I Kept My Muscle & Lost 25 lbs of Menopause Weight

I lost 25 pounds of menopause weight in 3 months and I didn't lose my muscle. That's not what people expect. The assumption is that when the number on the scale drops fast, the muscle goes right along with it. Mine didn't. I'm pretty sure I gained muscle on top of it too, once the fuel finally matched the training. I have a biochemistry background and when I finally took a hard look at my own numbers, that's where the answer was hiding. Not in the gym, in what I was eating. For years, I was getting bare minimum protein in a day. Once I flipped that, more protein than I ever thought I needed, that's when the weight started coming off and that's when my muscles finally got the fuel my workouts needed the whole time. I'm going to show you what changed, what I still do for strength, and by the end, why this right here, why it's sitting here. During my search, I looked hard at what I was eating day to day. Out of convenience, I'd fallen into a bad pattern of eating whatever my kids were eating or whatever my husband was eating. We'd split a sub sandwich and chips almost every day. Breakfast was cereal or half a bagel because that's what was in the house for them. They could handle it. My post-menopause body couldn't anymore. When I added up the protein in my diet, the number floored me. Barely 30 grams a day. My meals were not protein forward and I was hungry all the time. Looking back now, it makes total sense. I knew the science. What I hadn't done was apply it to myself. This is a randomized controlled study of overweight post-menopausal women. One group ate high protein during weight loss and the other ate normal protein. Higher protein may help maintain muscle strength. Right there in the conclusions. Both groups lost weight, but the higher protein group held on to their strength while the normal protein group lost it. That's the difference protein made. So how much protein do you need? Research supports around 68-84 grams for women our age, which is higher than other adults because we require more. Personally, I think that number is conservative and I aim for at least 100 a day. Here's the kicker most women don't know and I wish I knew sooner. After menopause, your body starts losing muscle up to 10% per decade after 50. Most women have no idea it's happening. Estrogen is a big part of the cause. It was actively protecting your muscle. But when it drops at menopause, the protection goes along with it. This part really landed for me when I found it. After menopause, your body becomes less efficient at converting protein into muscle, even when you're doing the work. The research has a name for it, anabolic resistance. Your muscle's response to both protein and exercise is diminished, which means protein alone isn't enough, and exercise alone isn't enough either. After menopause, they need each other in a way that they didn't before. And that's where the two halves come together and that's where we're going next. Having muscle already in place before I even started trying to lose weight is part of why it worked as fast as it did for me. All 25 pounds in three months. I've done some kind of resistance training my entire life. I started teaching aerobics classes at a women's fitness center back in high school and it's how I put myself through college. What I will give you is the framework that's worked for me and still does. Four categories, none of them require gym membership. The equipment, where there is any, costs very little. Every single one can be modified if your joints are having a rough day. And all of them are genuinely effective. I know because I've been doing them for decades. Let's start with the most versatile, resistance bands. This is where I'd start if you're starting from scratch. Because there is no muscle group that a band can't target, none. Right now I mostly use them for lower body, but I rotate things. Whatever I want to work on that day, there's a band exercise for it. Here's what makes band resistance training unique. Bands are easier on your joints than free weights. By the way elastic resistance works, the tension is lighter at the start of the movement, right where your joints are most vulnerable, and builds up to it's peak where your muscles are strongest. It's a built in benefit of how bands work, and it's why physical therapists use them for rehab. They also engage more surrounding muscle, not just the muscle you're targeting, but the stabilizer muscles around it. That's functional strength, and it matters more than isolated strength as we get older. And there's a different type of exercise I'll get into in a bit that takes it even further, but let's finish this here first. Research shows bands produce comparable muscle strength gains to free weights when the effort is matched. Your muscles don't know the difference. When I started I began with 3 sets of 10-15 reps. Then I increased reps first to 20-25 before I added more sets. I maintain about 5 sets now. And as you build, you move up in band resistance too. They come in sets with increasing resistance level, so the progression is built right in. For specific exercises, search resistance bands and whatever muscle group you want to target. There's tons of great tutorials for every single one. Now I want to talk to you about isometrics. No equipment, no gym, and there's basically no excuse not to do them. Isometrics are exercises where you hold a position under tension rather than moving through a rep. Your muscle is working the whole time, you're just not going anywhere. Here's my favorite, planks. They get credit for the core, but a plank is as close to full body targeting as you can get. Your shoulders, your back, your glutes, your legs, everything is bracing at once. It's one of the most efficient exercises you can do. Start with a goal of 1 minute. If you can't get there yet, break it up. 30 seconds, rest, 30 seconds again, build from there. Not going to sugar coat it. This one is brutal at first. Nobody nails a full minute right away, but that struggle is the muscle working hard. That's how you know it's doing something. And I mean it when I say you can do these anywhere. My sister, who's also a menopause coach, has basically been on a global plank tour for years. Wall squats are another one I do regularly, anywhere, anytime. They're easier on the knees and back, and they isolate the quads in a way that's hard to replicate without a machine. The setup is simple. It's like you're sitting in a chair with your back against the wall, except there's no chair. Same progression for these. Start where you are, hold as long as you can, and build the time from there. There's one more bodyweight move I want to mention because it has a surprise benefit I haven't talked about yet. Calf raises. This is another one you can do anywhere. I do them on the stairs most days, exaggerating the movement on the way up to get the full stretch and raise. Early research suggests the calf muscle is a surprisingly powerful glucose disposal muscle. Keeping it active after meals may blunt blood sugar response. And if you've been around this channel for a while, you know how much blood sugar changes the game after menopause. And it costs you nothing to add 10 calf raises every time you go up a flight of stairs. These days for arm and upper body, I use hand weights. And I want to be clear. These don't need to be heavy. I'm talking about the small ones you can pick up at any sporting goods store or even 5 below. I use them for bicep curls, shoulder and tricep presses, and rows for my back. And yes, resistance bands can cover all of these too. I just like the feel of the weights for my upper body. Use what works for you. Same progression as the bands. Start with 3 sets of 10-15 reps. Build the reps before you add sets. And when it stops feeling like work, add weight. Everything I've discussed so far has been part of my routine for decades. But this next one is the one I'd fight hardest to keep. And it's probably the one most of you never consider for muscle. Yoga. I know, but here's what people don't get. Yoga is a body weight resistance training. Every hold, every pose, every transition is your muscle working against your own weight. Same principle as a plank, just a completely different form. And yoga can meet you exactly where you are. There are gentle classes built around recovery and mindfulness. And then there are yoga classes that are the hardest things I've ever done. I'm not exaggerating. I've taken classes that left me more spent than anything else in my routine. But balance is the big reason I keep coming back to it. And we're not just talking about falling. A study of over 1,700 adults found that people who can't stand on one leg for just 10 seconds had nearly double the risk of dying within the next decade. Double. So try this right now. Tree pose. Both sides. See how long you can hold it. If it's shaky, I'd practice it daily. Flexibility matters for the same reason. And yoga has plenty of it. A large study found that women with low flexibility had nearly five times the mortality risk of women with high flexibility. Five times. I thank my mother for mine. She put me in gymnastics when I was really young and I never lost it. But flexibility and balance are both trainable at any age. There are good yoga tutorials online and you can do this at home. But if there's a studio near you, I'd go when you can. Now this one. This is the hand gripper. I keep it at my desk and I use it several times a day. It works for your grip and your forearm flexors. Small investment. Zero setup. And you can do it while you're doing something else entirely. But here's the real reason I wanted to show you this. This study followed nearly 7,000 adults for 17 years, measuring grip strength and tracking what happened to them. The result? A 17% higher risk of dying from diminished grip strength alone. And that held up across age groups. Across men and women, grip strength isn't just about opening jars. It's a marker of how well your whole body is aging. My 22-year-old regularly hands me jars she can't open. But thanks to my gripper routine, I open them like nothing. It's not glamorous, but very little about staying strong is. And I'm not done adding to this. There's something else I'm working on right now. It's low impact, full body, and honestly really fun. I'll bring you in on that one soon. This is what works for me. The protein approach and the exercise framework I just walked you through. Always talk to your doctor before starting or changing your exercise routine or diet. And if you want to understand how blood sugar changes your relationship with food after menopause, and how I use that to lose 25 pounds, the video is linked right here for you. I'll see you on the next one.