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A Woman's Guide to Health: Fitness and Nutrition with Dave Holt from DH360 Fitness

• Stephanie Graham • Season 1 • Episode 24

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What if everything you've been told about women's fitness is working against your body's natural rhythms? In this eye-opening conversation with Dave Holt from DH360 Fitness, we unpack the unique physiological needs of the female body and why conventional approaches often miss the mark.

"Muscle is the organ of longevity," Dave explains, challenging the cardio-first mentality that dominates women's fitness. While running and cycling benefit cardiovascular health, they don't provide the bone-strengthening, metabolism-boosting effects of resistance training that women desperately need to prevent osteopenia and sarcopenia as they age. The prescription? Just 2-4 strength sessions weekly, adapted to your experience level and hormonal phase.

The discussion takes a fascinating turn when exploring the female hormonal cycle and its profound impact on everything from workout performance to nutritional needs. During the luteal phase (second half of your cycle), your metabolic rate naturally increases - potentially requiring up to 300 additional daily calories. This revelation directly contradicts the uniform calorie-restriction many women follow year-round. "Your body is screaming for high-density nutrition," Dave emphasises, particularly more carbohydrates during this phase.

For women navigating specific life stages, Dave offers tailored insights for pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and menopause - where stress management becomes paramount as adrenal glands take over oestrogen production. The conventional approach of intense exercise to combat menopausal weight changes? It might actually exacerbate hormonal imbalances rather than help.

Whether you're struggling with period symptoms, preparing for pregnancy, navigating menopause, or simply wanting to optimise your female physiology, this conversation provides a roadmap to working with your body rather than against it. Ready to transform your relationship with your uniquely female body? This episode is your starting point.

You can connect with Dave using the details below for personalised support:

Instagram: @dh360fitness

Email: daveholtpt@hotmail.co.uk

LinkedIn: Dave Holt


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Steph:

The content provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. Please always seek the advice of your healthcare professional regarding any physical or mental health conditions.

Steph:

Hello, welcome back to Tranquil Topics. I'm your host, Steph, and I am thrilled this week to have a very special guest with us.

Steph:

Dave Holt from DH360 Fitness is back with us. If you've been following our podcast, you might remember Dave from episode 4, where he shared his expert insights on fitness and nutrition and returned again for episode 17, where he enlightened us on the power of gut health. Both episodes were a huge hit thanks to Dave's wealth of knowledge, and today he joins us for two more episodes to dive deep into female and male health and wellness. We'll be exploring the unique aspects of health for women today, discussing everything from hormonal balance to fitness routines tailored specifically for female bodies. So, whether you're looking to improve your own health or support the women in your life, this episode is packed with valuable information. So, without further ado, welcome back, Dave.

Dave:

Hello, thank you for having me back.

Steph:

You're so welcome. Thank you for coming back again. For those who may not have heard your previous two episodes with us, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Dave:

Yes, sure. So I'm a personal trainer based in Stockport. I work on a one-to-one level with people in the gym and I support them online as well, and we delve a lot into the nutrition side of things and supporting them on the journey. Obviously, I look after the training side of it too and all the other help that goes along with someone's journey in terms of losing weight, gaining a little bit of muscle, getting a little bit fitter. They're generally the people that I see on a day-to-day basis.

Steph:

And today you're joining us to talk specifically about women's health and wellness. Of course, we'll be covering men in the next episode, so can we start off speaking about exercise and women? So obviously, women go through different stages of life and I just want to ask you what types of exercises should we be performing at the different stages of our lives?

Dave:

So, regardless of where you're at, the primary form of exercise should be strength training and resistance training. Whether that will look like a little bit of hypertrophy training, so slightly higher reps, but a lot of strength training would be the sort of center of that. And then, if you just branch out on that, you could attach your cardio to it, whether it would be some sort of like a distance run and run like a 5k or 10k. You might do a class and you might do a little bit of HIIT training, so the short, sharp bursts of exercise. And then you've got the relaxation side of things, so yoga, pilates, the de-stressing and the mindful side of it as well. So you branch out all those aspects of health and fitness, but the core center should be lifting weights.

Steph:

How often should we be doing that?

Dave:

In an ideal world, two to four times a week. If you're aiming for four times a week, you'd be in a great place. But two times lifting weights a week is fine, especially for someone who's a beginner. Again, it's depending on where you're at on your training, your training journey. So this is what you call your training age. So because you've only been lifting weights for a couple of years, your training age is very young, which means you will respond quite well. So two sessions of weights a week for you is plenty, whereas obviously for someone like myself who's been pushing in nearly 20 years worth of training, my training age is very high so I have to work.

Dave:

Obviously I'm male, it's a bit different, but the principles are the same where the older your training age is, it might take a little bit more strength training. So you might have to push for the three to four times. But it's very individual based. Two to three times would be plenty. And then, like I said, you'd attach onto it your cardio or your yoga or if you go, you're walking and hiking, etc. There'd be like attachments to that which may push you to the three sessions a week or four. I wouldn't really include steps with that, so step count will be totally separate. That should just be in there daily.

Steph:

Okay, and for the complete beginners that are listening why, why are we wanting to do strength training?

Dave:

So the goal is to gain muscle mass. So muscle is the organ of longevity. So if your goal is to be here for a long time and feel good, we need to gain muscle and we need to get strong because we want to offset osteopenia and sarcopenia. So we don't want muscle wastage and we don't want bone loss. So if you strength train and weight train, we factor that in, whereas if you don't resistance train or strength train or weight train whichever way you call it, and your preferred exercise is cardio, you kind of don't look after that side of it. Don't get me wrong. Doing cardio is amazing, it's great for your heart and lungs, but then if you're not lifting weights and load-bearing, you're not looking after that muscle mass and that bone mass. And, especially being female, the older you get it's critical that it's part of your regime.

Steph:

Okay. So for the women out there that are listening that maybe want to start a new exercise routine, let's say they haven't been active for a while or they're a complete new beginner. They're inspired. What exercise, would you recommend what exercise would you recommend that they start with, whether that's fact, y eah gym, in fact? Yeah, let's do both in the gym and outside of the gym because I know like, for example, from a personal point of view, I struggled going to the gym because I didn't know what I was doing, which is exactly why I have my sessions with you, because I feel more comfortable and you're there to lead the way. So let's start with in the gym. What exercise would you recommend that somebody starts with?

Dave:

Anything weight. So if you're a complete beginner, you could start on machines, because then you have the safety element of it. If you get pretty good at that, pretty quick, and you feel confident, then transitioning to free weight. So then it's a bit more challenging. You'd focus on load bearing as well.

Dave:

So your big compound movements like your squats, your deadlifts, your pressing, your pulling movements and trying to hit your full body so you could do a full body workout. Or if you went twice a week, you could do a low body workout and you could do an upper body workout. So like, when you come to the gym we try and hit everything in one go, so we do a full body workout. So then we've ticked our boxes and but yeah, if you're a beginner, you can you can even go do body weight, because you've got some weight on your frame already. So doing body weight exercises is a great start point, bodyweight, squats, press-ups, lunges, etc. There's plenty to be doing. Just the focus should be putting load through your structures, not the direct cardio, although that is important too.

Steph:

And that links in with outside of the gym, then just doing bodyweight exercises like at home.

Dave:

Yeah, amazing. There's loads available now like you can, y ou can put Youtube on now and you can put a body weight workout on and there'll be loads you can choose from, can't you? So you don't even have to be too technical. Just give it a go and put a body weight circuit in. You can do an upper body, lower body, mixed one. You can target specific muscle groups if you want. If you've got like a problematic area you want to target, you could do that. But movement's medicine, so any form of movement is good.

Steph:

Yeah, so if I change the conversation around to nutrition now, can we discuss key nutritional needs for women and how, how and if they change with age?

Dave:

So women, p retty much the same for men and women, to be honest. We need a nutrient-dense profile, so we need a broad spectrum of food coming in all the time and especially, like you say, when we talk about women's nutrition, that will change as well, so at different points of your female cycle as well, but I'd say we need to prioritize protein. That's going to have to be key. So, whichever way you go about getting your protein from your diet, I would be a huge advocate for animal-based protein in this situation. So steak, eggs, fish, chicken, etc. They would be a must because of the vitamins and minerals that they carry, alongside the protein content as well. That would be number one. Actually wouldn't even be number one. Second, and just as important as that, would be having a good fat content in your diet. Again, fats tend to get demonized, so we need a good fat intake and saturated fat is also good for women at this sort of times, because we need the we, you, you need the saturated fat to make hormones. Obviously, we're being female, so we need the cholesterol containing foods which we need to make hormones. So I would be a huge fan of women getting that in their diet too. Also, carbohydrates as well, we need them, so you can't just obviously it's one of those situations where it's they're either in or they're out, but there's time and a place as well, so you definitely need them too more towards the end of your cycle. But yeah, there's a huge spectrum of food which you need and vitamins and minerals which we can go through as well.

Steph:

Yeah, so when you mentioned about the fats, they they do get demonized.

Dave:

Yes

Steph:

lot, and it can be, for someone that doesn't have the knowledge behind them or is new to this, it can be a minefield. So can you give a few examples?

Dave:

Yeah. So when I talk about saturated fat, this is again, this was the one that gets demonized. So we're talking about your animal based ones. So red meat gets demonized, full fat dairy gets demonized, etc. But within the whole, saturated fats, or the saturated fatty, fatty acids these good ones, they're not all bad. So we have, like, we have steric acid and lauric acid. This is found in meat and animal fat, so tallow. It's also in milk as well, and it's also in breast milk. So breast milk contains saturated fat. So before we jump to the conclusion that it's all bad, it's not.

Dave:

The ones that we do have to avoid are the trans fats and the what probably the generation above us know as margarine. They're the ones we have to stay away from. And then we have your polyunsaturated fats as well. These are not the best, but these have been the replacement to saturated fat. So we get told to don't have the butter and have the vegetable oil instead. So the fats that you don't really want to be using are the ones that are kind of like liquid at room temperature. So if anyone's got any veg oil or sunflower oil or corn oil, sesame seed oil, and then they're using that to cook, that's not very good for you at all, male or female. So we'll go back to the saturated fats. They they're more stable.

Dave:

The polyunsaturated fats and the trans fats are very unstable. They don't respond well to heat. So, again, I'm a big fan of eggs being cooked in butter and eggs being cooked in ghee, because they're very stable to heat and they also have a low peroxidation scale. So this doesn't get talked about as well. So the polyunsaturated fats they have a high peroxidation scale. What that means is they're prone to oxidative stress. So a big factor as well with female health.

Dave:

We're trying to lower the burden of oxidative stress to the system. I know we touched briefly on about inflammation in the gut in the last podcast. So inflammation is a huge one as well. We're trying to offset and then oxidate your stress as well. So, going back to the saturated fats that I recommend people to cook in, they carry some health benefits too. Obviously, they contain vitamin a, d, e and k all your fat soluble vitamins so important for females and guys as well. So it's like, yeah, there is a lot of confusion around good fats, bad fats, but the ones that have been labeled bad. They're not all bad. They do serve a purpose and they are good for us humans and especially for women.

Steph:

And could you just touch on what oxidative stress is and like, what does that do?

Dave:

Yeah. So basically it's like rusting from the inside out. So we get oxidative stress at a cellular level, which isn't very good, then we get mitochondrial dysfunction and then that's a whole new or a whole other tangent to go off on in terms of causing some metabolic damage. And again, if we just bring it back around to helping females out and if the goal is to be feeling good and lose weight, but internally we're causing this sort of like volcano to go off from a metabolic standpoint, a big driver of that is oxidative stress and inflammation. So a big thing which I like to advise females is improving insulin sensitivity, so not being insulin resistant. So if you're insulin resistant and you've got oxidative stress going on in the body and inflammation, it doesn't matter what you're eating. This is going to be a bit of a bad road to go down. But in a nutshell, it's like you'd be rusting from the inside out at a cellular level.

Steph:

Wow, okay, that's quite striking um.

Dave:

It is isn't it? And then again we get told to cook in these horrendous oils or these man-made oils or these food substitutes which I have discussed.

Steph:

Yeah, because a lot of the time, what's what you think you're doing for yourself, you're trying to do the best for yourself with the information that you have, but if that information is misleading or incorrect, then the knock-on effect is quite huge, isn't it?

Dave:

Massively. Yeah, you just don't do yourself any favors at all. But then that's the whole world we live in, don't we? We get told to go low calorie and low fat. So for women, at certain times of the month, that can be brutal. Yet we all seem to conform to this one systematic way, don't we? We don't factor this in.

Steph:

So you mentioned insulin sensitivity.

Steph:

What role does nutrition play in women managing hormonal health, l ike can we go a bit deeper into that?

Dave:

Yeah, of course we can. Yeah, so insulin that's kind of like your master hormone. So when that's out of whack it tends to be a cascade effect of other hormones being out of whack as well, so like thyroid, oestrogen and so on. But like I said about, if we weight train, we can improve our insulin sensitivity. So this is the ability.

Dave:

So every time we have a carbohydrate can we store it in a muscle cell. Obviously the liver is only small. It can store a little bit called glycogen, but the muscles are the primary source for where we can store it and then we can readily use it for training. But then, as if somebody's say they're carrying a little bit more, let's say they're over fat I don't like using the word overweight, but if someone's over fat and you've got more fat mass than muscle mass, you can't really store the carbohydrates into a muscle cell. So then what happens is you get this kind of like overspill. So it's like driving into a petrol station you fill your car up, you drive out, you drive back in and you try filling it up. There's going to be an overspill so this excess sugar floating around, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately it'll be, Insulin is a great storing hormone, it will drive it into fat cells and it's a great way of getting fat quick. So if someone's insulin sensitive, they will manage carbohydrates well. If someone's insulin resistant, they won't. So we can't demonize carbohydrates. We just have to get good at using them, and that's another factor which can get a little bit of a gray area. We're either in this camp of no carbs before Marbs or we're eating loads of them. But we have to get good at using them, and if we can use them well, they're a great fuel source of training. If we don't use them well, it can be problematic as well. So we can't demonise them. It's being smart and we have to use them as fuel, and if insulin's out of whack, you'll be in a storing state.

Steph:

Okay, so can we dive into speaking about the monthly cycle, because I know you train a lot of women and we all go through it.

Dave:

Yep.

Steph:

So when you touched upon, eating carbs at certain times would be more beneficial. Yes, can we just speak about the hormonal changes and when we should be like utilizing the carbs more. Maybe when we should be relaxing more, because I know everyone's individual and obviously it's not like a standard 28 day thing.

Dave:

Yeah.

Dave:

yeah, you're right, it's not a 28 day cycle like it says. You might be 25 days, you might be 35 days, but I'll go from the start. So day one on menstruation when that happens, this is when estrogen oestrogen like very low, progesterone is very low and you're not going to feel particularly good. So the first, however many days that lasts for you whether it's four days, five days, six days you're probably going to feel a bit crap. You're not really one want to go do anything. However, some form of low level activity would be good in this situation. So walking, stretching, relaxation would be key. And then, as you move out of that, you're in the first half, which is your follicular phase. So follicular first, and then you have your luteal phase last. So as you go into your follicular phase, this is where estrogen oestrogen to rise and but progesterone kind of stays relatively not flat. flat, i t slowly but not as quick as estrogen. oestrogen

Dave:

In this situation here, the first half of your cycle, you're going to feel pretty good. So this is where you would attack your training. You'd have probably an increase in strength. You have an increase in cardiovascular fitness. So for anybody, if that rings a bell to you, this is when you would attack it and go really good and you would apply yourself as best as you can. Then slap bang in the middle you get ovulation and then this is when progesterone starts to rise again, and then, as you go on, you move into your luteal phase, where you get a lot of changes in the body here, so you're almost like getting towards the back end of your cycle now, and then you'll get a rise in body temperature, which then it can affect your sleep as well, and then you can have like especially REM sleep that can get a little bit tricky as well. You may hold a bit of water, so you don't, again, you start to feel like because you know what's coming, don't you in the next week or so?

Dave:

Yeah but you also get an increase in metabolic rate as well, so your requirement for fuel goes up. So towards the end of your cycle you can potentially your body can need an extra 200, 250 300 calories a day extra a day.

Steph:

I didn't know that.

Dave:

Because your body is screaming for yes, yes, your body is screaming for some, well, it's screaming for high-density nutrition, it's looking for some fats, it's looking for some carbohydrates. So, when we live in this world of low-calorie, low-fat, you're in a phase, from an evolutionary standpoint, which needs fuel yeah, you're doing yourself and not you but from an evolutionary standpoint, but we're doing ourselves an injustice by not eating as much food. So you could argue the fact that the later in your cycle you get, you need more food because your metabolic rate goes up. So this would be a great time to have more carbohydrates, a little bit more fats and just relax a little bit more, because you're getting towards where menstruation starts again, when your hormones just take a bit of a plummet and you're going to feel crap. So this would be a great time where you would have like we talked about the fats and a good source of fats adequate nutrition going in, b vitamins, i ron, because when you are on your period, you're losing nutrition, aren't you? So iron's a key, iron's key in this. And you're going to lose B vitamins, you're going to lose folate, etc.

Dave:

ron's the first half of your cycle you could go a little bit lower carbohydrate. Towards the end of the cycle, like you say, when you're in your luteal phase, your blood glucose metabolism goes up as well, so you need more carbohydrates. You have to have them. In your luteal phase your blood glucose metabolism goes up as well, so you need more carbohydrates. You have to have them in your diet. So it's almost like if it was a 28 day cycle. The first half you could go a little bit lower carb, but then towards the end you want to put them in and then you'd modulate. Well, you'd kind of see where you'd put a bit more fats in and a bit more or a bit less fats, but protein would be constant through that as well, because you want to look after muscle mass and you want to feel good. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Dave:

You've got your different phases. Yeah, you've got your follicular first, your luteal last, and then slap bang in the middle you've got ovulation. So you kind of split it into two and then you'd work with that. But yeah, I have these uh conversations with a lot of women. They kind of tell me when you come in and tell me straight away just need to tell you something. And yeah, it's day one. I'm like, right, fine. So then from a training standpoint, it's how you feel. Some people feel pretty good. Again, it's very individual. So we just, if you feel pretty good, we'll go for it. If not, it's just a little bit just not the intensity down 10 or 15 percent and have a little bit more rest. Because you want to feel good, don't you?

Steph:

Yeah, for sure.

Dave:

I hope that's not been a bit too complicated. You understand that

Steph:

Yeah, I ? mean it's great that it's on a podcast because we can go back and listen to it. So yeah it's just, i t's It's great that you're able to highlight that, because as a woman, I don't know that, that like it's not spoken about, we're not taught it and you just go like Like we said before, it's all very individual and you go off how you feel.

Steph:

So if you do feel and like I have friends that have an awful time but others are fine and like looking for me I'm generally okay, but when you think that there's actually stuff that you can do nutrition and exercise wise to make yourself feel better for somebody, that doesn't have access to that information or hasn't had access to that information before, and that they just put up with it, whereas there's actually nutritional benefits that may be able to help them. You know, it's great. It's great that we're having this conversation.

Dave:

Totally. Yeah, it's good. There's a lot, I again like when I talk to people about it sorry, they don't, they don't know that and then it must seem quite like, and then you, you're a female and you've got to tell me as a guy that this is where I'm at. But, like, this is a total normal conversation. I have this on a weekly basis.

Steph:

Yeah, I mean, it's part of your job, isn't it, to support your client.

Dave:

Yeah, because huge majority of my clients are female. So then, understanding, like sometimes it comes to gym and they're great and sometimes you're like, oh, they're not on form today, so you just have to again what's presented with you on that day. You have to work with it. But having that relationship and that ability to talk about it is it's key, especially with, like you say, you don't operate like us guys, totally different.

Steph:

Yeah, very complex, honestly, the things we go through.

Steph:

So are there any supplements that can support women's health?

Dave:

Yeah, totally.

Dave:

I'd probably say again Omega-3 is really good for women, so magnesium is good I'd also recommend. Again, it's like that would be secondary to your food, so if you go back to the food and you should be able to tick all boxes. So I'm a huge fan of like. We've discussed about getting you to eat some liver and then caught yeah, again everyone's face turned. But then so, going back to your like you say, when you're on the start of your day one of your cycle, like, or even leading to the back end of it, liver is a great option to bring in because it's packed full of b vitamins. You've got zinc, selenium, copper. It's like nature's multivitamin. It's kind of like it's going to take care of you. And then, if you want to be a bit adventurous, you could get kidney in. There, you get heart, you can get these desiccated as well. If you can, get a butcher.

Dave:

But in terms of a powerhouse nutrition, if you incorporate them along with your fatty cuts of meat, fish, eggs etc. You're kind of ticking our boxes. You don't really need supplements because the bioavailability is better in the food. But if if you want to go down the supplement, there's always stuff you can take, yeah, and I'd say it'd be probably like reducing inflammation. So omega-3 is pretty good for that. Um, magnesium, again, it lowers, it helps with stress management. So, depending where you're at, if you're pms and stressy, then magnesium could be good for that as well. So, but if you, you could get it all through food, in my opinion, if you needed a little bit of a boost with supplements and yeah, it's available.

Steph:

So I just want to, I just want to mention about um, the liver thing, because I know we had this conversation and I was I'm not adventurous with my food, like I know what I like and

Dave:

I know, I know I know.

Steph:

So when me and Alan went skiing uh, what was it? December 23, we went to France and I was like I can't speak french, um, Alan's al right at it. But we, we got given this meal and I was eating it. I was like I don't know what it is like, it's, it's I don't know, it's not anything I've had before, and it was only after I'd finished it that I got told it was liver in like a salad. I was like, oh my God, I've eaten liver. I can't believe I've eaten liver.

Dave:

I think it's a cultural thing we was into.

Steph:

Yeah, for sure. But the next day I woke up and I felt, I felt really good and I thought hmm, yeah. I wonder if it's all the vitamins that Dave was talking about.

Dave:

Yeah, again, it can be a bit taboo, people don't like talking about it. But if you speak to your grandparents and they used to have liver and onions and steak and kidney, they had all this, didn't they? They'd even have heart. They would eat that. And you speak to somebody born after the year 2000, and they look at you like you've got three heads because it's just not part o f our culture and what we do. But from a bioavailable nutrient density standpoint, if you incorporate them into your diet alongside with all the other foods that we talk about, you kind of tick all boxes and you don't have to overly supplement, because supplements are great. But then what are you supplementing?

Dave:

You're supplementing a bad diet or you're supplementing a good diet, so real food wins yeah, yeah, if you factor all them in, then yeah, you kind of you're doing yourself a big favor.

Steph:

And, of course, some people will be vegetarian or vegan, aren't they and that's, that's a completely different. We're not saying you know, you have to go out and eat meat yeah, um it's an individual basis, isn't it?

Dave:

It's very individual. Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, when you go down, like you say, the plant-based route, it's. It carries so many deficiencies, so I don't want to, I don't want to come across like I'm a carnivore and all you have to do is eat steak raw. But if you look at, if you were to remove all animal products out of your diet and was to go on a plant-based diet, the deficiencies are through the roof. So you'll get, like b vitamin deficiencies, especially vitamin b12, which is so important.

Dave:

And I touched on there about iron. We need heme iron as well, so that's the ready available iron which you need. Iodine as well. So because you don't eat fish, your body can't make that. You have to get it from your food. Calcium as well. Folate, which is vitamin b9 you lose. You don't get that from the plant-based world. Vitamin d is generally pretty low. Again, it's in egg yolks, but if you don't eat them, you're wiping out that.

Dave:

And then I mentioned about taking omega-3, didn't I? So generally that's quite low in the plant-based and you don't get the epa and the dha, which is so important for your brain. But then in the plant-based community their alternative is flax seeds, so that's where they get their immediate free from. However, it's called ala, which is alpha lipolake acid. So then what happens with that is the conversion rate is very, very poor. So you'll consume the flax seeds, but then the conversion rates at epa and dha is very low. So you're still going to be deficient in omega-3, and omega-3 is so important for anti-inflammatory, so important for women as well. And then you also we're not even talking about protein, yet you'll be deficient in amino acids as well. So again, we talked about gaining muscle is important for longevity and looking good, feeling good. You'd be deficient in amino acids, and then you have to supplement them.

Dave:

It's quite interesting, this one, because there's a couple of amino acids. One's called carnitine and there's another one called carnosine, but then the start of it is carny. Carny is translated into meat. These are essential, and they're not called essential amino acids for nothing. They're essential for life. And another one called taurine. Again, toro translates into bull.

Dave:

So all the answers are there. You just lose so much nutrition. But if that's, some people might thrive, some people might do okay, some people won't. I'm not going to demonise it, but just be aware of the deficiencies, and you're only as good as your deficiency, aren't you? And we talked about what liver packs and what kidney packs and heart and steak, fish, eggs. It packs a powerhouse of nutrition. So you you're covering all boxes, whereas when you remove it you just open yourself up to potentially a lot of problems. You might get away with it in the short term, but further down the line you'll run into problems, unfortunately. And then I don't want to be biased because it's not my way, but I'll like, I'll, present the ideas to you and then these are the facts. I'm not making this up and it's up to the individual to go, maybe I should incorporate a little bit of red meat, or some eggs or some fish.

Steph:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Steph:

I remember on the first episode, when you came on, you said that if you have like a training journey in mind, then if you don't eat meat it might just take a bit longer than somebody who does.

Dave:

Yeah, yeah, like you say, when you're very new, you can, you'll respond quite well, you don't need that much.

Dave:

But then if you're going to be doing it for a long time, then I would be a huge advocate for it but, then that's not to say that I don't eat vegetables, because they're also important for women as well. So we can touch on, like the cruciferous vegetables, which veggies are good as well. So it's not like I'm just sat here saying you have to eat meat. You have to eat meat alongside some veggies as well, because they carry nutrition as well yeah, and especially being female, you need the cruciferous vegetables.

Steph:

Why specifically the cruciferous ones?

Dave:

So they're the cruciferous veggies. They're good for the detoxification pathway. So when we talk about eliminating oestrogen and xenoestrogens, this is all like the toxic build-up that females are exposed to. So the synthetic side of it like I know we've touched on the pill and like you've only got to smell nail varnish remover and all those they're all toxins which we're exposed to, again mainly females and plastics. Like you say, if you've got a plastic tupperware box and plastic water bottles that you keep for ages, the bpa, and that they're all like endocrine disruptors and they play havoc with their oestrogen. So cruciferous veggies contain a compound called dim, which is diendolymethane. This helps you detoxify oestrogen at the liver, so it's good for liver clearance. So I'm a huge fan of them. So these would be like your broccoli, cabbage, pak choy, cauliflower, etc. They're amazing for females as well. And your dark a couple of your dark leafy greens are also pretty good as well. Yeah, so I'm a huge fan of women having them as well.

Steph:

So just staying on the same track of talking about hormones for a bit longer, how do you support clients through pregnancy? Because I'm not a mum, a lot of my friends aren't, so it's not in my orbit essentially of having any knowledge around this area.

Dave:

Yeah.

Steph:

What would you say to, yeah, women that are expecting?

Dave:

Yeah, exactly the same as what I've just covered. So you think if you're, if you start to go down the route of having a baby, that newborn is going to rob you of so much nutrition. And then you get told to have your iron supplements and your folate and take your vitamin d, don't you so supporting them on that it would be exactly the same as what we just talked about, but even more important because you want to feel good in that process too, don't you so. Because, like the first trimester, usually women are generally wiped out. So in the first 12 weeks or so you're wiped out, you don't particularly feel pretty good. You might feel a bit nausea or sick and appetite goes down a little bit. You just generally don't feel good. So if you are limited to what you eat, it comes down to the quality of what you eat as well. So, trying to get as much nutrition in, again, everything that I've covered. So, like your steak, eggs, fish, vegetables, etc. Fruits, berries, get them all in because your newborn is going to rob you of all your vitamins and minerals. And then, as you move out of the first trimester into the second one you get a bit of a kick on. You generally feel a little bit better and then as you work your way towards the 15-20 week mark, you do feel pretty good.

Dave:

People get a bit of a kick on and feel quite sprightly and spring in the step and then it's just a matter of navigating the growth of the baby and obviously with training, working around that and working with it.

Dave:

So there's a lot of emphasis on posture and keeping the posterior chain strong, so hamstrings, your bum, your lower back, your core, obviously, because you're getting this baby growing in front of you. It pulls your posture forward. You get a bit of a anterior tilt on your pelvis, so working the muscles that you can't, can't really see, so all on the back of your body, and keeping your arms strong, because you're going to be carrying a baby and being mobile as well, so having good flexibility. You have to factor that in as well, because you produce a hormone called Relaxin, I think it is, so you become very, very mobile. So you have to be very careful in the end range of movements. So like squatting and deadlifting etc. You have to factor that in a little bit. But yeah, you generally feel pretty good and there's a lot of positives for weight training as well while you're pregnant, which I have, quite a few I had quite a few last year I think I had three in 2024 last year, three people who was having a baby.

Steph:

I remember you saying in the gym you had a lady that came like pretty much the day before her due date.

Dave:

Yeah, this was going back a long time ago. And then she walked in and I was like wow, oh, my god, because it the bump literally dropped, and I was like I got a bit scared, to be fair, and it was a very, very easy session. Yeah, I remember that. And then it was, I think it was less than 24 hours the he came, yeah.

Steph:

Oh, wow.

Dave:

But yeah, you again, you generally say to the pregnant side of it you get to 30 weeks, you're doing pretty good, and then it's just a week by week. If you're eating good and you're continually training or walking and stuff, it's like should go for next week and it's like, yeah, you're booking next week and then you're booking the week after. And it's been a few cases where you get to like 34, 35, 36 weeks pregnant and still coming, yeah, and then maybe one or two weeks before stop because it literally can't move. But yeah, it's a strength training during pregnancy is amazing for you.

Steph:

So what about post birth? So like you've had the child? What about getting back into exercise? Is that more difficult?

Dave:

Yeah, it can be a little yeah, it depends on the if there's any complications of labor, um, and what you do before it as well. So what you do before sets yourself up for coming back and then it's generally six, six, ten weeks if there's all, if everything's all right and there's no complications, and surgery etc. Again, it's very individual based. Some take a bit longer, 10 to 12 weeks, but then probably a good factor is it's probably not a physical problem, it's probably the lack of sleep and dealing with a newborn and times of the essence in it. So there's multiple things going on there. But yeah, post is what you do before. It helps the quicker you get back as well. And then there's a lot of like pelvic floor stuff to that you have to start with first or integrating that before you go into all the big movements, but it's a little bit slower. Yeah, you can, you can still come back quite soon.

Steph:

And how about let's talk about menopause, so perimenopausal and menopause, um again I know you probably have clients that are going through this as well yes how do you help your clients through that?

Dave:

This is the hardest one, to be honest, and it's very, very, very individual based. So, yes, there's a lot going on. Um, you get a shift in um oestrogen, don't you? So females generally have three types of oestrogen. So if you're currently like in your childbearing years, where you can have a baby, you'll produce an estradiol, and then when you become pregnant, you'll produce estriol, and then when you go through the menopause, you make another shift and there's a different type of oestrogen which goes on, which is called estrone. So this is produced by the adrenal glands. So the adrenal glands are your stress hormones

Dave:

If you're getting towards that perimenopausal stage, stress management is key because as you get towards menopause, your the job of the adrenal glands is to produce estrone, which is to back up the ovaries, because the ovaries are not making estrone anymore. But if you're a stressy person and you don't factor that in, this is where it gets a little bit tricky. So symptoms are I'm sure there's over 100 different types of symptoms, maybe 150 for menopause. It's ridiculous. The list goes on and it's how you feel on that given day. So if you're perimenopause, you might have a short cycle, a long one.

Dave:

It's very individual, like I've had clients come in and they've they go. I'm back on my period again. I only had one like 10 days ago. You're like, oh right, so it's literally random as hell, but it's just going off how they feel and then if they've got hot flushes or they're warm generally the popular one you wouldn't do anything in the gym which is going to help, which is going to make them overheat. You do a bit more strength-based and a bit more rest. You get like random joint ache and hip ache and muscle aches and there's all sorts of stuff. So it's just navigating that on any given day. But stress and cortisol management is probably the biggest factor which I try and like reiterate to people in this sort of stage.

Steph:

So, would you say, to manage like the stress side, I think to prioritize yoga and pilates more than say, going out for a run and like prioritizing walking?

Dave:

Yeah.

Steph:

Or swimming, what about swimming?

Steph:

I like a good swim.

Dave:

Yeah definitely yeah, um, yeah, swimming, walking, all the low level stuff. So that would be that'd be key. And then when you come to the gym, you could do a little bit of weight training, just go off how you feel, but yeah, it'd be the low-level activity like walking, swimming, yoga, stretching, pilates, the kind of relaxation stuff. And then you might have times when you feel pretty good. So, going back to your female cycle at the start, when you generally feel pretty good, you get women that generally feel good as well, but it's very sporadic. So, yeah, you shift it more towards stress management.

Steph:

I remember we had a conversation about this and let me get this right. So how the body changes in menopause. I'm not speaking for women because I've not been through this, so some women may notice body changes and hit the gym more to try and combat that yes but not potentially realize that the hormones behind it or like what they actually need is to relax rather than do like six sessions a week or something extreme.

Dave:

Yeah, you're exactly right.

Dave:

So, like you say, you get a, your adrenal glands are trying to back up your ovaries, so then they're overworked and then you're put in flight. You said five or six weight sessions a week to try and get this little bit of weight off and start to feel well. So then your stress levels are cranked up even more. So this is a situation where less is more. It might be one or two weight sessions, but you'd have more relaxation side of it, so more swimming or more walking and feeling good. You wouldn't go to the gym and do five, six weight sessions a week and then and I certainly wouldn't recommend like long, steady state cardio as well.

Dave:

So you don't want to be chronically stressed. So if you're thinking, oh god, I don't feel pretty good, I'm going to go and bang out a 10k run and then another 10k run two days later or a 5k run. These are huge stressors to the system. I'd probably opt for more short, sharp bursts so the overall duration is shorter but the intensity might be a little bit higher. But within them parameters you're not exactly um cranking it to like a level 10 out of 10 in terms of effort. So you don't want to be yeah, you're right overkilling the training and adding more stress to your system. So you would prioritize the um a little bit less, like you say, one or two sessions and more walking, stretching, etc.

Steph:

And what advice would you give to women who are struggling to prioritize self-care?

Steph:

So, whether that's nutrition or exercise, or maybe it's because they've become a new mum or they've got an unbalanced work life, what advice would you give?

Dave:

It would be start slow, start simple and whichever path you go down, have the ability to continue to go down that path. So you don't want to go right, I'm going to jump on this diet now, on this bandwagon, and then two or three days later or a week later, you fall off it. So just start really, really slow. I'd really focus on like a broad spectrum of nutrition so you're trying to cover as many bases as you can from a food standpoint and training wise, just as and when you can and it might be a little run, it might be a gym workout, it might be a little home workout. Yeah, just it'd be something where you can't really fail. Just go for the low-hanging fruit, start simple, build on it and then go from there and see how you react, see how you feel. If you feel pretty good, push it a bit more. If you think you've gone a bit too hard, just back off it. I suppose it'd be self-explanatory, wouldn't it? It'd be very much based on how you feel.

Steph:

Yeah, yeah, like we said, it's all individual, isn't it? You have to work with what you feel.

Dave:

Very individual.

Dave:

Yeah, yeah, that's what I find with people. It's like, from one week, how are you feeling? What's going on, how's your sleep, how's your food? What's just telling me?

Steph:

So just to wrap up, Dave, from our conversation today I know we've spoken about quite a lot. What's one piece of advice that you'd hope the listeners take away from today's conversation?

Dave:

Oh, um one piece of advice. Oh, my god, I don't know.

Steph:

I've put you on the spot.

Dave:

You've put me on the spot here. I'd say women, lift your weights, eat your fatty bits of meat, eat your eggs, get some sunlight. Again, I always harp on about that. Strength training, resistance training for women should be the centre of your training plan and then, like I said at the start, add on to it with a little bit of running, a little bit of cycling, a little bit of walking, the relaxation, and implement some of those strategies at different points of your cycle to track your cycle and then be intuitive to how you feel. So you're feeling good, go for it. If you're not back off and don't beat yourself up and work on the stress management side of things. I know that's not one thing, but hopefully that will help somebody.

Steph:

Brilliant.

Steph:

Thanks, Dave. And how can people find you? How can people work with you?

Dave:

Y ou can find me at DH360 Fitness. I'm on instagram and, yeah, just if anybody needs any help or any advice, drop me a message. I'll gladly help you out and get you on the right track.

Steph:

Fab and I will link all your details in the show notes so our listeners can access them. Thank you so much, Dave.

Dave:

Thanks a lot.

Steph:

Thank you so much for listening. You can follow me on instagram at Tranquil Topics and if you have enjoyed this episode, please do leave a rating or review, as it will help me to reach more people and I'll be back in two weeks time with another episode. Bye.