Not Just Aging Gracefully, Staying in Prime Health

There's a new expression "70 is the new 60".  Some of us may not feel that way.  Matter of fact as we age, we may feel anything BUT younger, no matter what our mind tells us.  All those aches and pains that seem to increase and not go away; a bunch of extra fat around our middles; lack of places to go 'work out' at an 'adult' pace; to name a few.  Let's take a look at aging.  There has been much scientific progress on working with the aging population that looks at the realistic challenges of increased age and what the perfect solutions are for slower metabolisms, keeping muscle tone, and keeping that belly roll under control.

To start with, men age differently than women.  Women are not 'small men'.   They have different metabolic needs because of their hormone challenges.  For example, men can work out and increase muscle mass in a week by 3 to 4 times that of women because of the way men's metabolisms process protein.  Keeping our muscle tone as we age, is extremely important for skeletal stability, heart function, and those body systems that they indirectly affect like brain and mitochondria.  It's a good idea to keep in mind that walking and other aerobic activity is good for general health; but it is resistance exercise that builds and maintains muscle.  Two days a week, physical exertion, geared toward your personal build, level of strength, health and agility is going to be key in making this a reality.  
Sometimes, in the process of trying to keep that belly roll under control, we mistake weight loss for greater health.  Most often, because muscle weighs more than fat, we are losing muscle instead.   The best resistance exercise is in small 15 to 20 minute workouts where you work intensely for 15 - 30 seconds and then rest for equal or more seconds.  Exercise in general, even for great athletes is always a matter or working and then recovering.  Most of us do not give ourselves enough time for recovery because we are so intent on getting better we push ourselves too much.  Pain caused by lactic acid in our muscles after exertion is a good sign that we have not practiced recovery.   As you begin, 2 days a week for high intensity resistance training is enough; and you may even find that you need a 2 day rest in between, as you feel your muscles 'complaining'.  Starting back again too soon, will take away from your gain, so walk, or do other aerobic or less strenuous things in between including a day or two off from exercise entirely.  You can find many resistance exercises for aging individuals on youtube if you are unable to find a trainer locally or group class that targets your goals.  And remember, that if you have chronic health issues, less may be more as you develop a habit of exercise that keeps you moving, while you gain on your physical challenges.
Eating protein is KEY for older women especially in order to build and maintain muscle.  Science now demonstrates that when working intensely, it is better to eat a small amount of protein (2-4 gm) like a couple tablespoons of yogurt or half a banana to have enough protein on board to avoid the lactic acid response and then eat some good protein within 45 minutes afterward to give the body good protein to build and keep that muscle you just worked for.  It is within that 45 minutes that your body is looking for the right building blocks in response to your muscles calling for it; after that, other parts of your body are looking for protein and you have missed your window.   Although there is much question about how much protein we should eat and whether it puts too much strain on our kidneys; that issue only applies if you have kidney disease.  As women, in midlife to menopause and beyond, protein at every meal is a must.  It's not just about meat intake; nuts, seeds, legumes, and even some vegetables contain good digestible protein as well as good grass fed dairy if you don't have an intolerance.
Keeping fat around our middles under control seems to get harder as we age.  Some of us eat less, thinking we will lose, to no avail.  Some of us cut out carbs and eat only salads which sometimes helps with weight loss, but also takes away from muscle mass.   Starving ourselves will not solve the problem.  Hormone balance, cortisol management, insulin control and eating for your age are important to maintaining muscle and keeping the midriff bulge off.  Here are some keys to eating for peri-menopause and beyond:
1.     Eat more vegetables.  The greatest color variety and diversity as you can across a week will give you a wide variety of nutrients and feed your organs, while keeping glycemic levels low and sugar cravings at bay.  They will offset carbs and boost metabolism, provide anti-oxidants and fiber for good bowel and flora activity.

1. Eat as many organic, whole foods as you can.  Making meals from scratch may be more work but you're worth it.  These will help boost your metabolism.  There are many food challenges to avoiding toxins from herbicides and transport issues that your liver will have  deal with; and you will find that the nutrient density of organics will satiate your appetite with smaller portions.  Whole foods means not processed.  This means non-premade dinners, staying away from chips, pasta, breads, pastries, and any foods that contain preservatives, chemical flavorings, sugar and salt.
2. A salad start to each meal will offset carbs and science has proven that one salad a day will increase your longevity by 10 years.  Add a good protein to this and you will have a well rounded nutritional meal.  Good examples for protein are:  grass fed meat, chicken, fish, eggs, nut butter and celery, cheese, avocado,  salmon, hummus. Do not eat carbs alone!  Eating other food groups with carbs will offset the glycemic levels; and, as mentioned in previous blogs, potatoes and rice cooled first and reheated before eating will cut glycemic levels by half.
3. Stay hydrated!   2.7 liters of water per day for women.  Drink a large glass of water with lemon first thing out of bed in the morning and finish the remainder over the course of the day.  This will cut your appetite and help regulate body temperatures.  One trick is to add an organic electrolyte powder to your first glass of water to help your body wake up and prime your metabolism for the day.
4. Get rid of sugar!  Once you get the addictive cravings out of your system; you may find you get cravings when your body is indicating it's need for energy.  If you make a note of when these craving patterns occur, you can determine when your body energy is low and eat more nutrient food accordingly.  (ex: if mid afternoon, eat more at lunch)
5. Go easy on alcohol.  A glass of wine or drink once in a while is not beyond reason.  Just take into consideration that it takes your liver 3 days to process the toxic affects of 1 drink out of your system and while that is taking place, it does not have the capacity to detox other factors like blood, urine, hormones, etc.  Alcohol is also high in sugar and can trigger your cravings all over again.
6. Cook more, dine out less.  As mentioned above, you can keep track of your food sources and toxin intake much better when you make it yourself.
7. When you do eat out, try to skip the fries and chips.  You can always substitute for a salad. 
8. Watch the oils.   Avoid canola, rapeseed, (which is another reason to eat out less.  Soybean oil is cheap to buy commercially and most restaurants, including organic ones, use it with their cooking)  Soy is NOT your female friend and we now know that too much soy based food items will upset female hormone balance.  These oils are the hidden problem with commercial chips, fried foods, pastries, breads and other processed foods.  Lighter, more nutrient dense oils, with NO hydrogenation like virgin olive, avocado, and coconut are the best to cook with. 
9. Moderate your portions.  Put the amount on your plate when serving that you expect to eat for that sitting and leave the seconds alone.  Better to eat 3 good meals a day with no snacks in between (unless you are fighting cravings) so that your digestive tract can rest in between (about 3 hours).  For diabetics, 2 large meals a day, with a 4 hour window before sundown (not sleeptime, when a correct circadian rythm will begin to shut digestion down); helps to moderate glucose levels.  For anyone eating a large meal in the evening, better to eat earlier (4 or 5 pm) so good digestion takes place before laying down.

Hormone Balance - What's new with HRT (hormone replacement therapy).  It is interesting to note that women in the early 1900s were prescribed additional hormones in their aging years, and most women did well on it according to research; though this took the form of hormones from horse urine and synthetic substances.  Research done on these women showed results of cancer and other disease states if not dosed well or because of individual incompatibility.  So  fear was released that caused most women to refrain from HRT and attempt to age naturally.  In the last 10 years much research has been done with bio-available and other lab produced hormones; along with appropriate testing, so that clean, reliable and safe HRT is now available and being used by our younger generations of women with good results.  There are 3 specific hormones that need to be balanced which are estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.  Some women are deficient in all 3 and some greater and lesser in others.  Every woman is different.  But the research is now available that shows a greater health in aging with balanced hormones that contribute to all the other categories we are talking about in this article.  Be wise and work with a OBGYN that specializes in hormone replacement; and make sure you are tested first.  Dosages are usually very small amounts but make a big difference; and the simple affect for women in skin tone in vaginal dryness, can make moving through this time of life much easier.
Cortisol Management - Let's talk about Circadian Rhythm.  Circadian rhythm is your body's natural cycles based on the rising and setting of the sun, and other factors that influence hormone balance and the metabolic function of your body at any given time of the day.  This is based on the hormone Cortisol which triggers brain responses that send signals to adrenals and other hormones.  It is responsible for the fight or flight syndrome, waking, sleeping, digestion, neurotransmitters in the brain, metabolic starting and resting among other things.  High levels of cortisol can be stored in belly fat and interfere with those daily rhythms, interrupting our body's efficiency  clock, causing a cascade of problems.  Among these could be sleep dysfunction, accumulated body fat, hormone imbalances, insulin resistance, etc.  Sound like the symptoms of aging?  What to do? 
At no time of life has eating well be more important and often women in menopause and peri-menopause find themselves eating differently naturally.  The suggestions above play an important part here.  Vitamin D and sunlight are especially important to start our days; and upon waking, taking in a "face full" of sunlight, even being outside in it for 15 minutes will start that cortisol surge.  We were created to respond to sunlight!  A healthy cortisol surge follows a specific curve, rising to its maximum output mid to late morning and falling off through the rest of the day and into the sleep spectrum until it begins to build again in the early morning hours to prepare for waking.  Whenever this curve is interrupted, it begins to work against us.  Blue light spectrum from computers and cell phones resembles the early morning sunlight spectrum so that if you are working late into the day or evening, science demonstrates that it can trigger you body to upregulate cortisol.  Hard time falling asleep at night?  Caffeine spikes cortisol and can over stimulate the cortisol curve by causing a surge, then dropping back down, surging, then dropping, etc.  Drink multiple cups daily and you are taking your body on a roller coaster ride.  Stress is another spike trigger for cortisol; and remember, too much daily, continual stress will contribute to interrupting and even shutting down organ systems long term.  Best to deal with this now, and not wait for inflammation and chronic disease to be your motivation.  Proper exercise and recovery, as mentioned above, is part of the picture of consistent cortisol production throughout the day, as muscles are fed and release their own hormone stimulants, feed mitochondria (the energy mechanism in our cells), strengthening cardiovascular function and elasticity.  No matter what health condition you are in, it is important to KEEP MOVING as we age. 
Insulin control - As mentioned above, this is another concern as we age.  It is your liver that balances the input and output of insulin and resistance or acceptance across your cell membranes.  Low mitochondrial function, cortisol spikes, imbalanced hormones can all affect your body's ability to deal with insulin.  It is now widely acceptable that many active, midlife women are wearing 'continuous glucose monitors'.  Although they are mostly recommended by physicians for folks with Type II diabetes; they are proving to be beneficial to women as they approach midlife to monitor when during their day, their insulin is spiking.  By thinking through the activities, eating habits and other factors around those spike times, gives clues as to what is affecting these spikes so that they can be addressed.  
Backaches and muscle weakness is a common symptom of aging and we often think that a more chronic condition is setting in.   Most low back pain is structurally muscle related.  Most people get bulging or slipping discs as they age and younger people with good musculature have no pain.   As we age and we are more sedentary and the general public does a lot of activities using our frontal muscles but not our counter balancing rear or back muscles.   As we age we need to be conscious to keep moving.  Many people walk which is a good way to keep back muscles strong; especially if you concentrate on holding in your core muscles (belly button to spine), walking straight (shoulders back, head up with ears over your shoulders) and not hunched over or leaning forward, stepping with your feet straight ahead and with feet 8 inches to a foot apart (not right next to each other), and lastly hinging at the hips backwards and forwards (not swinging them side to side).  In addition, good core exercises along with the right resistance exercises for you to include your back lateral muscles will continue to keep you limber and muscles supporting your vertebrae.  And remember to do recovery activities after working out. 
Skin care and cognitive function are sometimes the first things we think about as we age.  Certainly the changes in skin tone alone are more obvious, but consider also, how your internal skin (or connective tissue) is being affected.  Many women are well aware of not just wrinkles, but excess dryness of aging skin.  For some women, this can also affect vaginal area becoming extremely painful.  Hormone balancing and small amounts of oral HRT, not just topically in the vaginal area, will provide a complete hormonal balance that will bring positive affects to all the above mentioned aging issues if you have them.
If you suspect you are in need of balancing all these things as you age, are in good health and want to live well into your older years; this is a real reality with the science we now have.  Your first decision is to find a good functional medicine or naturopathic physician that specializes in hormones and female aging.  Once that is accomplished, you can ask questions about your own specific aging issues.  Don't take anything for granted, but continue to be your best advocate by asking questions and making sure you get the answers you need.  There are a lot of exercise and resistance training modules available on youtube that can give you an idea of the exercise needed as we age.  As always, there is a lot of information on the web that can get you started in learning; BUT make sure you get tested to find out what hormones are beginning to slow down and get professional advise on a local level so that someone can monitor you.  Remember, learn and work at your own pace.
Here are some excellent references you can start with in this process:
Debra Atkinson, MS - Flipping 50 insiders FB group - great exercises and mindset for reset.
Dr. Yoni Whitten - The Pain Fix Protocol, also great youtube exercises to learn from
Gabrielle Lyon, DO - Muscle Centric Medicine, How to Increase Lean Muscle
Marcelle Pick, ND  OBGYN - Is it Really Adrenal Fatigue
Anna Cabeca, MD OBGYN - The Hormone Fix
Mariza Snyder, MD - The Cause of Midlife Chaos and Other Female Challenges
Esther Blum, MS, RD, CDN, CNS - Micronutrients that Banish Menopot
Stacey Sims, MSc, PhD - Women's Science
Maria Claps, CHC, FDN-P & Kristin Johnson, JD, BCHN, FNTP - What Midlife Women Need to Know Before Considering Hormone Therapy
Keri Glassman MS, RD, CDN - Stress & Cortisol in Midlife

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