161. Optimizing Women’s Health: Caitlin Weiss on the Benefits of Strength Training, Fitness Tips, and the Role of Protein for Every Stage of Life

In this episode, Colette interviews her sister, Caitlin Weiss, a certified personal trainer specializing in women’s fitness. Caitlin shares her inspiring journey from overcoming childhood weight challenges to becoming a passionate advocate for women’s health and strength training.

Key Topics Covered:

The Importance of Strength Training for Women: Caitlin discusses how strength training is essential for women at every stage of life—from puberty to menopause. She explains how it helps build stronger bones, maintain muscle mass, and enhance overall well-being.

Protein Intake and Muscle Health: Learn why protein is crucial for muscle maintenance and growth, and how to incorporate it effectively into your diet to support your fitness goals.

Starting a Fitness Routine from Home: Caitlin offers practical, easy-to-follow tips for beginning a strength training routine, even if you don’t have access to a gym.

Episode Highlights:

01:00 Introduction to Caitlin Weiss: Discover Caitlin’s background and expertise in women’s fitness.

01:32 Overcoming Childhood Challenges: Caitlin shares her personal story of weight struggles and transformation.

03:16 Embracing a Healthy Lifestyle: The steps Caitlin took to prioritize her health and well-being.

06:04 Post-Pregnancy Fitness Journey: Insights into Caitlin’s fitness journey after becoming a mother.

07:55 Benefits of Strength Training: How lifting weights can improve bone density, muscle health, and overall vitality.

14:28 Starting Your Fitness Journey: Tips for beginners to build a sustainable and effective workout routine.

17:11 Protein for Fitness: The role of protein in building and maintaining muscle.

25:43 Final Thoughts: Caitlin’s motivational message on prioritizing health and living a fulfilling life.

Tune in to this episode to learn actionable strategies for integrating strength training and proper nutrition into your life, and start your journey towards a healthier, stronger you! 

Follow Caitlin for more fitness tips: https://www.instagram.com/farmfitnessgirl/

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Connect with Colette:

Instagram: @wellnessbycolette

Website: love-colette.com

Thank you for listening to the Limitless Healing podcast with Colette Brown! It would mean the world if you would take one minute to follow, leave a 5 star review and share with those you love!

In Health,
Colette

Transcript

[00:00:00] Colette Brown: Our next guest went through several Transformations in her lifetime, which inspired her into the career that she is doing at present, which is personal training with an emphasis on women's fitness. She is an advocate for women and others to live their best lives. She's a mother, a wife, a sister, and she's also my baby sister.

[00:00:24] It is my great honor to welcome Caitlin Weiss. Welcome Caitlin. Thank you, Collette. Thank you for the great introduction. It was great to have you on and you've been on before, but today's going to be a little bit different because we are going to go into your story a little bit more of what brought you here.

[00:00:45] And Although we have many stories to tell and we could laugh for hours and keep everybody entertained. We're going to dig into your story of maybe when you were younger, we both grew up in a little town called Yakima, Washington. And why don't you share with me an experience? Maybe that.

[00:01:05] May have shaped you, maybe it was an experience that made you uncomfortable, you didn't like, maybe it was about health, or maybe it was something that was completely different. But take me back to a childhood memory. 

[00:01:17] Caitlin Weiss: So while growing up in a large family, I was at the bottom of the barrel, and there was a boy, seven girls, and then another boy at the bottom.

[00:01:27] So I was second to last, and it was, I think it's funny now, and I did laugh about it then too, but I was a rather large child, because I loved to eat. And I don't know, I just. Never had that awareness of myself to like exercise or maybe eat a little bit less and everything like that. And so I, my older siblings, but you weren't part of those siblings used to pick on me a lot and call me like frosty, the snowman and Wally the walrus and all these things.

[00:01:57] Which it sounds really funny, but I was like, I'm 

[00:01:59] Colette Brown: clarifying. I did not do that. I was not part of that clan. 

[00:02:03] I know. I don't know if we're going to make it through this without laughing. So I can tell everybody now I'm confident and knowing that I'm not either. Wally the walrus or Frosty the Snowman.

[00:02:12] But when you're little, you don't know. No. Yeah, exactly. . . So I went through all of that and I think it really gave me a hard shell, to take that criticism. And and although like I know my siblings love me, I realized, I was like, man, I really am on the heavier side and I don't wanna be like that anymore 'cause it's not healthy for me.

[00:02:31] And I had encouragement from, our mom and, to. Make healthier decisions and everything, but then it wasn't until I started to Actually try to do something about it and try to limit my food intake and everything Then I started noticing a change in my personal life With the way my clothes fit and then I started losing weight and started exercising a little bit.

[00:02:54] So that was like my I guess my experience that shaped me into who I am today, that was like, like the start of it. And the most pivotal moment in my life. 

[00:03:03] And what was it? Was there like something that happened to make you stop and say, I want to change? Was there an instance or was it just enough is enough?

[00:03:14] Caitlin Weiss: I think it was like more enough is enough because as a person, I can put up a lot for a long time and pretty laid back, but I was tired of the comments. And then I just got tired of looking at myself in the mirror and I have beautiful siblings. I'm like, man, I want to look like that.

[00:03:29] And I didn't look like that. So I guess it was a point of comparing myself to others, which maybe isn't the healthiest, but for me it worked. So I'm just more competitive at nature. And so I feel like that was the point where enough was enough and I needed to make a change. 

[00:03:44] when we're younger, it's interesting what we're motivated by and there, there is something to be said about.

[00:03:51] Colette Brown: being aware and helping our children make good decisions and having healthy snacks out that they can eat, telling them nicely when they're eating processed food or too many dodents that are cucked in. really bad oil, that it's going to cause stress to the body. And so there's all kinds of things.

[00:04:14] So I, I also like from childhood, I I did not give my kids a lot of things that we were given as children. Number one is Donuts. And I have a very funny story about that for another show with my daughter. But the first time she had a donut was in kindergarten when she was five years old. And no, I let them have snacks and treats, but but I think there is something to be said because you are in the fitness world and nutrition and you are helping people to make a difference because if you stay on that trajectory, and you are severely overweight, you're going to put pressure on your joints, your organs, your heart.

[00:04:53] It's going to create a lot of stress in your body, which ultimately leads to wearing down. And as you get older, then you feel it. So there's just, there's nothing fun in that. So you lost the weight. and several years later you got married, you have a baby and then you like when you're pregnant, which I did the same thing.

[00:05:14] A lot of women do, you gain some weight again. 

[00:05:16] Caitlin Weiss: Yes, I did. I gained I think 50 pounds I gained which I know is typical for some people. Oh, yeah, I gained 50 pounds, and there's water weight and there's the baby and, but I just felt terrible. My back hurt all the time, obviously, because when you are pregnant.

[00:05:33] Your spine and everything's moving out of the way to prepare for a baby. So I knew that was happening, but I just I felt like a beached whale, like I couldn't move. It was terrible. And I went through. A second transformation after I had my daughter, I lost a bunch of weight again, but just still, didn't really have, that lean mass that I needed and it was from that point after I had our daughter that I realized, okay, I'm having terrible back issues again, and everything just is not going good. And I knew, I know I need to be stronger. And so I went through a third transformation and I started, I should say I started strength training about five years ago very consistently.

[00:06:18] And that's really been the beginning of my strength training journey. And then into that stemmed my personal training journey. So I really started noticing changes in my strength and my body composition. And then it just took off like wildfire. And I feel like there's so many other health benefits that have come from that.

[00:06:39] Colette Brown: That's beautiful. And we know that as we age, we lose muscle mass, which we can't get around as well. We don't burn calories as efficiently and we just don't it's just not a, it's not a good outcome. So you took hold of the reins. pretty quickly and you turned it around and you've, you dove into specifically of an emphasis in women's fitness.

[00:07:03] And I would love it if you would just give us a little window into what does that look like when somebody does want to start weight bearing? And I want to make an emphasis in the weight bearing and please expand and tell us why that's important and not just yoga's fine. These other movements are fine if you want to do stretching, but the weight bearing is critical.

[00:07:27] So why don't you tell us a little bit about that and maybe about how that fits into different phases of, when should somebody start working out and does it integrate with menopause? So we could, we can talk about all that. 

[00:07:39] Caitlin Weiss: Yeah, absolutely. So why strength training is specifically most important for our bodies is whenever we pick up weights, dumbbells, it could be kettlebells, whatever kind of weight, it doesn't matter.

[00:07:53] We add stress to our bones and then. With that, when we're aging, we start for women, we become osteopenic or we contain osteoporosis, either one of those. It's not it doesn't happen to everybody, but people who are like undernourished or they've never exercised in their life or more prone to it. So every time we lift up weights, we are building stronger bones.

[00:08:17] And so our body has to maintain and build stronger bones when we do that. And it's also very good for strength. It's very good for building muscle size as well. there's so many other benefits as well. Just contracting our muscles just spreads just so much health and wellness to our body and so much.

[00:08:37] Happy hormones. Exactly. Yes. The endorphin releases. So there's a lot that goes on. And then through each stage of life, and we'll go ahead and get into that and explain why that applies. So if you start from the very beginning, if you start with puberty, when girls are going through puberty, there's a lot of changes physiologically that are happening in a really short period of time.

[00:08:59] So everything under the sun that you can think of with development they're going through a lot of physical development, and then they're also going through mental development and strength training is important then as well, because we have we have growth hormone. Everybody has growth hormone until we're about 25 years old, and that helps stimulate muscle growth.

[00:09:20] And it's there for a reason, because it's there to help us mature. And grow into the bodies that we're going to have but it also helps us put on the muscle that we need, I think, to help lead us into our midlife. And so it's a really important time of our life and a really pivotal time of our life. To incorporate strength training.

[00:09:40] And then for girls who have like pretty intense PMS, it's really good for them as well. It helps balance your hormones and it helps psychologically and just body image wise. A lot, you go through a lot of that when you're especially like 15, 16. So you feel more confident about yourself. And that's an [00:10:00] important time.

[00:10:00] So that's puberty. And then the next would be your childbearing years. If you choose to have children, whether or not you do, you still have those hormones that are adequate. In a normal female body that is able to reproduce to have children, you have all of those hormones happening. And so then again, strength training is still important.

[00:10:21] So say you're in your twenties, you have like twenties, thirties, maybe a little bit in your forties to have children and you are. you're in major need of strengthening your pelvic floor in that point of your life, and then making sure you maintain strong bones and a lot of muscle mass as much as you can, because then before you know it, you're in perimenopause and perimenopause starts, can start in our forties.

[00:10:46] It can really start anytime in our life, but in our forties, and you are going to notice a drastic amount of. muscle loss starting in your forties. And then into your fifties as well. So when you're in perimenopause, it's really important to put stress on your body. As you're starting to lose your estrogen, it's starting to fall and you don't have that estrogen giving strong signals to the brain.

[00:11:12] So estrogen to us is what testosterone is to men. It's everything. It's our strength, our contractile function in our muscles. It's our balanced hormones. That's why we feel so crazy when we're going through perimenopause or menopause because We're not ourselves really, because we're this whole new person because of our hormones changing.

[00:11:33] And so in order to counteract that, some of those changes that are really hard to go through in life strength training again, becomes really important, but then you're going to shift your type of training to a really heavy strength training and heavy can be, subjective to anybody. So if you're picking up, that could be five pounds.

[00:11:52] You're like, Oh man, this is really heavy. And those five pounds seem heavy to you. Okay. You can start there. And then you just want to keep building and building with progressive overload, just adding more weight. And then that heavy could be like 80 pounds of somebody else. So again, like you just have to see what works for you.

[00:12:10] So have you strength training. And high intensity training or sprint training to also, again, add more stress to the central nervous system to respond to these changes that our body needs to make because our estrogens not helping us out anymore. 

[00:12:26] Colette Brown: I want to say, I'm going to interject there because your handle on Instagram is farm fitness girl.

[00:12:32] Is that right? Yeah. So it's important because wherever you're at. You can work out if you're at home. If you're in a hotel room you there I've seen weights where you can carry inflatable weights that you can put water in to make them heavy. You can have, two water bottles. You could do different types of exercises, but there's, or you can go to a gym I'm in Los Angeles and to get to a gym will take me 30, 40 minutes and then to go in and work out and then it adds on two hours or more to my day.

[00:13:06] And I don't have that. So I work out every day from home and I have weights And the fun thing is that I've been having to add heavier weights to my collection because the weights are not as heavy as what I used to be able to do. And so it's exciting to track my own progress, but wherever you're at, you can do this.

[00:13:26] Oh yeah. Yeah. What's a good way for somebody to start start into this if they're not doing it yet? 

[00:13:33] Caitlin Weiss: So if they're just like starting from scratch, never exercised before, so you can do this from home and you can just do body weight exercises. And what I mean by that is you're not going to use any weight except for your body.

[00:13:47] Okay. So you can do this with just like air squats. You can do this with pushups. Those are very challenging, but just body weight. Yes. You can do, you can buy pull up bars and hook them onto your door and do pull ups in your house. Those are very challenging. But you don't have to start at those levels.

[00:14:04] If you've never ever done this before, you can just start with air squats. You can sit down on a chair and then stand back up and put your glutes towards the edge of the chair, your butt, in other words, towards the edge of the chair, sit and then stand and then sit and then stand and repeat that three, do it three sets, 10 repetitions each.

[00:14:25] And for most people that I've worked with that are a little more deconditioned, they find that very challenging. Just, Repetitions like that. It gives you security because you have a chair behind you, but it starts building your leg strength. And then for your upper body, just doing pushups on your knees and maybe looking up some tutorials.

[00:14:45] I have some on my Instagram handle as well. So if you guys want to look that up, but it's really important to start somewhere and not accept defeat and realize that I can do this. I am strong. And if I want to be sitting in a wheelchair, I better start doing, I better start doing those chair squats and do those.

[00:15:05] So I don't have to sit in a wheelchair. So thinking about the future and being in giving yourself that confidence, having somebody to be alongside you to encourage you, like you can do this. And even like you said It can, you can do this anywhere in a hotel at your house. I work out from my home and you can, there's no excuses.

[00:15:26] You can do 5 minutes, 10 minutes. And even if it's just that little portion, you did something. And then when you have more time. Then you can always add more time, but don't beat yourself up, up over. I don't have a whole hour. You have five minutes, five minutes

[00:15:41] Colette Brown: that I'm rushing around and I just don't have the time. Even if I don't have the time, I will at least do, I'll do 10 minutes. I'll say, okay, 10 minutes and I'm going to make it count. And some of those 10 minutes, sometimes I'm sore after because I really just, I don't Did an intense workout just to get it in.

[00:15:59] So no excuses, right? Exactly. 

[00:16:02] Caitlin Weiss: And that's how you make progress, so it's better than nothing. And in that case, like when you hear some, somebody say, Oh yeah, it's better than nothing. It really is. 

[00:16:10] Colette Brown: So do 

[00:16:10] Caitlin Weiss: something. 

[00:16:11] Colette Brown: So the other side of this, when you're working out, you have to eat right. And there's a lot of things around eating, right?

[00:16:19] But the one I want to touch on is protein. We know that I think most people are not eating enough protein. So why don't you tell us how much we should be eating so that we can have maximum benefit to our bodies. 

[00:16:33] Caitlin Weiss: Yeah, absolutely. So first I just want to point out that most women have a hard time getting in around 50 or 60 grams of protein a day, which is extremely low.

[00:16:43] If you're a full grown woman and you weigh 50 or 60 pounds, maybe, but that's a lot. I don't know any. So in other words, you need one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So if you weigh 150 pounds and you need 150 grams of protein. So for women, it's much harder than it is for men to get their protein in.

[00:17:03] But for women, I would say it's like almost even more important. Like it is equally important, but just know that for women, we just need more of a stimulant. And when we get into menopause, we need an even larger stimulant. And everything just doesn't respond as it used to with our estrogen.

[00:17:20] So on that note, for menopause, make sure you're upping your protein a little bit more, but then for just anybody that is wanting to up their protein, I always tell people instead of stressing over trying to get to your body weight because you think about that and you're like, Oh my word, that's a lot of protein.

[00:17:37] Just start with like a hundred grams because you probably weren't even getting a hundred grams of protein in. Start with small progressive steps. Just like you would have a strength training and set a goal to up that like 10 grams each day until you get there. And then you get the hang of how much protein you should have, but it is so vital.

[00:17:56] You can be exercising and working so hard, but if you're not getting enough protein in your starving, your body's. Ability to make sure that you build muscle and maintain muscle, especially for women. The key is maintaining muscle. It's already hard enough to put muscle on the older we get. So if we're not getting that protein in.

[00:18:18] Then we're not doing ourself any good at all. And a lot of times I'll ask women, what are you eating for protein? And the answer is in the morning I have some yogurt and then at night I have some cheese and I'm like, Oh dear Lord, anyway, it stresses me out. 

[00:18:34] Colette Brown: So why don't you give us a snapshot of what it looks like to eat 150 grams of protein?

[00:18:38] Okay. 

[00:18:39] Caitlin Weiss: Okay. Okay. So you can, in that case, you can break down your protein, you could do like 45 grams of pop. So we'll go through that. So in the morning first thing when you wake up, you have an hour window after you wake up when you have been fasting overnight. Everybody does naturally.

[00:18:57] So you have a really. Pivotal time right there to get some protein and an hour after so that I'm interjecting that I know that's not all we're going to say here, but your body's ready to it's in a mode called muscle protein synthesis, and it's ready to be fed. So an hour after you wake up protein timing is super important.

[00:19:17] You're going to have at least. At least 30 grams of protein. So how you divide that up throughout the day is totally fine. But if it were me, I'd go like 40 grams of protein in the morning, right? Out of the gate. And then I would also do a, and then I usually exercise after that. And then I do a protein shake after that.

[00:19:35] That is around 45 or 50 grams of protein. And then I would do another snack that's 30 grams of protein. And then I would do another 20 grams of protein. And then I would just keep breaking it up until I get to the one 50 and making sure that your breakfast and your dinner hold heavily. The protein amounts.

[00:19:56] So that can look like it's different for everybody. [00:20:00] Everybody's work schedule is different. And for me, it changes on a day to day basis, but you want to just make sure you're tracking it and not guessing. You want to go in with a plan and say, I know that this way shake has 50 grams of protein in it.

[00:20:13] Okay. Awesome. The more you can get in at once, the better. 

[00:20:17] Colette Brown: Yeah, that's a good a good recommendation. So if you're trying not to do I don't do any shakes personally. Yeah. I try to do it all through whole foods. And so I look at the content like a chicken breast is what 26 or 30 grams of protein.

[00:20:33] And then your egg is what, six grams. So really paying attention, I think to, if you're trying to do it without shakes or bars or anything, you have to really tune in and plan it out. And like you said earlier, what I really liked is be gentle with yourself. And if you're noticing that you're only doing 20 grams a day but to 50 and then maybe to 75 and figure out how you can integrate more.

[00:21:00] And if you're a vegetarian. You have to really be mindful of where it's coming from. So those are such great tips. 

[00:21:08] Caitlin Weiss: Yeah. And I would say too, if, and I'm glad you brought up the vegetarian, because if you are a vegetarian, then you need to probably be getting even more protein because it's, Vegetarian sources of protein are not as bioavailable.

[00:21:23] So they, they're not broken down quite the same as animal proteins. And so you want to make sure that you're very cautious about what you're putting in your body because it can really essentially it can turn into Into fat because of the way your body is processing it. So also when you're doing dietary protein like whole foods, those don't go straight into your bloodstream.

[00:21:44] So they take longer to process because they have the fats and everything in there. So if you are breaking up your protein, then protein timing becomes even more important because you don't want to eat And then eat another hour later because your body is still processing that dietary protein. So you want to make sure to break it up if you can, and just have all that protein at once that you need, 45 or 50 grams.

[00:22:06] Colette Brown: So is, can you eat too much protein at one sitting? Can our bodies not process like a hundred grams at one time? 

[00:22:14] Caitlin Weiss: Yeah. So you never really want to proceed. Never want to, excuse me, never want to go over 50 grams of protein. Ever. Okay. And that's just right. Because then, your body takes half of that for muscle protein synthesis, and then the other half it shuttles to like organs and goes into, if it has an ample amount of protein, it goes into a pool of amino acids that you have inside of your body.

[00:22:37] So if you get over that, then that kind of gets into some. Out of bounds areas you don't want to have too much because then essentially maybe it could turn into something else. There is some data out there suggesting that it wouldn't really turn into fat, but it is a concern to not proceed that.

[00:22:54] So 

[00:22:55] Colette Brown: I want to also put in that bone broth is a really good source too. So yeah. You could buy it or you could make it. I make mine once a week and it's such a great source. Whenever I'm not drinking it, I noticed my hair and my skin does not feel the same. So that's 

[00:23:12] Caitlin Weiss: amazing. I believe you. You're serious about your bone broth and you look great.

[00:23:16] So you know, it's working. 

[00:23:18] Colette Brown: Yeah. But it's just some people are getting so confused about where do I get this, the protein from? And you've also got your ocean life that you can use and just be careful of making sure that it's wild caught and where it's from and the mercury in the water and getting metals in the body.

[00:23:37] There's so many things that we do need to consider. But all in all, this is really good because we at least have a guideline of what we need to do. This is great. Exactly. 

[00:23:48] Caitlin Weiss: Exactly. And it's too with when you are doing the dietary proteins, it's a great way to go or the bone broth because you want all nine essential amino acids that your body does not synthesize.

[00:24:00] And a lot of people are hung up to just on collagen powder, but collagen only contains eight of the essential amino acids and it's missing one of the most important for our bodies. And so all of that helps promote muscle protein synthesis. You have to be like. You don't have to be a scientist and this, I'm not saying anybody has to know all the ins and outs of it, but you do need to know that all nine essential amino acids are extremely important.

[00:24:25] And if you get that diet through dietary protein, you're going to be just fine. 

[00:24:30] Colette Brown: There's also really good supplements that have that are liver. If you don't like to eat liver, they have supplements where you can just take them and those are really good too. 

[00:24:40] Caitlin Weiss: Yes, we have some of those and they're extremely healthy for you.

[00:24:43] Yeah. 

[00:24:43] Colette Brown: As we're getting closer to the end. I'm going to ask you a question that I ask all my guests, which is if this was the last message that you had to broadcast out to the world, what would it be? 

[00:24:55] Caitlin Weiss: would say just in relation to your, not only your fitness, but your life and your family. I think that, I believe that living every day to its fullest is so important in the older I get.

[00:25:09] The more I realized that you never know how long you have in life. And so live every day, like it's your last day and live and treat people like you that's how you would want them to say about you if you were gone. And I think about that every day, I think about what would life be like? And my, with my absence, my, my husband and my daughter, and I know that sounds like really heavy, but I think that showing love to others and being there for family and being there for a friend is so important.

[00:25:44] And then taking care of our bodies every day. Cause we never know what tomorrow holds would be the next most important is why is very near and dear to my heart because it is close to you. The topic that I just brought up with family and living every day. Like it's your last because really you're investing in your health.

[00:26:01] Like you're investing in a 401k and we have to look at every day. This is another dollar we're putting in there and it's super important. And so I would say those two things are extremely important. 

[00:26:13] Colette Brown: That's a great answer. Thank you. Is there anything else that you'd like to add? 

[00:26:17] Caitlin Weiss: Yeah, just I would tell people to do their research and if there's something you don't know, then you should learn about it.

[00:26:25] And there's so many great resources we love in a day and age where you can find really great information. And we're just like, so blessed to have our phones. And I know that sounds weird to say, but to have technology, our phones, we have so much information at our fingertips and we should use that.

[00:26:43] And if we say, I don't know how to lose weight, then we should try to find that answer or whatever you fill in the blank but you'll be more confident and realize that you can, you can do hard things if you just find the answer. 

[00:26:56] Colette Brown: I like that. You can do hard things.

[00:26:58] I tend to say that often, especially when I call this is great. Caitlin, I really appreciate you, your passion that. You found something in life that you love and you went after it. And I tell people all the time, if you don't like what you're doing, it doesn't mean you have to walk away from it, but maybe you remember what it is that you used to like to do or.

[00:27:24] What piques your interest today and go after it. And because that little spark of whatever lights you up will light other people up. And I think the work that you're doing, Caitlin, how you're sharing is really inspiring to others. So keep going. You're doing great. This is your big sister telling you 

[00:27:42] And I really appreciate you tell people how they can find 

[00:27:45] Caitlin Weiss: you. So I have my Instagram handle, like you mentioned earlier, it's farm fitness girl, and you can message me on there, or if you have any questions, I love talking fitness. So 

[00:27:55] Colette Brown: anything that you need. All right. Beautiful. And we'll put that in the show notes.

[00:28:00] And so go check out farm fitness girl on Instagram. And thank you guys so much for listening. And if this inspired you, please share it with a friend or someone that you love. And until next time, be well.