Ep 164. Building Strength, Boosting Health: The Woman's Guide to Muscle Mass

In this episode, Kelly and Tiffany dive into the importance of muscle mass for women's health. From boosting metabolism to improving hormone health, they cover how women can get started with weightlifting and the benefits of building muscle at different phases of their cycle. Listen in to hear their personal journeys, tips on maximizing workouts, and how to incorporate protein effectively.

00:00 Introduction

00:49 Why Muscle Mass Matters

01:16 Personal Backgrounds and Experiences

02:20 Metabolic Health and Muscle Mass

04:17 Listener Reviews and Community Engagement

06:34 Role of Protein in Muscle Building

06:41 Fullscript Muscle Building Protocol

08:10 Balancing Muscle and Cardio

14:39 Practical Tips for Building Muscle

22:42 The Concept of Hypertrophy

31:59 Cycle Syncing for Muscle Growth

41:01 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes

Links to all the extra good stuff:

Muscle Building Protocol: HERE
Protein Snack Ideas: HERE
Membership Wait List: HERE
Childbirth Education Wait List: HERE
Join our email community: HERE
Submit your answer-on-the-show questions: HERE

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to At Home with Kelly and Tiffany, where naturally minded women gather together as we pursue simplicity and confidence in health alternatives, so we can show up better in our busy lives and feel more at home in our bodies. Join your favorite home birth midwife duo for conversation, candor, and community. You're at home with Kelly and symphony. My name is Kelly Pappas. And my name is Tiffany Oblinger. We are two licensed midwives from sunny San Diego who run a private home birth. Practice who also love recording podcasts and dancing on the internet on reels and. Sharing information about women's health in general. And that sums it up. That is that's who we are and what we do. So why on earth are we talking about muscle mass today? Let's do it. Nothing you just said. Has anything to do? Muscle mass. But you ladies will be incredibly surprised that it actually really does. It potentially may blow your mind how important muscle mass is to lady. Life and flourishing in general. Okay. So me personally, I'll just share a little bit of background here. As one does on their own podcasts. Go off. I don't know. I can't remember exactly what the catalyst was for this, but I was in midwifery school. Ah, you can relate to this. Yes. I was in midwifery school and I just needed country. Control over something in my life. And so I started weightlifting and I learned all about. Doing that I hired a coach. I like made it an actual thing and it was so good for me. And then fell off finishing midwifery school, starting our practice. I just was not able to keep up with it in the way that I. Needed to. And I have dabbled in it. And interestingly enough, as I think back over the years, At really stressful and intense times I have. That's the points that I have jumped back into it. Yes. There's something about. The feedback and the hardness of it and the, and the, yeah, there's something like hormonal that happens that just as like, oh, this is, this is feeding me right now. Yes. But. The most recent thing that has gotten me fired up about this was last year when you created the metabolic health. Course for our membership. And talking about how important it is for women to have muscle mass and be building muscle mass and all of the incredible benefits of it. I completely shifted the way that I exercised, because I'm been pretty good about having that as a regular rhythm in my life lately. But I was still doing cardio. I was still engaging in a lot of cardio and I can't put, I can't build muscle doing cardio. Yeah. It kind of blew my mind also, as I was pulling together all of the information that everything was lining up and I was like, oh yep. All of the research points to the how incredible. Building muscle is for anybody. Right. But especially for women in the way our hormones work and the way things work as we age as well. But. It's not it. It's not that you need a bunch of big muscles, right? We don't need to like be bodybuilders, but building. Of The mass on our bodies and the amount of muscle that we have in comparison to fat. Matters so much. And like as women we need, we require about 20 to 25% body fat. At minimum just to have healthy hormone complex. So then you have to look at the rest of the composition of your body and. How you want your body to look how you want it to perform how you want it to feel all of those things. Right. So we're gonna jump into that in this episode, I'm excited. To share everything that I know, everything that I learned from you in the metabolic course, everything that I am continuing to dive into this is going to be a really great episode. I do want to share another review. I promised you guys that there were a ton of them that have come through lately and I am so, so, so, so grateful. This one comes from Kaylee 2 6 1 2. She says such a good podcast. Five stars. As a student midwife. I love all the things that I've learned from Tiffany and Kelly. I appreciate all the wisdom that they share. I love that a student is listening to this. Hopefully the way that we speak about being. Student midwives isn't doesn't feel traumatic. Hopefully it feels. Empowering and validating for your particular experience. But love the fact that like this. Not that we're in this whole other generation, but this next generation of like new midwives coming into their own practice and then can be. Hearing this information, sharing it with their clients, all of that good stuff. Yes. And if you heard us read your review, Kaylee, let us know. We'll buy you a drink. We will happily do that. That's how it goes around here. And leave a nice review. We read it. We buy you a drink. We feel good about ourselves. You have a nice little drinky poo. It's a win-win for everybody. All of us win. Also reviews help our podcasts to get rated well in our, I don't know, what do you call it? Category? And so the more good ratings that we have, the better our podcast gets rated, which means more women are likely to find it, get this information in their hands. That's what we're mostly excited about is being able to. Grow the podcast to reach. So your reviews. Views help to do that. And you don't have to, you don't have to review it. We don't know if it was you, if you just read it, but you can't hop on, just read it. You can just tap five stars and that contributes also, and just make sure that your finger touches the fifth star. Not the fourth one. Yeah. There's really no excuses for four star reviews, but it is cool to think about the fact that like you listening have an impact on. Sharing this information with other women also by doing so, you know, by, by adding a review. Yeah. So put your reviews where your mouth is. Yep. You're. If you're saying that you love it here. Show us how much you love that shows us your love. Okay. I want to highlight Fullscript again because I've created a brand new protocol on there. As a response to the inspiration I had in writing this episode. So there is a muscle building protocol on our Fullscript account. You guys know that's our professional dispensary, where we get you really high quality supplements for a fraction of the cost. Everyone can sign up. It's absolutely free. You get access to dozens of protocols. One of those protocols is going to be this muscle building protocol that just sources the best supplements that You can take in order to boost and enhance muscle mass, which is what we're talking about today. I want to, I want to check that out. Actually. I haven't seen it yet since you created it. Well, it is available to you. Great. Immediately. Everyone else will have to wait until the episode airs. Excellent. By the time you listen, I'm probably taking some of these, so it's fine. Actually I will, I will give our audience a hot tip. If you're on Fullscript already. If you're already registered, you get email notifications. When we make new protocols. It is worth it to be a part of our like crew in that way, because we're consistently putting out new protocols and then you don't have to wait for us to talk about it. On the podcast. So good on you. If you saw this come through probably a month before this episode aired. Good work. Yeah. All right. So putting on more muscle masses, women in packs, everything we're holistic beings, nothing is just in this little vacuum where we're like, oh, this is just an emotional issue. This is just a physical issue. But what, but what muscle building does for women is it takes the focus. From weight loss, which is what society says is the most important thing for women to focus on. And it switches that focus onto muscle gain. And it is all about. Rejecting this idea that we want to restrict calories, burn a bunch of calories, try to get the extra weight off with those types of actions. And it flips it to muscle gain, which helps our body composition in general, it improves health outcomes in almost every single area of our. Being, and we'll get into that a little bit too, but you burn more fat when you have more muscle. So the answer is consistently no matter where you are at. In your own body composition and what you want to see changing. No matter what your goals are. Having more muscle is going to help you, whether you want to be stronger, whether you want to look stronger, whether you want to add. Maybe you need to burn fat. Maybe you need to lose. Lose weight to be healthier, to function better, to just feel more comfortable in your body. Muscle mass is the answer for that. I love when we can focus on something that is positive, that then allows sort of some of the negative things to fall off a little bit more because if we do have a positive. Goal rather than right. Lose weight, whatever. When we're focused on something positive, then that gives us something to look towards rather than look away from. Right. And then I feel like once we start to do that other pieces change, right? Like. All of a sudden, if you, if that is your focus, you're like, well then my food choices probably need to reflect that. Right. I probably want to start eating more protein. You just sort of naturally start doing that. I know in, in seasons where I've been more Focused on this or less. I'm not necessarily thinking, oh, I, I want to eat this particular way right now. It's mostly just your body instinctually being like, I need this for fuel and you start craving things. Differently. You're staying more hydrated. Your sleep will be better, the stress and the way that you respond to stress. Infinitely better. And so I feel like when you, when you start to realize, Hey, This actually can impact, not just like the way my body looks in a bathing suit this summer, but like can impact every aspect of the way my body is functioning. It is a worthy goal to kind of run towards absolutely. Or. Bear crawl. With bands around your legs towards. Yeah, we, we're not, we're not going to advocating a whole lot of running. In this episode. Okay. So let's do unpack some of those benefits because even if you can set your body image stuff to the side as women, which most of us can not. But even if you can into, to be able to replace some of those thoughts about. How how muscle can have a really good impact on other things besides how your body looks. Muscle mass creates better blood sugar stabilization for women. It gives us deeper sleep. It lowers our cortisol. Having muscle is anti-inflammatory in and of itself. It makes us a healthier weight overall. It gives us stronger bones. Our mortality rates are decreased in comparison with muscle mass. So the more muscle that you put on the lower your mortality rate goes. It increases our heart health, our brain health, our metabolism. It makes us less prone to injury. Especially as we age, which, I mean, unfortunately, I'm really starting to think about that now. In my late thirties already. I'm like, oh yeah, I I'm sort of accident prone. I've. Broken a bone in the last year, doing something really basic. And we need to have some of those, those protective strength pieces in place for that. But muscle mass also contributes to better hormone health for women. And which is like in and of itself, that's just so much there. Right? That's like worth. Investigating at the very least, if you're somebody who has not. Utilized this idea in your own workout approach. But what I thought was the most fascinating pieces that was pulling together for that metabolic course that we were talking about, that it's available in our membership. Was how important it was to the how quickly and how like completely it can pull people out of metabolic dysfunction. So insulin resistance, pre-diabetes blood pressure issues. Like this are all fat. Like the fat around your belly, which can mess with the organs that are, you know, trying to work really hard. It's the quickest way to be able to pull yourself out of that, in that. That's just a train towards. Not doing well, if you stay on that. Right. And so being able to witness like, Hey, this is a, this is a way that I can actually protect myself and potentially change the outcome of my entire health. Future. It's worth looking at. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And like metabolic dysfunction affects something like what 78% of Americans. Yes. the flags for metabolic disease. Are so common right now, like all the vast, vast majority of adults, at least tick one of those things, blood pressure's off lipids are high. Belly fat. Blood pressure, all kinds of stuff. Right. And so, the fastest way out of that is through building muscle. Mass is not medications. It's not supplement routines. It's not overhauling your diet, except all of those of course can contribute to better outcomes. The fastest way, scientifically is putting as much muscle on as possible. That is so cool. So let's get down to some of the logistics about working out, because that will be the stumbling block for most women, I think should be doing it. Everyone's on board with the benefits everyone's on board with that, how all the positive impacts and women are like, yes, I want more muscle mass. But then you have to work on that. You have to work really hard on that. So our advice for this is just get started. Think about what you can do to just get started. It doesn't mean you have to be lifting really heavy weights. You can just use your own body weight. You can choose any program that you want to, that has a focus on resistance training or, or weight training. You can find free stuff all over the internet. Kelly and I are just down in the depths of Peloton. We will probably just live there forever. They have great like courses though that aren't just on the bike or on the tread or something. The floor courses are really, really beneficial. Yes. And there's a lot of courses for women on there. I know because I've taken every single one of them so far. I'm starting to have to take them again. Which is also wonderful where the women instructors are providing. Lower body weight training classes, and they're emphasizing heavy lifting and teaching women how to do that safely and well. And so that has been a wonderful experience, but you can get a coach. What a great thing to invest in, go to your local gym and find somebody who can teach you how to lift weights. You can use resistant bands. You can use just lightweights that you have sitting in the corner of your garage. Your cute little pink. When's that have the number three on them or whatever, like just get started. Yeah, absolutely. And it, especially as somebody who, you know, you were talking about like the more intense workout program that you did in midwifery school, I did something very similar in midwifery school in terms of like a really regimented and hard kind of workout experience and kind of falling out of that. And then getting back into it later, it's very easy to kind of judge yourself of like, well, I'm, I'm not as strong as I was before. And it makes you kind of feel like, do I, is this worth it? Because I'm not that anymore. And so it's not about pitting yourself against anybody else or even against yourself. It really just is keeping your eye on those benefits, keeping your eye on. The things that this will impact in your life. And again, yes, just getting started does not need to be complicated. Anything that you are doing to encourage muscle growth in anywhere in your body is important. So all muscle groups, yes. Important, but in particular, lower body has the biggest. Kind of impact and what's going on metabolically and it's usually the easiest also for women to kind of really build. Muscle on because those muscle groups are just big. Yeah. And like men, they have a lot of testosterone that allows them to like build up upper body and it's easier for them to build mass there and women just with the hormonal profile and we'll get into hormones and how to, how to work with that for muscle mass. But women just generally can build larger leg and glute muscles faster. Yeah. And that doesn't mean that you need to be like, okay, I'm all in. This is my life now. Like I am a muscle builder. You, the, the research that is out there shows. Three times a week, if you can really focus on muscle mass building for 30 minutes of those three times a week, that has all of the benefits. So more than that. Great. But you also don't need to envision your entire. Life being completely overhauled by this finding 30 minutes, three times a week, and prioritizing this in particular. Shows a ton of benefits for women. Absolutely. And when you're trying to figure out exactly like what kind of exercises do you need to do for that? I just would recommend focusing on some really core. Movements. That are lower body like squats, lunges, dead lifts, hit bridges, hip thrusts. Basically anything that is going to build your booty is going to also build up your legs. And a lot of those. Big lifting motions are so dynamic because they also help with course stability and help with functional flexibility. And you can do a lot of those unilaterally and work on balance and stuff like that. So there's so many ways in order to get some of those core. Lifting movements on board and our friend. Natalie, I think you can find her on Instagram at trainer Natalie. She is a just a specialist in fitness and pelvic floor health. And she has fitness programs for women and all kinds of really wonderful things. But she was telling us recently that she got AI to craft her a workout plan. With just some of those pieces where she like asked AI to. Give me a weightlifting program with this amount of weights, three days a week with these core movements and blue blue poop. AI link just told her exactly what to do. How many rabbits, how much weight in what order? And. It really can be that simple. Yeah. And I th I think taking some of that second guessing out of it is what is so helpful. Yeah. I asked the guy to do the same thing after she told me that just with Peloton classes and I'm like these particular. These only with these instructors for this amount of time, like give me like a month's worth of what I should take, what or whatever. And I was like, oh, this is great. Cause then I can like find that class and just take it. What a time. To be alive. Let me just say but as we're doing this right. I think it is really important that like, none of that sounds, oh my gosh. It's so life changing. Right? Okay. I need you to really focus on squats and lunges, all of the like 30 minutes, three times a week, understanding how to move your body correctly. Understanding like that foundational piece of how to do those movements wisely and well will. Absolutely. Then. You know, impact the longevity of you being able to continue to do this, but also as you're thinking about longevity, this really is the long haul, right? This is a lifelong health idea. This needs to be sustainable. So while some of these programs and ideas that come out right can help kickstart some things. I know a handful of people just having been on Instagram recently are doing like the 75 hard where it's like 75 days of working out twice a day and eating a particular way. And you know, all these other things that you have to do. Great in the short-term. If that is something that you want to do, whatever, that's an entirely different conversation, but. Six months from now, what does that look like? Right. And so how to fail, how to really figure out how you can make this more lifelong and look at it. In the long game. We'll help you say we'll help you stay with it because. If you do miss a day or your weakest in particular, like kind of heart, you can look at it if like, Okay, well, I didn't fail this particular thing. Right. I'll just get back up and do it again. Yeah. And like there's so many strategies for habit building and accountability and finding somebody who can like, you know, kind of be with you in that and setting goals for yourself and all that kind of stuff. So just life skill gets built into this. There's, there's so many pieces that you've already been successful with in your life in many other areas. And this is going to be one of them. You're just going to add it to the list of things that you. Are practicing and working on. That is your pep talk from TIFF. Okay. Be successful. I want to share about like the, the actual concept of building muscle, besides just like working out and resistance and lifting weights. Hypertrophy is the word that basically just describes gaining muscle. It is the process of tearing the, having little micro tears in the muscle when you work it out. That's what the fatigue of the muscle feels like. And the repair of that. Actually is what builds the muscle. So you tear it a little bit. Your body sends all these cells in order to create more muscle fiber to repair it. And that repair process actually puts more mass on your muscle muscles. The sweet spot for this in exercise. Is going to be different for everybody, depending on what access to equipment you have, what your physical capabilities are. If you have to modify for any injuries or whatever, it can work for heavy, medium, and light weights. But what you want to focus on is just having consistency. Several times a week. So hitting this three minimum of three weight lifting sessions a week, and to continue challenging yourself so that you will be able to see those changes. So you cannot stick with light weights unless you increase your raps. You can stick with lower reps if you increase your weight. So whatever you do, you have to be constantly working towards. Gaining muscle and strength by the fatigue and failure of the muscle. So if you do a workout and you don't feel sore the next day or two, or you didn't feel like you went your max, you didn't fatigue that muscle, you didn't feel like, oh, I could barely do one more rep if I wanted to. Then you were not reaching that hypertrophy, mark, where your body is, has, has. Created the opportunity to send those fibers in for repair. So like I said, you can do really low weights or body weight, and just work until you get to that fatigue or failure place, but it will take you longer. So that's why once you get into this world, you tend to just end up progressing towards heavier and heavier weights because the real sweet spot for most people who only want to work out for 30 minutes and not. Hours something. Is to do three or four sets of movements for about six to 12 reps. So if you can do. If you can do more than 12 reps at the end of, of your third set in your movement. And you don't feel like you are at that point of fatigue or failure, then you probably need to increase your weights. And that can kind of be like this play. This little interplay there. For you while you're figuring out exactly how hard to push yourself. And I personally just go for the heaviest wheats possible mostly just for time. Because I can get a workout. I mean, I know that we recommended women work on this for 30 minutes, but I, because I'm not in a gym waiting for equipment, et cetera, I'm in my garage where I have my weights. I can usually get in an, in a workout and out of a workout and hit all of the major lifts that I wanted to do in like around 20 minutes, just because of I'm like, I just want to make it count, make it really hard and heavy. Push my body to the place where it's going to need to repair. And then be done. And that might be really that might be intimidating for some women to hear, or that might be like such a relief for women to hear like, oh really, I can do that. I'm allowed to do that. Yeah, I think understanding too, like when you got back into it, you probably weren't at the highest level that you could do now versus, you know, at the beginning, so helpful to see also you can start, there's no shame. You just need to just get started. Right. So what works now? Potentially that's the goal right? In a couple months from now, hopefully those lighter weights. Aren't still keeping you at that same place and you're moving up and you're challenging your body a little bit. And then depending on what is already going on within your body, like, I have a shoulder injury that side, no matter what I do can not do the same thing as the other side can. Right. And then being able to be like, Okay. Well, I don't also don't want to hurt myself, so I really need to get down with like, okay, if I have to go slower, if I have to do fewer reps, if the law, if the weight on that side needs to look different for this particular move. That is okay. Also. So really kind of fine tuning that, listening to your body while also pushing it. Is important and that's a part of just connecting with your body and listening to it too. You had mentioned cardio, and I think that's a helpful thing also to chat about. This is not like an attack on cardio whatsoever. We're simply just talking about muscle mass. So that's why we're going to just be focusing much more on that, but small amounts of cardio while you are trying to really focus on muscle mass are okay. Anything over 30 minutes. Can potentially cause protein breakdown and just prevent growth of those muscles. So I know women who hate cardio and this news is like really great. And I know women who are like, I love cardio so much that it gives me joy to do it. Okay, great. But if this is a goal of yours, it's helpful just to sort of put it in perspective. Yeah, absolutely. Like, I mean, there's, there's endorphin rushes that come with cardio. There is opportunities to be outdoors, which is, you know, like that that's an important part of exercise too. There's women who have, you know, certain goals like marathon running or right. Like, so there's lots of, there's lots of valid pieces of having cardio a part of an exercise routine if you want it there. But I'm here to say that if you do not want cardio as a part of your exercise routine, and you want to be fit, you do not have to do cardio. You are going to get enough of a heart rate increase and enough of a. Like prac practice. Heart muscle. Heart rate thing. You know what I'm trying to say? There's a word there. That's not coming. But you are going to challenge your heart muscle enough with. Weightlifting that you are going to get the benefits of cardio. And also weightlifting contributes to better performance in other more cardio like sports. So it's really about balance. It's really about shifting. Goals, potentially looking at the exercise that is actually better for women, better for their health, better, better for body composition. Just better overall. And figuring out how to make something work that is going to. Help you reach those goals. I love it. I feel like this gives, hopefully anybody listening feels some freedom in all of this, as they're figuring out like, what exactly is right for you and balancing that with. Your likes and what is actually going to be consistent for you and all of that good stuff. So as you're building muscle, right, we're talking about how cardio. Pieces of it can potentially prevent some of that muscle growth how the muscles are actually grown and what to do about that. Really helpful to understand though, too. And we've mentioned protein a little bit, protein intake is going to be a huge part of your muscle building journey. And so generally speaking, you want to look at your own personal body weight, and you want about a half to 0.8 grams per pound of protein for your body weight. Right? So if you weigh a hundred and. 30 pounds. That's like 70 to about a hundred grams a day. So, if you weigh more than that, less than that, you can kind of, do the math for yourself, but that's generally what you're aiming towards in terms of building muscle. And so that may be, you may be hitting that and you're like, dude, I'm like killing it. Or you may look at your day and be like, oh yep. I can hit 50. That's what I'm normally doing. Okay. Well then now, if this is the goal and this is what we're working towards. We got to start to get a little creative, got to start to really think about this and prioritize it throughout your day. If you're prioritizing protein at every single meal and in each snack. You will most likely be hitting this number, but you may not be doing that right now. Right. And so figuring out what proteins do you like, what can you eat? Can you add an extra serving of a particular something? What kind of snacks can you grab easily? That kind of stuff so that you can make that shift to a higher. Graham per day load for yourself. Yeah. And I mean, unfortunately, if you are not eating enough protein, but you are participating in weight training exercises, you were not going to grow. Your muscles at all. In fact, you're going to create more stress inside your body because you've created this thing that needs to be repaired and can't actually be prepared. Repaired properly and it'll be an inflammatory state. So protein is really important. Let's talk about cycle sinking, because that's a huge thing that we are just like about here in general. And we apply cycle sinking to so many different things. Like. How to spend creative energy during your cycle, how to do seed cycling, what things to eat. We have like a whole episode on cycle sinking that we can share with you guys. And we also have a cycle sinking guide that I'll link in the show notes for women who want to know more about that, but there are ways to. Maximize muscle mass growth in your cycle. And the place that you want to kind of emphasize that the most is this first part of your cycle when estrogen is the highest, because it is very forgiving to cortisol and we can handle these harder workouts without having our hormones very much affected. And estrogen also allows us to build muscle mass faster than in our luteal phase because progesterone and our luteal phase in the second half of our cycle is actually an antagonist to muscle mass. So we want to emphasize protein at this point in our cycle. And we also want to just be sure that we're participating in. Our weight training activities. During this part of our cycle. The most you need about 35 grams of protein at once in one sitting to properly stimulate amino acid receptors, which are going to help to get protein into your muscles that need to be repaired. That means we need to eat that huge bolus of protein within like an hour of working out in order to maximize that. So we we've ripped our muscles with our. Exercise. And then we're going to shove a ton of protein in there so that our body can repair it and, and help to build some of those muscle fibers back in again. Yeah, and I just, I just love the idea of cycle sinking in general, because it makes you think about what is happening in your body and put a purpose to it and connect with it and think about it. And it's just yet another reminder, right? That like nothing happens in our bodies in a vacuum, like it is all interconnected and then we get to actually use it to our advantage. So during ovulation, after that first part of the cycle, right during ovulation, testosterone is at the highest at this point, which makes sense. Right? Most women are like, Hey, at this point in my cycle, I'm like interested in having sex. I'm feeling very energetic. I'm very creative. I have all of this like capacity. Right. So we want to take advantage of that here now as well. You can lift the heaviest usually around this time, so you can literally go big at. In all of the ways, right. Creatively libido wise, and building muscle mass. So going big at this point is usually the best benefit. And, but you also want to think about, and most likely if you're going bigger, this will come also, but going slower so big and slow, you don't need. Or you can lean into the idea of, of those bigger weights rather than the small ones with a bunch of reps, just going slowly with the big stuff around this time, because. Again, your hormones are working for you to kind of lean into that during that ovulatory period. Yeah. And then right after ovulation, which is typically like this day 16 to 19 progesterone is not quite building up yet. And we have the one final window to maximize protein intake and muscle mass before we hit day 20, which is really important because that is when our progesterone starts to peak to support our luteal phase. Progesterone wants to ensure that our bodies are completely capable. Bubble of handling a potential pregnancy. If we got pregnant in our Latori window. And so progesterone is just all about making everything full and soft and slow. And so this is not the time to maximize a ton of weights after day 20. This is not a time that our body is going to be really receptive to protein. Still important to get plenty of protein, just to. Continue to support yourself, metabolically and blood sugar wise and everything like that. But this is the time that we need to. actually slow down, kind of chill out. We don't want to do like a lot of endurance training. We don't want to do really heavy weights during this time while we're waiting for our period to come. We want to try to keep cortisol as stable as possible and preparing for the start of our cycle is actually going to help us to have a smoother cycle. So a lot of women, they just keep going hard throughout their whole entire cycle until their period comes in and they're like, well, now I'm, I'm totally wiped. And I have to take this time to. Slow down and bleed and rest, but what's happening. With our hormones during our cycle is actually, our body is telling us and giving us lots of signs and signals to slow down and rest. When progesterone is building in that final week and women who do that transition into their menstrual period, a lot smoother. And a lot of women need that first or second day to kind of like, just adjust to. Having the heaviest flow of your period and that big hormonal shift that happens can just kind of feel disruptive. But that's what estrogen is starting to build again, in that first part of your cycle. And you have a potential for really being able to get back to more endurance, just what's happening with hormones in men and metabolically in your body and back to the protein building. You want to know something crazy? So I've shared a handful of times. I love sweating on the first day of my cycle. Like I get into my sauna bag and love it. I don't necessarily. I enjoy working out on that first day because my period just starts and it's heavy that first day. But the second day of my cycle is like, I get the. I can PR I can get like the best I can do the. I like, there's something about that second day where I'm like, man, this is a great day for me in my body. Like, and it's very counter. I'm not pushing myself so hard and not pretending like I'm not on my period or something, but there's some thing that is happening hormonally that I'm like, oh yes, this feels, it feels good right now. And most women would say that no matter what their issues are around their period, moving feels better. Moving usually improves the period and is just a better. happier thing. So. You ladies have a lot of information. You have a lot of our opinions. Also you have a lot of our experiences and I hope encouragement to at least consider how to work this in a little bit more into your lifestyle. I know that it's going to benefit every single woman who is able to just start somewhere, do something. And we have a couple of resources available to you. In the show notes, we have a blog all about whole food protein. protein. ideas. So things that you can quickly grab a snack or small meals that is like real food. We also have that muscle mass building protocol from full script that you can find inside of the show notes. And I'm also gonna throw in our community membership, wait list. I know it's not open now, but put yourself on the wait list. So when it does open, you can jump in there and get tons of support for stuff just like this, but especially access to the metabolic health course that Kelly created for us there last year. It just unpacks everything about how to get yourself as metabolically healthy as possible, and some really tangible ways to do that, including this whole muscle building idea. I hope, I mean, this has been one of my favorite episodes to record in a while. It's just getting me fired up. I'm like how something that it can feel like a roadblock in some ways, but when you hear it like this, you're like, why wouldn't I? Right. And so I hope that you listening are feeling the same way. Feeling fired up about taking care, really good care of yourself in a way. that makes sense. Hormonally, biologically metabolically all of those things line up. And so that just, it's exciting to be able to share stuff like this and hopefully encourage you for lifelong health, no matter what kind of season of life you are in. And so, again, hopefully this leaves you encouraged it. It was a joy to chat about this next week. We're going to go into something that actually can be impacted as well. Just metabolically by muscle mass and all that good stuff. We're going to be chatting about preventing hypertension, high blood pressure. And so that's going to be like, sort of the next stage of some of these conversations of just what's going on metabolically. So excited to. Lead you through that information next week as well. All right, ladies, we'll see you then. Bye.