HSOS #8: Feed the Burn: Fuel, Flex, and a Friendlier Metabolism

Kim shares a personal college story of undereating, vending-machine “meals,” and cardio-only workouts that left her sick and exhausted, then breaks down what metabolism actually means in plain language. She explains why metabolism can shift in perimenopause and post-menopause, how under-eating, all-cardio training, and low protein slow things down, and what truly supports metabolic health: strength training, consistent fueling, protein, stress and sleep, plus daily movement. The episode also previews the Fit After 50+ program launching September 29.

Let’s talk. 

Welcome to Her Season of Strength—where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy—registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman when it comes to aging like you mean it. 

This show isn’t about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles. It’s about building real strength—physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I’ll share straight-talking nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies, and conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin once again. 

Menopause is not an ending, it is only the beginning. This is your season of strength. 

What I Cover (in order) 

• “I was completely wrecking my metabolism” in college: restricting calories, low nutrition foods, cardio over strength 
• Always sick, running on empty, low energy; “Hindsight is 20/20” 
• What metabolism means: converting food into energy; basal metabolic rate; movement, digestion, daily activity 
• “Metabolism isn’t about being fast or slow”; genetics note; people who “can’t sit still” and NEAT 
• Why metabolism fluctuates: aging, perimenopause, post menopause, muscle loss 
• Estrogen changes: midsection fat, harder time maintaining lean muscle, energy and recovery shifts 
• Lifestyle factors: yo-yo dieting, eating too little, high stress, poor sleep 
• What slows metabolism: chronic under-eating; relying only on cardio; not enough protein 
• Ways to support it: strength training + protein; fuel consistently; stress, sleep, daily movement (walking, chores, stairs) 
• Benefits and invitation: more energy, easier management without extreme dieting, stronger immune system, independence for Women 50+; Fit After 50+ starts Sept. 29, 2025.

Links & resources for this episode:

Fit After 50 Plus Program: 8-Week Nutrition Coaching & Fitness Program for women 50+. Next session starts winter of 2026. Join the interest list today for the best bonuses and discounts offered.

Free cheat sheet: "20 Tips to Crushing Menopause"

Join my free weekly newsletter list and get a new high protein recipe sent to your inbox every Thursday.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there, and welcome to Her Season of Strength, where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy, registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman. When it comes to aging like you mean it, this show isn't about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles.

It's about building real strength, physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I'll share straight talking, nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies. And conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin. Once again, menopause isn't an ending. It's only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

Hi there and welcome back to Her Season of Strength. I am so glad you're here today and thank you for just taking a couple minutes out of your day to listen in. So before we dive in, I wanna share a little story from my college years. So looking back. I realized I was completely wrecking my metabolism without even knowing it.

I was restricting [00:01:00] calories, living on low nutrition foods like popcorn and chips and mac and cheese and whatever else I could get out of the vending machine or grab at the dorm cafeteria. And I was spending all of my workout time on cardio. Instead of strength training, and I couldn't understand why I always, I was always sick or running on empty or low energy.

Hindsight is 2020. Am I right? And honestly, I know I wasn't alone. So many women in high school and college fall into that. Same pattern of under fueling and over exercising, thinking it's the way to be quote unquote healthy. But what we don't realize until later is how much that chips away at our energy, our immune system, and yes, our metabolism.

So that's why today I wanna break down what metabolism actually means, because it's a word that gets thrown out. Around all the time, and I wanna share how we can [00:02:00] support it, especially as we move through perimenopause and post menopause. And trust me, it's simpler than most people make it. But before we dive in, I'll give a little quick life update.

First of all, I am recording this in advance of me going to Huntsville for my my grandson's birthday, my grandson's birth date. So sorry I can't give any updates about that, but I'm hoping when I come back, when the podcast that comes out on the 18th. Or no, sorry, on the 25th, I'll be able to give a little more information then.

When this comes out on September 18th we are gonna be getting ready for the public launch for my Fit after 50 program, which kicks off on September 29th. It's designed around all the things that we're gonna talk about today, like strength training. Smart nutrition, building energy and boosting metabolism for the long haul.

I'm gonna put the link in the show notes so that you can check it out if it something like that [00:03:00] interests you. And if you're looking for kind of a way to get more consistent around these areas. So first of all, I just wanna touch on what metabolism means. Let's start with the basics. Metabolism.

All it means it's how your body converts food that you're eating into energy. Okay. It's not this mysterious thing. It's literally your body at work running all of your symptoms, systems, all of your organs, your breathing, your, your basic movements. That is something that's called basal metabolic rate.

It's just the amount of energy your body needs to stay alive, so before you get up in the morning, before you're running around and moving, you're just like laying in bed sleeping, you're breathing you, you're circulating your blood, you're repairing your cells. That is your basal metabolic rate.

That's how many calories that your body needs just in that really basic form. But then you add on the calories that you need. To use for movement, [00:04:00] for digestion, like when you eat things and have to digest it, and then just your activity throughout the day. So walking from point A to point B, keeping you upright as you're sitting at your desk, working at your computer or whatever.

So metabolism isn't about being fast or slow. Granted, I'll tell you, there's, genetics can play a part. You hear about sometimes people that have been thin all of their life and they can't gain a pound, right? They can eat loads and loads of calories and they can't gain a pound.

Sometimes you'll look back at like their behaviors and their activity. They might be people that can't sit still and they're, burning a lot of calories and stuff. But there is some genetics involved, right? But for most of us, it's about how efficiently that our body can use and support energy.

So why can metabolism fluctuate? It's because it's not static. It shifts based on what's going on in your life and your body. But as we age, [00:05:00] especially when we're moving into perimenopause and post menopause, we naturally lose muscle if we're not working to keep it. So that muscle loss is a huge reason that our metabolism can slow down a bit as we get older.

And on top of that, hormones can play a big role. So during perimenopause, estrogen starts to fluctuate, right? And by, by the time we hit post menopause, meaning, we stopped having our periods, menopause is that point at which we haven't had a period for. One full year, 12 months, right? And then anything beyond that is called post menopause.

So when we hit that, our estrogen levels drop significantly, and estrogen helps to regulate how we store and use fat. And it has an effect on our insulin sensitivity and our muscle maintenance. So when estrogen decreases, it often leads to, more of a tendency for us to store fat, especially around our midsection, which is one of the most common complaints.

That women come to me [00:06:00] for we have a harder time maintaining our lean muscle. So even the muscle that we have or that we've been working on, it's a harder time holding onto it. It can also lead to, changes in our energy levels and our recovery after exercise. And then there's lifestyle factors.

So when we add in years of like I was talking about before, yo-yo dieting, eating too little calories, high stress levels, or even just not sleeping well. These things all can affect our metabolism. So if you feel like, once you've hit those changes in hormones and perimenopause post menopause, if you felt like your body just doesn't respond the way it used to, you're not imagining it, there's seriously, biological reasons for those changes.

So what things slow Our metabolism, common culprits are gonna be undereating. A lot of women, especially those who grew up in the nineties, diet culture, spent years eating as little as [00:07:00] possible, thinking less food equals better health. But in reality, it tanks our energy levels and it tanks our metabolism.

Because you know what? Our body thinks that it's being starved. So what happens? It becomes more efficient. It holds those calories every calorie you're eating much closer, okay? And it's harder to lose weight. It's not gonna let go of them. So number two. Ca the second cause of slowing metabolism can be, relying only on cardio.

So cardio definitely has benefits. It's great for, building up cardio. Hence, cardiovascular, it helps to build that heart muscle. Helps us to build endurance. But without strength training we can lose muscle and slow our metabolism 'cause cardio is not gonna build muscle. Okay. We need that resistance training, that extra gravity on our.

Muscles and we need to fatigue them. And we, I've talked about this in [00:08:00] almost every single episode, but just the importance of, challenging those muscles and fatiguing 'em. And through that rest and recovery and adaptation. That's how we get stronger and that's how we can build muscle. And then lastly, there's protein intake.

Most women simply aren't eating enough protein to maintain muscle mass and to fuel the recovery of those muscles. So all of these three things combined. Can leave our metabolism affected and can leave it slower than what potential we might have for that metabolism. So what are some ways that we can actually support or boost our metabolism?

Here's the good news is you're not stuck with the metabolism you have today. If you are challenged, if it is slow, you can absolutely support it and even improve it. Strength training's, one of the most powerful tools, and I say it all the time, it's muscle is more metabolically active than fat.

So meaning the more muscle we have, the [00:09:00] more energy our body needs and burns at rest. So when we pair that with eating enough protein, you're giving your body those raw materials it needs to build and to keep that muscle. The next way to boost and support our metabolism is just fueling our body consistently, which means we're not skipping meals or going for long periods of time without eating.

We're not constantly undereating. These things can help us to regulate our metabolism and keep our energy levels steady. Just like we talked about. Here a couple weeks ago when we talked about the importance of regulating our blood sugars and preventing those highs and lows to keep us with more steady energy levels during the day.

And then don't forget about the basics like stress management. Good sleep and just daily movement outside of those strength workouts. And that's where, things like walking doing [00:10:00] chores and laundry and gardening or taking the stairs, they add up and they actually can support our metabolism as well.

Obviously, at the end of the day, if we moved around, if we took the stairs more, if we parked further back in the parking lot. If we found ways to move more, we are gonna burn more calories at the end of the day than we would've if we had just been sitting at our desk and, not getting up or adding in that those extra steps.

So when we do things, these things, the benefits are huge. We're gonna have more energy for the day. It's gonna promote better weight management. Without the extreme dieting, it's gonna promote a better, stronger immune system. We're gonna be able to fight off those illnesses and those colds, and the flus and the COVID ds.

Better than we could if we were not fueling our body properly. And it also promotes a body that feels actually capable and independent for the long haul. And come on as we age, that is our ultimate goal. [00:11:00] It's not about just being skinny or being a size two or whatever. It's about being functional, being able to be active.

It's about, being able to run after those grandkids or travel the world or, do things that you want to do. So supporting our metabolism is not about chasing skinny, it's just about creating more energy, creating more resilience, and creating better health as we age. This is one of the reasons why I built the Fit after 50 plus program.

'cause it, it's not about quick fix, its, it's about teaching women over 50, about the importance of strength workouts, of fueling our body appropriately and. And getting consistent with those lifestyle habits that can make a true difference that keeps our metabolism humming and burning.

And it keeps our energy levels high for years to come because we know that fatigue is one of the most common complaints when it comes to perimenopause and post menopause is it really can hit our [00:12:00] metabo or it can really kill our energy levels. And part of that. Can be related to maybe our metabolism isn't as optimized as it should be.

So remember, the fit after 50 plus program kicks off September 29th. I'd love to see you in there and get to know you a little better. The link is in the show notes if you wanna check it out, but for today, the big takeaway. That I want you to pull from this is that our metabolism is not fixed. It's not about luck or genetics, it's about how you care for your body.

It's by building muscle, fueling with enough protein, managing our stress levels, and moving daily, and you can absolutely support your metabolism at any age. Even through the ups and downs of these hormonal changes during perimenopause and post menopause, I'd love to hear what landed for you today.

Leave a rate, a rating or a review. If you can even just send me a little note via email at info@strengthinnutrition.com. Just to let me know [00:13:00] kind of your thoughts on metabolism. If you have a friend that you think might benefit from misinformation, please share it. And remember, this is about progress over perfection.

We are in this for the long haul, and this is your season of strength. Have an amazing day.