Crucial Habits I've Prioritized in My 40's

In this deeply personal and unapologetically real episode, Aimee shares the habits she has implemented in her 40's to thrive through midlife and beyond. 

She shares the health habits and changes she has made to stay fit and unpacks why mindset is everything when it comes to aging well. With candid stories, an explanation of the why these habits matter and reflections on the power of our thoughts and beliefsm Aimee challenges the trap of being a victim to aging or chasing after social media's empty promises, showing us how sticking to the fundamentals and shifting one's thought patterns is the ultimate act of rebellion and survival.

You’ll hear about how embracing what you can control — your mindset, your perspective, your daily habits — can transform your health, relationships, and overall endurance to thrive into your elder years, even in the face of uncertainty and setbacks.

Find Research Citations and Transcript at Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

Resources:

Work with Aimee

Aimee’s Pandemic Seafood Dip

Concerned About Mercury in Seafood?

Man’s Search for Meaning

The Power of Now

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography

Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative

Find Research Citations and Transcript at Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

Work with Aimee

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography

Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative

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Transcript

0:00

Hey Rebels. Welcome to Blasphemous Nutrition. Consider this podcast your pantry full of clarity, perspective, and the nuance needed to counter the superficial health advice so freely given on the internet. I am Amy, the unapologetically candid host of Blasphemous Nutrition and a double degreed nutritionist with 20 years experience. I'm here to share a more nuanced take. On living and eating well to sustain and recover your health. If you found most health advice to be so generic is to be meaningless or so extreme that it's unrealistic. And you don't mind the occasional F-bomb, you've come to the right place. From dissecting the latest nutrition trends to breaking down published research and sharing my own clinical experiences, I'm on a mission to foster clarity amidst all the confusion and empower you to have the health you need to live a life you love. Now, let's get started. Welcome back to Blasphemous Nutrition. I'm your host, Aimee, and while I'm no spring Chicken by any stretch of the imagination. I also have zero intentions of transitioning into a tough old bird just yet for fellow Gen Xers out there, I'm sure that you notice your social media feed is constantly reminding you that you are getting older and encouraging you to try all the things to delay and deny the inevitability of aging. I am curious though, if men are getting this kind of bullshit as well and what flavor of bullshit it is, but my hub stir avoids social media like the plague because he's a smart cookie and so if there are any male listeners out there, ya gotta message me and spill the tea because I wanna know what they're selling you. Now I have largely rejected cultural norms that encourage us to obsess and cling hopelessly to our youth. But I'm also a product of my culture, and I'm not completely immune to the desire, not just to feel as good as possible as I age, but to look decent while doing so. And admittedly, as my husband likes to remind me. I've grown more vain as I've gotten older, but most of what I started doing in my forties is really about making sure I can do what I want for as long as I want. A bonus is that many of these things do in fact assist us in maintaining a more energetic demeanor and youthful appearance as we get older. Who says you can't have it both ways? Now, even if you aren't feeling older just yet, implementing these habits now will allow you to step into your fifties and sixties running laps around your peers and keep you out of the hospital and living independently well into your elder years. I will say that if you are already in your fifth or sixth, the decade of life, everything that I'm about to speak to applies to you too. It is never too late to slow down some of the negative impacts of aging. Everything that we do to improve our health and to improve our mindset is a gift to our future self. So if you're in your fifties, you're in your sixties, do not skip ahead. Don't transition to the next podcast episode. Listen up'cause this applies to you as well. Our nutrient needs, our movement needs change throughout our lifecycle. It's really easy to recognize this in childhood and adolescence, but we really don't give it much thought after adulthood unless you're pregnant or nursing. So habits integrated now will not only help you feel years younger than you are, but they will also allow you to age like a damn fine wine. So without further ado, here are seven habits that I've implemented in my fourth decade. Number one, sleep. Oh, sleep. You are a fickle son of a bitch these days. But the foundation of all my dreams, sleep deprivation, hits harder now than it did when I was in college. But as we age and cellular activities begin to slow down a bit, sleep becomes that much more crucial. Sleep is where our athletic gains are made, and where our body and our brain cleanup shop and prepare for all the activities that we do in our waking hours. In the deepest stages of sleep, our body releases testosterone and human growth hormone. At higher levels, and this allows us to build muscle and recover from our workouts. Insufficient REM sleep has a negative impact on our memory and sleep apnea itself is seen as a risk factor for dementia later in life. So sleep is nothing to skimp on if it can be helped. Now, poor sleep quality or sleep deprivation also jacks up multiple hormones, not only increasing our appetite and cravings for sugary and starchy foods, but also reducing our insulin sensitivity, which then encourages elevated glucose levels, weight gain, and inflammation. Chronic sleep deprivation or chronic insufficient sleep quality is also shown to accelerate aging by shortening the telomeres on our DNA, very literally shortening our health span and our lifespan. Rest is the true foundation of health and it is a non-negotiable if you're looking to avoid chronic disease and maintain a stellar quality of life. If you struggle to sleep or you don't sleep well, I do encourage you to seek out a sleep specialist and do what you can to create an evening routine that is more supportive of sleep if you've not already done so. How much sleep do you actually need? I mean, it depends, but honestly, the whole seven to nine hours thing I think is probably for more people, eight to nine hours. That is. What I generally recommend, my body likes eight and a half to nine hours. That's what I aim for most nights of the week. But given that I'm at a stage of life where good sleep is a bit of a crapshoot, this means getting in bed up to 10 hours before I need to wake up. So that way I have more opportunities to accumulate that rest. If I happen to have a bad night. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Okay, number two is protein. Now, if you've been listening to Blasphemous Nutrition for any length of time or have been scrolling through the socials this past year, this should come as no surprise. Sufficient protein supports healthy aging by preserving muscle mass, maintaining a healthy immune system, and it keeps diabetes at bay through glucose regulation. And the very fact that muscle mass is a major consumer of glucose, so it keeps elevated levels from persisting in the bloodstream. Muscle also gives our body shape and helps prevent skin sagging during weight loss since skin just isn't as plump and elastic as it used to be. Keeping the muscle you have and adding to it is the insurance you need to stay active and mobile well into your fifties, your sixties and beyond. Okay. As our levels of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone decline with age, our ability to hold onto muscle is compromised. So consuming more protein encourages muscle retention, not only by supplying sufficient protein to keep what we already have, but also stepping in for those declining hormones to send a signal to the body to hold on. To what we have, that signal is sent by leucine. Leucine is an amino acid present in protein. It is more robustly present in animal proteins than plant proteins, but it is in plant proteins. To some degree, individual foods may vary. Okay, but protein foods are crucial for maintaining muscle mass. Especially as we age, we do not have the ability to get away with skimpy. Card deck size, servings of protein a couple times a day. That's not good enough. Sorry, guys. Your goal a meal containing 30 to 40 grams of protein, which is going to be about five to six ounces of animal-based protein at least twice a day to supply enough leucine to send the message to your muscle mass to stay put. Also, you will want to aim for a total protein intake of one gram per pound of your ideal body weight, or 2.2 grams per kilogram of ideal body weight. Now I want to say again, I want to reiterate this again. Sometimes this takes months to work up to, because protein is incredibly satiating, it's very filling, and it is not nearly as easy to go out and eat 12 to 18 ounces of protein a day. As it would be to see, say, eat 12 to 18 ounces of starch. Right? Or popcorn. Or candy, although that probably would make most people feel sick if they did that. Anyway, the satiating factor of protein makes it challenging for some people to work up to that one gram per pound of ideal body weight or the 2.2 grams per kilogram. So give yourself time, work up to it. And if you are on a GLP one agonist or you have low appetite for other reasons, if you are vegan or you have had bariatric surgery. You may actually need to implement protein powders strategically in your diet in order to accomplish this. There's no problem with that. It's a wonderful way to get a concentrated source of protein in the body without taking up a lot of stomach space, and I highly recommend it for specific individuals. Number three is seafood. While you might be compelled to lump seafood into the protein category, I really feel like seafood deserves to be in a food group all its own. It is mega packed with minerals that are essential to supporting the immune system, keeping the liver happy. And yes, it's a great source of protein. Cold water seafood is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, and this is crucial for maintaining heart health, brain health, and eye health, especially as we age. Seafood is king, my friends. I recommend getting three to four servings of seafood a week from a variety of shellfish, cold water fish, and whitefish, as each of these have different nutrient profiles that are going to benefit you. My favorite way to get seafood is in a seafood dip, which I created during the pandemic, specifically to get more of the minerals that create a robust immune system. But. Doing this and adding seafood more consistently in my diet. Made a huge world of difference in other areas too. I'm gonna put the link to that recipe in the show notes, so be sure to click on that because it's an easy, quick way to get seafood in on a regular basis. It's my mainstay on busy weeks. Now, if you are concerned about mercury levels in seafood, I want you to listen to episode 41 of Blasphemous Nutrition when you're finished with this episode. In that episode, I do a deep dive into the Mercury issue. And kind of give you the lowdown on what you need to be concerned about. And what is really a little bit of hyperinflated drama that you probably don't need to concern yourself with. Now, I will say that aside from getting a truckload of vegetables in my body daily, adding more seafood in my diet has given me more tangible results than just about any dietary change I've made in my life outside of eliminating the foods that my body simply cannot tolerate. I am looking at you gluten. Getting seafood in every week, eliminated my PMS symptoms. It improved my liver function and it restored my immune system to a level of robustness I had not seen in 15 years. Additionally with dementia rearing its ugly head. In my family of origin, I cannot afford to deny my body the protective factor of seafood. If any of these things are of a concern for you, I strongly recommend that you also integrate seafood into your diet at least three times a week to get that protection and to get that mineral, like that just robust, juicy ass mineral richness that is so prevalent in foods from the ocean. Number four is weightlifting. Now, weightlifting is not my first love. As a parent with really limited time. I have prioritized my true love running for much, much longer than I should have. But early last year, I traded in some of those hours on road and trail. For a scheduled rendezvous to pump iron. Lifting heavy shit does feel damn good. I'm not gonna lie. And it does do great things for your physique. That running just could never match, but it doesn't give me the quiet, contemplative solo time or the endorphin rush that a good long trail run does, which is the main reason why I have. Put off devoting time to it for as long as I have. Resistance training, however, is the other external factor that tells our body to hold onto or grow more muscle to keep us healthy and active in the decades to come. And when you combine that with adequate protein, the result can totally transform your body in ways that you thought were genetically impossible. Now that I am solidly past the midpoint of my forties,, I could no longer justify kicking the kettlebell down the road any longer. I have a very limited time to add to my muscular savings account before I hit menopause and lose the existing levels of estrogen and progesterone that I still have, right? That help protect and enable me to build more muscle. So I really need to get this habit locked in and make the most of it. I will say that my body does respond better to weightlifting with regards to stress and recovery than it does for me to maintain devoting the time to half marathon level fitness. If you tend to have a delicate, central nervous system that is easily stressed out and you've coped with your anxiety or depression through running long miles, you may need to hear that message. So I'm gonna say it again. Bodies that are stressed out respond better to weightlifting with regards to stress and recovery than they do to long distance, long duration cardiovascular activity. It is with great bitterness that I accept this reality, which honestly, I have been refusing to fully face for over a decade. However, a year into weight training, I do find solace in my rock and biceps, and the fact that I can lift heavier than most of the men in my weightlifting class. Number five is stretching and mobility work. Stretching is like the ugly stepchild of the fitness industry tossed up in the attic to be forgotten and neglected for the more hardcore cardio and strength pursuits that have made up our fitness goals for the duration of our lives. Ironically, when I received my education in, physical fitness and my personal training certification. I was totally sold on stretching and I religiously stretched after all of my runs, throughout training for my first marathon. But I performed so poorly and it had nothing to do with the stretching. That first marathon was a shit show. And I learned what I needed to learn to make sure it didn't happen again. But in the process, I threw out stretching when I started training for the next marathon. I don't know why I can't justify that decision, but I hadn't really resumed stretching since. Honestly, I find stretching boring and being hypermobile, I could totally get away with neglecting it for decades. However, in the last couple of years I've noticed that it's harder to maintain a pace that I was accustomed to. My calves often are outrageously tender and tight, and I started developing foot issues, which I know ultimately are in part due to those tight calves. After trying everything else. Starting a mobility program has quickly alleviated most of these ills and proven that my physical therapist. Had it right all along. After witnessing a client heal chronic back issues with GMB, it's what I've chosen to implement this past month and after trying it, I'm totally sold on it. Now, I'm not an affiliate. I receive no compensation for recommending these guys. They just offer a solid product that has won me over. That is GMB, the letter G, the letter M, the letter B. And it's working really well. For example, it's not actually boring, so it's something that I'm likely to stick with over a long period of time, and it appears to have allowed me to recover pace times that I was fighting for within a pretty short period of time. Now I'm still working on integrating this habit, but I'm now taking the stepchild out of the attic and giving her a proper seat at the dining table. Vanity running metrics aside, stretching and other mobility work keeps us mobile and fluid in our movements, and this allows us to take advantage of a full range of motion that when inhibited can lead to compensations in our movement that will create injuries from torn rotator cuffs to even osteoarthritis as we adjust our movement to compensate or try and move beyond what we are capable of. Mobility work also allows us to quickly react to trips and stumbles without falling as the increased range of motion that one can do without tearing a muscle allows for that split second ability to rebalance. And catch yourself. So stretching and mobility work is not just for those who are already active, but it is also essential for anybody who's trapped behind a desk or a steering wheel to ensure that they are able to move how they want to when they want to. These movements also bring fluid into the joints and blood into the muscles, which nourishes them and keeps them healthy as the decades go on. Number six. Might be a little unexpected. It's relationships it's really easy to let relationships slide as we're building our career and raising our families. And without the ease of an established community of school chums, it's increasingly hard to maintain relationships as the years go on. In my forties, I started to reprioritize connecting with friends and making new ones who were more aligned with my values and my emotional needs. Choosing these over the pursuit of additional career goals or hobbies that I had in my thirties. I more actively reach out to others, not just to schedule coffee dates, but also to let them know I'm thinking of them and that I value their presence in my life in one way or another. If we're lucky, we will live long enough to retire, and our relationships will be one of the few things left to make our lives meaningful. I mean, for some of you who are working in a career that doesn't fulfill you emotionally, these relationships are essential right now. They, they mean more right now. If you don't have. Other aspects of your life that take up a lot of your life, like work that also give you a feeling of satisfaction, right? So it's not something to be neglected. I have also found that in this stage of my life with a child whose hormones are fluctuating as wildly as mine are, and with aging parents, increasingly in my thoughts and concerns, that having someone to talk to who has the freedom of give and take, that no therapist can fulfill. Is increasingly important and valuable to me. Community is one of the foundational components of aging well. While so much attention on Blue Zones have been about what they eat, the reality is all of these communities also prioritize community and relationships across the lifespan. There is no age within them where one is no longer useful. There is no age group that is not meaningful. Loneliness is an epidemic in most western industrialized nations. I mean, that's been said so much in the last five years, is practically a meme, but it's true. Our neglect of the very simple fact that we are social animals and we need one another to thrive and survive. Is ultimately to our own detriment. If you are finding you need more community in your life, I encourage you to reach out to people who you already know, who come into your thoughts or who you actively miss, and just say, hello. This is the easiest and quickest way to get connected. Let them know you're thinking of them and that you'd love to get together in person or on Zoom or via phone, whatever's appropriate. When you do meet up, do not let that meeting end without scheduling another. If we leave it at, let's do this again soon, it's never gonna fucking happen. My whole thirties, the whole decade of my thirties proved this. We are all too busy and too distracted to leave these important connections to convenience. Hardly anything is convenient anymore, and. Our connection with others and our relationships are way, way too important to only indulge in them when it's convenient. If you're at a place where you're starting from scratch and you know all of your friends have gone separate ways and you're not really feeling like there's anybody that you know that you can reconnect with. Getting outta the house and going to community events is a really good place to start from activist groups to knitting circles. Your next bestie could easily be within reach. I've found that it does take a lot more time and patience to make friends nowadays, but as with any important endeavor, persistence will pay off. Being supported and receiving support, sharing laughter and memories together are among the greatest gifts that we can give one another, number seven is gratitude. I. Now the school of hard knocks can make you a tough old bird or they can inspire you to sing louder when the skies are clear. I choose the latter for my own self-preservation and endurance. As many women in my family live a really long time, and I personally. Do not have the tenacity to live into my nineties being miserable. I simply, I, I can't handle that at all and I won't. Maintaining gratitude and keeping a healthy perspective of how much worse things could actually be has given me the intestinal fortitude and foresight to endure. Nearly a decade of online dating before hitting the jackpot. It's allowed me to persevere through outrageous bureaucracy to get a visa and move my family to a European country, and it allows me to take advantage of what I still can achieve athletically rather than mourn that which I have lost, because if I stayed there, I would just end up throwing in the towel. Don't mistake all of this to think that I'm some kind of Pollyanna because I'm not. But I do not allow myself to wallow in any misfortune for too long because it does mean no good to do. So when the brain weasels get too frisky, I look at the long arm of history and then it's really easy for me to rejoice in the reality that. I have more rights and liberties at my age than my grandmother did when she was my age. And I don't live in a war zone. I'm not a refugee, and all bad things that have happened in my life have come to an end. Now all good things come to an end as well, which is not something to grieve per se. But it does remind me to stop and fully embrace the goodness that does come to me. Our mindset is a crucial component to aging. Well. Fatalism and nihilism suck out the motivation and hope needed to make effective change in your life. It's kills the ability to adapt to the inevitability of change. If there's no point and no control, then why work at anything to improve your odds. But by noticing and acknowledging what we can be grateful for, even if it's the tiniest thing, we feed ourselves a dose of hope and positivity that makes getting outta bed worthwhile and makes persisting toward challenging goals more achievable. I will tell you that after two decades of working in the nutrition field. Every single client who came in to see me and had a strong attachment to being a victim of circumstance, be it their health condition or their body weight, who was unwilling to acknowledge even the smallest of progress in reduced blood sugar or fat mass. Ended up throwing in the towel and walking away. I have had single people who had all the money and time that they needed give up when their initial expectations were not met, only to walk into another appointment the same day, where an overworked mother of three was grateful to have made less progress in twice as much time. One person understood that the process is not linear and not all variables that lead to success can ultimately be controlled and the other person threw in the towel because the scale did not progress to their liking as quickly as it used to. We can't always choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how to respond. No one can take that from you. If you've not yet read Victor Frankl's book, man's Search for Meaning. Do so immediately. Listen to it in traffic. Put a copy at your bedside table. Just whatever it takes to suck up that wisdom. All of us are extremely lucky to have the ability to get our hands on this timeless home. Depending on where you are at in your life, reading this could radically change everything for you. Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now is another really good read, especially if you're worried about the future or you keep beating the shit outta yourself for past mistakes, you've made the book offers an excellent tool to help you step out of ruminating habits and acknowledge what is present and true rather than what could be or might have been. I do have a few sayings myself that have practically become mantras to help me remember these things and keep my own life in perspective. One is, any day you don't dump a rental car in a river full of crocodiles is a good day. Another is if you're not dead in a ditch, you're okay. I've also adopted, not my circus, not my monkeys, to remind me to only invest my time and energy into that which I am personally responsible for and have agency over rather than get entangled and drama from any energy vampires or attention whores. And I repeat that to myself the moment I start to get sucked in. Now, the first two sayings do have personal stories behind them. The latter appears to be a Polish proverb that I picked up somewhere over the last three years, and I think it stuck because both the circus and monkeys have some personal meaning to me. So that's probably why I just really like that saying a lot. But if you can create a mantra or affirmation that reflects how far you've already come in your life or. How whatever is going on for you isn't the worst that it's ever been for you. Then that mantra, that saying that affirmation can hold more power and meaning. I have found that having these sayings at the ready when I get my head space in a certain way has become an almost immediate remedy to my own internal drama. Or recently I've been tested with an unexpected event, which has a statistical probability of significantly altering my future in a way that I am not excited about. The aforementioned mantras coupled with reflecting on how much worse that whole situation could have been, and staying grateful for all that I still have in this moment has allowed me to weather uncertainty. Drama and life altering events with a demeanor that has shocked some of my family members and even impressed myself. And I have been accused multiple times in my life of setting my own bar unreasonably high. So when I'm impressed with myself, that's saying a lot. Had I not done all of this mindset work on appreciating what I do have. Had I not had an interest in the history of cultures and all the crazy shit humanity has done throughout the ages, had I not come back to focus on the things I do have agency over, I promise you I would be a fucking hot mess right now. The stress of it all would likely have made my sleep worse, negatively impacted my joy. Ride through perimenopause. Caused me to neglect my health habits entirely, and definitely would've ended up disrupting the harmony that exists within my family. Now, this is not unique to me. Of course, I'm nobody special in this way. My clients over the years have also modeled to me what can still be celebrated and accomplished in the face of adversity. When they show up for themselves, even as they're telling me it doesn't make sense to, or they don't want to, it strengthens and affirms their commitment to themselves and their resilience, and this inevitably ends up trickling down to their results. It is a glorious thing to behold, and one of the things that I really love. Being able to experience. I think it's, I think it's healing for me to also see other people do that. Um, it's one of the things that I really love about the work that I do. My clients proved to me what is possible before I needed to lean on it myself, and I'm so grateful to them for this. So these seven things are the habits that I'm leaning into this decade. Pick one or two, whatever feels most appealing to you and get started. You can layer on additional ones that you feel you would benefit from as you're able. Now, I didn't start all of these at once. It's just what I've been accumulating over the last decade. Most of them in fits and starts and a hundred percent imperfectly, but just keep at it and eventually it'll become second nature. I would totally love to hear from you about what you are doing personally to age like a badass. I. Certainly have not created an exhaustive list, and different things are important to different people. So if there's something that I missed that you feel is crucial, send me a message and let me know. In the show notes, you'll see where you can reach out and connect with me. I would absolutely love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and like this podcast, leave a review that helps me be seen and bring additional people into the blasphemous nutrition fold. Old Until next time, my blasphemous buddies. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you again soon. Any and all information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only, and is not to be misconstrued as offering medical advice. Listening to this podcast does not constitute a provider client relationship. Note, I'm not a doctor nor a nurse, and it is imperative that you utilize your brain and your medical team to make the best decisions for your own health. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked to this podcast. Are at the user's own risk. No information nor resources provided are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Be a smart human and do not disregard or postpone obtaining medical advice for any medical condition you may have. Seek the assistance of your healthcare team for any such conditions and always do so before making any changes to your medical, nutrition or health plan.