate it because I don't. I love it. It's just it doesn't service me well. I think sugar is probably the slippery slope for me because once it sneaks in, it just keeps sneaking in. Yeah. Yeah. I've kinda gotten back on board. Like, right before I left for vacation, I was going back to the candy jar at the office and getting, like, a Hershey's miniature, and I told my husband, I was like, I gotta stop. Because one leads to 2, leads to 5, leads to 10, and so it's it is a little bit of an addictive, thing for me. And if you're, like, let's just put it a 10,000 foot for you. If you're eating, let's say, 300 calories of chocolate, no no shame in that. But if 300 calories is like, I don't know, 1 5th, 1 6th of your daily calories Yeah. Is it is it 1 6th or of your nutrition? That's a great point. Like, if you if I'm eating this, what am I get what is my body getting out of this? Cheap and easy energy. If it's dark chocolate, you might be getting magnesium. So, like, that would be a benefit. You know, but if you think about it, if you're eating 1800 calories a day and 3 300 of those are coming from that chocolate, is that is that equal to the nutrition that your body needs to function well? Right. I agree with you. And that kinda comes to one of the the last things that we have on our list, which is hunger cues. And I think we might have talked about this fairly recently. My hunger cues aren't the same as they used to be. Like, the day that I didn't really eat after the egg scramble and we did the cleaning all afternoon, I never really felt hungry, but I just started feeling not well. I can't explain it. It I wasn't dizzy. I didn't have a headache. I just was, like, you know, low energy, obviously. But I did end up what what I had was a granola bar, which is not it's it is a glorified candy bar. I get it. But it did have, like, a couple of grams of protein, and so I ate it. And I was like, oh, I must be hungry. Mhmm. So that was an interesting thing, and I have talked to people that really don't recognize hunger cues. So I think establishing habits where you eat high protein with some regularity and have some sort of structure could be a good thing. Yeah. I think that's true. We're not used to being hungry. What does hungry feel like Mhmm. Or look like? And it's easy sometimes when you're busy. I'll go back to installing the floor in the basement. We are busy all day up, down, all over the place. I told Amelia my body was sore from from getting off the ground laying the floor. I was the floor layer, and Dan was the floor cutter. And so it was just a lot. And I remember not feeling well because I didn't have energy. Low energy availability is something. It's called lea, l e a. Low energy availability is something that we do experience in menopause. So, again, you know, making sure you're eating enough so you aren't running on fumes, that you're actually nourishing yourself for the best life. You wanna live the best life now, not Yeah. So can mediocre. If if people are are actually thinking to themselves, there may be something to this. What would you suggest would be the first step for people to kind of figure out whether they're undereating? Well, I you know, you can always do a food log. Yeah. That's what I was gonna say too. Yeah. And people are gonna dig their heels in, and I don't wanna I don't wanna do a food log. That's too hard. Yes. I know. I know. But on the other side of that, you'll have more awareness. And like Amelia said, we only track on occasion. I kinda cycle in and cycle out. I'll spot check. I think you do the same thing. Yep. Just like where are you? And if that is overwhelming, just track your protein. Like, what protein are you putting in your mouth? And don't worry about the overall calories. Just, you know, hit, you know, how much protein are you eating? How can I increase it? You know, a lot of times when I work with 1 on 1 clients, one of their goals is plan the protein first. Where is it coming from? Because I have a pescatarian background, for example, and if I'm not intentionally saying, okay. I'm gonna eat this this protein animal protein right now, then it doesn't happen. No. I agree with you. I love that. And I guess the second thing I would say if you're inclined, and this is what I suggested to my friend is to just as a oh, let me back up. The food journal is not judgment. It's for you. It's not like anyone is saying you shouldn't eat that. This is just for your own information, so there's that. But the second step, if you're inclined, and, Cam, I'll be interested to know if you agree or not, is maybe to investigate your BMR. There's places where you can go to have it tested. I think there's some quick calculations, but it's just a baseline. It is not an absolute. It's just some you know, sometimes when we're shooting in the dark, we need some kind of general target, and that might be a good place to start. Yeah. If you take your body weight times 10, that'll give you a very, very rough estimation of what your body needs just to function. Yep. I think that's actually really good because that's pretty mine is a little bit less than that, but not by very much. So that's a great starting point. Yeah. And, again, all of this is ballpark. It doesn't have to be exact. And, also, it's gonna fluctuate. A lot of times, all the time, when I'm looking at people's macronutrients, we usually we use Cronometer to track, and I run a nutrition port weekly. And we look at it as a weekly thing, not a daily thing because we are not we're not a calculator. We're an average. So are we trending up or trending down? I noticed on my Oura ring, my Oura ring told me this morning my sleep is trending down over the last 8 days. So I'm I'm, you know, curious exactly is it the snoring partner? Maybe. Maybe. We we gotta work on that one. But it's a trend, you know, like, you're not a calculator, so figure out where you are and then just where can you add. Yeah. That's a great point. So I I don't know. I love this subject, and I'm super excited about this 3 part series because it just seems like recently so many people have asked about this. And you and I are experiments of 1, like we always are, so we're here to report what we what we are doing and Thanks for listening today. You can find us on Instagram at @midlife.mommas For all of our other contact info, check out the show description below. And we will talk to you next week.