Chapter 41 - The last 20 pounds - why I'm not chasing skinny at 56

The last 20 pounds - why I'm not chasing skinny at 56

Stop Chasing Skinny: Why Women Over 50 Need Muscle, Not a Smaller Number on the Scale

What if the biggest mistake women over 50 make isn't eating too much—but chasing the wrong goal?

In this eye-opening episode of Burn It Down and Begin Again, Erica shares how a serious illness changed the way she thinks about health, fitness, and aging. After spending 49 days recovering from pneumonia, she returned to the exact same weight—but with less muscle, more body fat, and a completely different body composition. It became the wake-up call that transformed her approach to wellness.

This episode explores why muscle—not simply weight loss—is one of the greatest predictors of long-term health, energy, independence, and longevity. Erica breaks down the science behind metabolism, body composition, sarcopenia, protein intake, resistance training, sleep, cortisol, and why women over 50 should stop obsessing over the scale and start focusing on building strength.

She also shares her personal 16-week plan to lose her final 20 pounds, rebuild muscle, recover from illness, and create a healthier future—not by starving herself, but by fueling her body with purpose.

If you're tired of losing the same weight over and over, frustrated by changing hormones, or wondering why what worked in your 30s no longer works today, this episode will give you a completely different perspective on aging well.

Because after 50, the goal isn't to be the smallest version of yourself.

It's to become the strongest, healthiest, and most vibrant version of the woman you're still becoming.

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Transcript

Erica 0:01

Everything you've been told about weight loss after 50 is wrong, and it's the reason you keep losing the same 10 pounds over and over. I came back from a serious illness at the exact same weight I got sick at, and I looked worse, not better, because I didn't lose fat, I lost muscle. Today I'm telling you why chasing skinny at 56 actually is the wrong goal, and what your body really needs instead, and the eight-week plan I'm using to fix it. This one's going to make you rethink the scale. Let's get into it. Welcome to Burn It Down and Begin Again, because sometimes the only way out is through the fire. I'm Erica, and this is my story, told one chapter at a time. Not to relive the pain, but to reclaim the power that was buried beneath it. I share it boldly because I know I'm not the only one. Too many of us carry stories like mine of trauma, silence, survival, and shame alone. But healing isn't just about surviving what hurt us, it's about becoming the people that we were meant to be, how we can transform pain into purpose and rebuild life on our own terms to show what is possible when we rise to the strongest version of ourselves. If you hear yourself in my words, know this you're not crazy, you're not broken, and you're definitely not alone. This podcast is part of Chicology: Real Women, Real Stories, and Real Transformation. We're here to break cycles, rise higher, and create lives that radiate power, purpose, and passion. So if you've walked through hell and you're ready to grow, evolve, and rebuild, then stay with me. There's hope here, there's healing here, and there's an army of us rising with you. Now, let's begin. Good morning, guys. This is Erica, and welcome to the podcast. If you guys are new, if you guys have been here for a while, welcome. This podcast was created from a place of darkness and brokenness into a me that I never thought I would become. It is here for anybody who feels too broken or lost or feel like they've gone too far to fix themselves, to show you that there is a way out of the dark and how rebuilding your life is possible, no matter how late you think you're starting. I do encourage you, if you're new, to go back and listen to some of the older episodes because I really do get into what my life looked like, how far I've come. And now I'm really focusing in on things that matter for changing life long term, whether it be health or mental stuff, uh taking care of ourselves. I do focus on just being well overall, having the right mentality manifestation, and how we can create the lives that we want. I do want to thank you for being a part of this community. If you're here, go ahead and hit follow. If you haven't yet, please drop some stars and give us a comment. It really does help people find the algorithm of whatever platform you're on. So I thank you for that. As always, I start with the challenge of the week and I actually have a couple. One, of course, is going to be my subject of the day, which is the final 20 pounds, which I'll get into. But I am struggling. I have been, as you guys have, if you followed me, I was out of work for 49 days. I went back to work and I was feeling really good. I had a modified schedule up until July the 2nd, where I was only working six hours. And I got back into my regular schedule after July the 2nd. And I have some seriously long days. And yesterday, it was like a nine and a half hour day. I didn't get my first break until like six and a half hours into my shift. And I gotta tell you, the past few days have really kicked my ass. And I woke up feeling like crap this morning. I'm just feeling very exhausted. Uh, and I'm so careful to listen to my body now because after getting sick like that, I never want to get sick like that again. And I just felt like, you know, maybe I was getting a cold, but it was really the level of exhaustion. And I called out and I hate to do that because I was already out so much. This is the most exerting thing I'm doing today, is this podcast, because I plan on literally laying in bed and probably joncing on some audiobooks and sleeping so I can get back and get back to work because I I gotta live life. But that is my challenge this week is just regaining the energy. And part of that is gonna kind of funnel into what we're talking about today, which is the final 20 pounds. And when I was sick, of course, I literally laid in bed. I think I shared that with you guys repeatedly, but I did nothing, you know, and I stayed the same weight, but my shape changed because I had lost all that muscle from going to the gym and doing the usual stuff that I do. And I'm not a crazy workout person, but I definitely take time to, you know, do what's right for my body. And I became very soft, and I could see that my stomach had picked up quite a bit of pooch to it, you know, it had a lot more fat there. And my energy level as well is dipped. So the challenge for me is to be able to go back. I've got to work, work a demanding full-time job, but also be able to regain my strength and have enough energy to get to the gym. And I haven't really had a lot of energy to do any of that. I am integrating exercise back a little bit more every day. But to be able to live my best life, I need to be able to get back and get into shape. So before I get into any of my plan, I gotta say, I'm not trying to get skinny. I am just trying to get strong again. And that's the big difference. The older you get, the more it matters, right? Your strength, your muscle tone, how much muscle you got versus fat, because it ties in directly into how you feel, of course, how you look, but how you feel, it's so important. And some of the research on body rate and mortality is really surprising. It matters so much. Multiple large studies have found that people in the overweight category on the BMI chart, not obese, right, but just overweight, actually have equal or sometimes lower death rates than people sitting in the normal weight range. It's debated a lot, and researchers argue that the numbers get skewed because sick people and smokers tend to weigh less, which drags the that normal category down unfairly. But even the critics of that research generally agree that the underlying point matters most. So it's not just the number on the BMI chart driving that risk, it's what that weight is made of, fat or muscle. A woman who is a little heavier but strong, which is what I normally am, with real muscle on her frame, is a completely different health story than a woman who's thin but weak with no muscle reserve. And it matters more, guys, as we age because muscle is your reserve tank for illness, for injury, or for just functioning independently later in life, which really I'm starting to think a lot about lately. Underweight and low muscle is a real risk category. It really is. And no one warns you about it because our culture, well, maybe more now, but I think everyone's just concerned with being thin, right? And you look at a lot of the people on Instagram, the celebrities. Yeah, you got some people with good muscle tone out there, but you got a lot of uh really skinny, unhealthy people out there too. And we kind of, you know, model ourselves after them. And here's the vain part too. I'm gonna say it because it's true. Getting too lean in your 50s, it ages your face. You lose fat there and you actually look like you're sagging more, right? That you you tend to look like you have the saggy jowls. So my actual target for the next 16 weeks isn't the smallest number that I can get to. I'm gonna say it's gonna be somewhere between, I'm gonna say realistically, 15 to 20 pounds. I'm gonna focus on 10 pounds for the first eight weeks and 10 pounds for the second eight weeks. But it's building the muscle, it's doing both at the same time. I do like a stronger version of myself, and I'm definitely not there right now. So, okay, back to my 49 days. You know, guys, that is not like I took a week off. That is like a chunk of a season. I quit the gym. I couldn't go. I quit walking my dog. I mean, my God, my dog even got fat. My son came over for dinner and he's like, oh my God, mom, the dog got fat. And I came out the other side, the exact same weight that I came in at, the same number, but a new muffin top that I didn't have before. And that's not, you know, fat gain. That's muscle loss wearing a costume. And basically that muscle just got replaced with fat because I wasn't moving my body. When you lose muscle and hold steady weight, that weight has to live somewhere and it picks the worst real estate on your body right at the waistband. So I noticed definitely when I was putting on my pants that fit me, all of a sudden I've got a muffin top hanging over the top, right? So, lesson one, and I say this to every woman who's my age, listen, I stop treating the scale like scripture. Right now, I am between 170 and 173 pounds, and that's too heavy. It is the last 20 pounds. My perfect ideal weight is like 155, 160. And at that weight, I'm small, you guys. And I'm I'm, of course, that's with muscle. Um, I do have um, you know, a pretty, I'm gonna say large frame as a woman. I'm German ancestry part of that. I'm not big boned. I'm gonna say I'm medium boned, but definitely I've never been a person that's on the slight side. So even at 170, I look really good. I mean, you wouldn't know. People would be like, what? You're 170? Yes, I'm 170. So don't look at the numbers on the scale. Everything is how you look in clothes. And more importantly, like when you're standing there in front of the mirror in your underwear, I'm not talking about the saggy scan, everybody gets that, right? But like, how do you look? You can see the fat distribution. So let's get into the research because I don't like throwing around things like study show without backing it up. The American College of Sports Medicine put out this updated resistance training guidance, and I think it's something worth looking at. It's a real shift from old thinking. For decades, the message was cardio, cardio, cardio. Get your heart rate up, burn calories, sweat it out. But the updated guidance totally flips that hierarchy. It says that consistency and hitting your major muscle groups matters way more than some elaborate cardio program. And I'm not saying cardio that doesn't have a place, of course it does, but resistance training is so important. It's not a side dish anymore, you guys, for adults, especially as we age, is the main course. And my social media feed shows up with them because I'm following that all the time. But man, you look at some of these women that are considerably older. I'm talking about in their 70s. I see them also on my social media feed. These women that lift weights, they look amazing. And then you see the average everyday woman that doesn't put any effort into that. You see the difference. You begin to lose muscle mass every single year if you're not actively fighting to keep it. Here's why it matters so much more at 56 than it did at 26. Starting somewhere in your 30s, you start losing muscle mass every single year. And if you're not actively fighting to keep it, it's gonna get worse and worse. And it definitely speeds up after 50. It's called sarcopenia. And it is one of the most under-discussed aging processes there is. Bottom line, guys, if you don't lift weights and take care of your body, uh, you are going to lose muscle tone and you're gonna age faster and you're gonna feel like crap a lot faster. So, what should lifting actually look like? Full body, two to three times a week, hitting the big patterns, right? Legs, back, chest, glutes, two solid working sets each week, enough weight that the last couple of reps are genuinely hard, not just a breeze. I usually I'm there for 45 minutes to an hour, but that's it. You just hit it two times a week. Every major group, you're not gonna get bonus points, by the way, for wandering around the gym floor, scrolling through your phone. You've actually got to do the work, but it makes such a huge difference in how I feel. And so I want to bust a myth right here because I believed it myself for years. The fear that heavier lifting will make a woman bulky. It is not true. I know people, uh, myself included, when I met my best shape, I lift heavy and I just look like I'm toned. And some of the most fit women I know, they lift heavy and they do not look bulky because we don't carry around that hormonal profile, right? To build size the way that men do without serious deliberate effort. Like if you're trying to be a bodybuilder, there are things that you would do, obviously. And usually you have to have some kind of assistance in terms of shots or testosterone or whatever it is that you're gonna take. But what's actually happening when a 50-something woman lifts real weight is her arms get definition, her back gets that strong, straight posture, which helps so much instead of that slouch. Because as we age, we start to slouch, and clothes just fit differently. And that's what's bugging me right now. I notice that my clothes I feel freaking frumpy. I'm having to like squeeze myself into jeans that I didn't have to before. So absolutely uh makes a difference the more muscle you have. And I do think that what matters is uh frequency over intensity. I think that you we just have to be consistent. It's just a matter of showing up and doing it. And that's the thing, right? Life gets busy and we let it slip. And, you know, for me, it was getting sick, and now I'm having a hard time being consistent again because I'm just trying to get my energy back. Carrying extra fat, especially around the medsection, which is where I tend to carry it, is tied to the risk of almost every major category that kills people, that risk factor. I'm talking like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, inflammation that really wears you down and wears down your organs after years and years of. And you, it's not just about how you look in a swimsuit, it's actually what it's doing to your body. The research on muscle mass and mortality is one of the more hopeful things that I've read lately. Women with more lean muscle mass consistently show better long-term health outcomes and lower mortality risk than women chasing a lower number on the scale through like a starvation and cardio diet. And I don't think that's really popular or trending now anyway. I think that people are really beginning to see that muscle is important. But you know, it isn't vanity after 50. It literally is like your longevity insurance policy. So for me, that last 20 pounds is not about chasing thin, it's just chasing that body composition that protects the rest of my life, where I also feel good and of course look good in my clothes, that matters. But the most important thing for me is my energy and long-term, how is my body going to age? Am I going to be able to have a longer lifespan for my kids? And I really don't want to get too lean. Past a certain point, especially at my age, getting too thin starts aging your face. Have you seen people like that? They're super thin, they call it a zempic face, and they look a lot older because you lose the fat in your face before you lose it anywhere else. And it's the last place you actually want it gone from. So it's really important to be able to have body fat on your body within that healthy range, not get too skinny. And that's important over 50. The goal definitely isn't smaller, it's more of a specific range, enough fat loss to protect your organs and your joints, and enough muscle to protect the metabolism and the strength. Let's talk about your BMR and how you calculate it. BMR stands for basal metabolic rate. It's simply the number of calories that your body burns just existing, breathing, keeping your heart beating, digesting, repairing sales, all of that. It's not the calories you burn from your job, your workouts, or chasing the dog around the yard. That's a separate number layered on top, and that's called your total daily energy expenditure. The most common formula is you take your weight, your height, and your age, and you run them through the formula and out comes your baseline number. So for me, at my weight, my height, and my age, before I add up any activity at all, my body burns right around 1300 to 1400 calories a day, just existing. That's not very much. And once you layer in how much I'm on my feet at work, walking the dog, doing some training, the number actually lands a bit higher than the baseline number, which is right around 1600 calories. That's a deficit for me without starving myself into misery. That's important. So if you want your own number, there are free BMI calculators, but you can use this exact formula. You just need your age, your height, your current weight, how active your day usually is, and be honest about it, right? Most people overestimate their activity level, by the way. Standing at a job is not the same thing as formal exercise. And that gap between resting burn and total burn is the whole game. It also is why two women who weigh the same and eat the same can have completely different results because their actual movement and their muscle mass and their daily total are different, even if the scale says they're twins. So here is where I throw out the rule book that everybody talks about. Because every single diet plan says don't eat at night. For me, I have tried that. I cannot do that. The way that my body works, I listen to my body and I pretty much eat when I'm hungry. If I don't eat before I go to bed, I wake up at two in the morning starving and I go for whatever is easy in the fridge. And that is not healthy. I have to eat something before I go to bed. So instead of fighting my own biology, like it's the enemy, I kind of built my day around that. So I'm lighter through the day naturally. I'm eating high protein stuff as much as I can, but before I go to sleep, I am eating a high protein meal. Last night, what that looked like for me, I wasn't feeling that great last night. So I just had some soup. I tend to always make soup. I had taken a duck and I had put it in the pressure cooker and I had duck broth with a little bit of collagen inside and a hard-boiled egg. That was what I ate before I went to sleep, so I wouldn't get up and snack in the middle of the night. So it isn't really important how you listen to your body and what actually works for you. I tried to do that thing where you don't eat before you go to bed, and literally it was waking up my sleep pattern. I was waking up every hour or so with my body telling me I was hungry. So that not being good for me either. I decided that I would make a compromise and I would eat before I'd go to bed. I would just eat something high protein, and that really was a game changer for me. I think that it's important that every woman builds her own set of rules for her body around how she feels, which means the rule book can basically be thrown out the window at any given time. You have to, and I'm really into listening to my body at this stage, like today. I could feel that I was just not well. I felt very exhausted. I felt like I needed to sleep more. I also felt like I needed a little bit of a heavier meal. And as you can hear, I'm yawning. I needed to sleep, like I said, and I listen to my body. And the same rule goes with food. When I'm eating, if I get up in the morning and I'm not hungry, I'm not gonna eat something. If I'm hungry and if I feel like eating a larger breakfast, I'm gonna do that. There's a reason when my body is telling me stuff like that. If I'm feeling like something salty, there's usually a reason for that. I'm not talking about just like random snacking, because ever since I got on GLP, I'm really not a random snacker anymore. I eat deliberately when I'm hungry. I don't think about food when I'm not eating, that kind of thing. When the people have snacks there at work, they don't tempt me. I want to eat what I'm hungry for, and that's the thing too. I eat what I'm hungry for. I really listen to my body. I know myself well enough now uh that I do listen to what it is that I'm craving. I am lucky, I don't get sugar cravings. I hope feel sorry for you guys that are out there with the sugar cravings all the time. Yeah, you definitely can't do that. But it it really does make a difference if you are listening to your body and picking the things that your body wants healthfully, right? So even if you do want something sweet, I mean, go ahead and have some fruit cut up and have that there as your go-to. The point is to try and stay on target by eating whole foods and not processed foods and nothing with sugar, because that's no good for us. And the piece that everybody seems to miss is sleep, right? Sleep is so important. Your hunger hormones actually shift against you when ghrelin kicks in. And that's that hormone we've talked about it before that makes you feel hungry. Your leptin, that's the hormone that tells you that you're satisfied, goes down. So you're not imagining it when you're tired, you're suddenly ravenous for something you normally wouldn't crave. That's your actual body chemistry working against your goals. It's not a willpower problem. On top of that, poor sleep raises your cortisol, and elevated cortisol is directly tied to how your body decides to store fat, especially around the midsection. And that's the spot that I've been struggling with. And as you get older, that's the spot where you're going to begin to just pick up the weight if you're not careful. So part of my eight-week plan isn't just about food and lifting, it is protecting my sleep, just like it's a training session. And that's huge because I noticed that if I don't sleep and if I don't get my eight hours, I do not feel good the next day. And that's when your body does its repair work. And honestly, after this last venture into being sick, I am more protective of my sleep than ever because I need to be able to heal, especially after a long day at work and all the extra stuff that I do. You need recovery time, guys, just from life, from your body being out in the environment and all the crap that's falling down out of the sky and the ozone and everything. That takes a lot out of your body too. Just living, guys, the stress. You need that sleep. You gotta protect sleep like it's the most important thing in your arsenal because it really is. My schedule doesn't hand me the perfect eight hours on a silver platter. Sometimes I am up at four in the morning working on my side hustles. That's just naturally when I wake up. But again, I try to treat my sleep kind of like food. So if I get up at four in the morning and I know that I'm working at noon, I will literally get in a nap somewhere around the 9:30 slot, as crazy as that sounds, because I need to go into work feeling fresh. And I do that a lot. And I think I've shared with you before too. I go out on my lunch, I turn the air conditioning on in my car and I sleep. That little tiny, you know, 20, 25 minute cat nap gets me through the rest of my day. But that's not ideal. What we're really looking for is that eight hours uninterrupted sleep, if possible, as close to that as possible. And that's a big part of health and wellness. Let's talk about building a eating schedule that actually works for you. So you got to figure out what your actual hunger pattern is, not the one that you wish you had or the one that they tell you you should have on Instagram, but like, are you a morning eater? Are you an evening eater? For me, I am definitely an evening eater just because that's when I notice that I get home from work, I wind down, my body winds down, and I feel like, okay, now I can relax and now I'm hungry. So that's why I eat something, and it's got to be something high protein. Because if I fill up on carbs, it's just gonna wake me up in the middle of the night, I'm gonna be even hungrier. So you Gotta anchor in that protein. I aim myself aim for about 130 grams of protein a day. And I try to spread it out over whatever meals that I'm actually eating because that protein piece that is protecting the muscle that I'm trying to rebuild. And it also helps make you feel like you're full longer. And then build that meal in that fits into your real life as the main meal. Like I said, for me, I'll tend to come home and eat after work a main meal. A light dinner at six is not gonna, I'm at work every day at six. So I'm lucky if I can throw something in my mouth. So for me, my real world living, I might get up, I might have something for breakfast. I'll definitely have like a little sip of a protein shake or something like that. And then uh, and my eating does change, by the way, from season to season. But for me right now, I'm usually not hungry until, I don't know, right around noon. I'll eat something. I might eat something again about three o'clock in the afternoon. And then um, I'm really eating something right before I go to bed about nine or 10 o'clock at night, which isn't ideal, but it works for me. I think we have to stop aiming for like a perfect day and start aiming for like a good week. And what that means is that some days you're gonna land at 1500 calories, and some days are gonna be 1700, some might even be 2,000. Like I'm supposed to go away this weekend on a staycation. And do you think that I'm gonna be watching what I eat on my staycation? Of course I'm not. I'm gonna eat what I feel like eating within reason. So, you know, I've got to take that into account, right? But shoot for the overall week rather than just the day, because that's what matters. And then build in meals that you actually enjoy, um, not just stuff that you have to eat. So, my latest thing has been baked sweet potatoes. I've been, I get on these rolls, right? I cut that sweet potato in half and I rub it with I like lengthwise. It's so it's trending right now on a lot of social media, but I tried it, it's delicious. You put it in a 350 to 400 degree oven. Uh, after you rub it with olive oil and salt, you put it face down on a sheet pan. And man, I'm telling you, they get caramelized and delicious. And you don't need uh really anything other than the oil that's already rubbed on, you're not using much. But if you want a little extra brown, just a little bit of butter in a pan, uh, sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar on top of that. And man, you guys, it is such a treat. And then I'm really into eating green beans lately, where I will get uh really good fresh, like green beans from Costco, for example. I'll put them in that pressure cooker for maybe, I don't know, like a minute on, and then I release that steam. I throw them straight into ice water so they're super crunchy. And then I put those in the fridge in containers, and not only do I throw that in the dog's food, but for me, I'll get olive oil and fresh garlic, and I'll saute those, flash saute those. So they're still really crispy, but they've got like a really heavy garlic flavor. Those are amazing. And then any kind of chicken, something lean, uh makes for a great meal. And that's what I'll typically eat before I go to work. Again, find the things that you really like to eat. Here's another one that I've been doing lately, which is a viral recipe. I love it. I get rice paper, the crispy rice paper sheets. Uh, dip that in egg both sides, lay it on a wax paper sheet, get a couple of them, and you overlap them. And then in the middle of that, I just put shredded chicken breast, maybe a little bit of ham, uh, a really flavorful cheese, because you don't want a lot of cheese, but like some gray air cheese is fantastic, shredded, and you roll it up like a big cigar. And then you roll it up like a cinnamon roll. And I put a couple little toothpicks in there, and I sprinkle it with some of that Trader Joe's uh everything but the bagel seasoning, and I put that in the air fryer at these 350 degrees until it gets nice and golden brown. Man, you guys, that is such an amazing meal, and it's pretty healthy, but it definitely satisfies that craving without going overboard and having something deep fried or that's processed, and I'm making it at home, which is great. And you can fill those with anything, by the way. They're really, really good. But you got to also remember, and this is the other part, do measure the sneaky stuff because that oil that I'm talking about, that little drizzle of butter, that all adds up, you guys. And if you're trying to lose the weight, I mean, I don't believe that you have to be like perfectly religious about every single calorie and be like, I can't eat more than 1600. Like I said, look more at the week than just the individual day, but you have to offset it with exercise and that weight training, and that's going to make the difference. So for me, the training, this is such a big piece of it, right? But it has been a little harder for me. And that's because my energy has not come back to what it was before I got sick. And I think part of that is going into a very demanding work schedule and having to compensate for that. So, I mean, keep in mind, I'm up at four in the morning, I'm doing my side hustles, and then I get the walk cato. Uh, you know, I'll run any errands, I'll hit the gym. Usually, if I'm working at in the afternoon, which could be anywhere between 12 and 1, I'll take a little nap and then I'll uh start to get ready and boom, that's my day. And I'm up at like 9, 9:30 at night. So I really have to plan my workouts, but you can see I'm literally running from four in the morning till 10 o'clock at night. It is really important more now than ever to get that energy back that I had pre-sickness. And it's been hard to get back because when you're starting from a place of already being under deficit and then having to build that back up, it's just a little piece at a time. So I'm being really patient with myself in terms of the workouts. And if I feel genuinely tired, and I'm not talking about lazy, like I'm like, I don't want to do it. I'm talking about genuinely tired and I'm listening to my body because I'm really into, like I said, the most important thing is that we listen to our body. I will cut my workout short or I'll go the next day or whatever I have to do. But I am getting those workouts in. So I want to say this plainly for everybody listening to this who's quietly living some version of this and wondering if there's something wrong with you. It is not laziness or a character flaw. After a real illness or just getting older, our body doesn't just hand the energy back to you because you're ready for it. It's got to be earned back gradually. Or if you're just starting, it's got to be earned. Once you get enough muscle, you will begin to feel a difference in your energy level. But it's really hard to balance and juggle life now, you guys. I mean, I think, you know, working as many hours as I do and having the busy schedule that I have, I have to be really judicious with the decisions that I make in my life. And exercise is a very deliberate part of that. But it is a big part of my eight-week strategy. I definitely feel like if I don't exercise, I'm gonna basically I can drop fat, but I'm not gonna have that muscle tone. And what's gonna happen is I'm just gonna end up depleting my energy reserves. So I've got to have that balance of both. So, what does that look like for most people on like an average everyday thing? It doesn't have to be a lot. It could be just getting out and walking for a good brisk half an hour every day. Start with that. Take your dog out, do it early in the morning if you live here in Vegas. It's really hot, you know? Get out there and get it done. Make sure you're getting good eating choices in, solid protein. Make sure that you calculate exactly how much protein your body needs. Super easy. Go to ChatGPT. ChatGPT will do your BMR too. You basically just say, hey, do my BMR. Uh, what do you need to know, ChatGPT? It'll tell you, you give it the answer it wants, is it'll tell you exactly how much you should be eating every day. The same thing with calculating your exercise, calorie expenditure. Uh, AI is such a great tool to use when it comes to stuff like this. It can also help keep track of what you're eating. You can literally just have like a project in your AI, and it can be a daily diary thing, and it'll just be like, hey, this is what I ate, and you just throw it in every time you eat something, and at the end of the day, it'll calculate how much protein you had, how many calories you had. You can use AI for so many different things, but make sure you're making a consistent effort to get it all in. And every week just build up a little bit more of that exercise piece, especially when it comes to the uh weightlifting, which I really do believe needs to be done two to three times a week if you're gonna see results. And it has to be done to fatigue where you're pretty tired getting out of there and you're feeling sore. So here's what I'm doing: I'm lifting three days a week and I'm doing three run walks every week, and that's where I'm walking and then I'm running. So it's kind of like that interval thing. So I'm getting my speed back up. Kato and I are both getting a little healthier and getting back our speed again and getting our cardio back up. And I'm doing that three times a week for about a half an hour. Other than that, I'm just eating healthy and making that decision and doing morning walks with Kato. I've got to do most of my stuff if I'm doing outdoors because I live in a freaking frying pan here in Las Vegas early in the morning. But I will tell you that another thing that is really important is that nutritional piece of the vitamin. So uh taking supplements, really, really big for me. We've talked about that. And then peptides are also a really big part of my personal protocol. And I do use a lot of different peptides for health and longevity, but I do use GLP still, and I'm probably gonna up my GLP here pretty soon. But my GLPs, right now I'm using Retta, and I'm using a little bit of TERS as well. So the terzeptide. So I'm using Retta like on Monday, uh, just a maintenance dose, and then I use the terzepatide, which is a better appetite piece for me. Going into this, losing this last 20 pounds, I'm using it, and they don't recommend that, but that's what I have found out from my body that I can do. And again, I use just a small amount of that midweek. So, say if I take my Retta on a Monday, I'm taking my TURS on a Thursday. This is just what I'm doing personally. Do not follow what I'm doing. You gotta do what's right for you. But that helps give me a midweek appetite suppression boost as I'm going into eating a calorie deficit. Because when I go into a calorie deficit, I'm hungrier than usual. So I just am kind of getting my footing back underneath me. And then after that, I will wean down again to just the rutta once a week on Monday as a microdose, which I'm using not for weight so much, but all the other benefits that come with it. Retta is supposed to fight cancer, it keeps you metabolically fit. I mean, my gosh, my blood pressure, everything, my blood work came back great. And I think a lot of that has to do with reta. But the point being, what you put in your body, you know, for me, peptides, taking the right vitamins, getting the right sleep, the food, it's all part of this essentially a 16-week. I want to lose 15 to 20 pounds, but that first eight weeks is gonna be about the first 10 pounds. To wrap this up, I think what this is really about is just getting back to my healthy. We all should be thinking about that, especially women over 50. We need to be thinking about what our exercise schedule looks like, what our weightlifting and weight training schedule looks like, and start researching, doing your own research on how much longer that can add quality years to your life and years to your life. My son actually called me uh yesterday morning and he sounded upset. It was really early in the morning, and I said, Are you okay? And he had just woken up from this nightmare where I had died. And he was really distressed. He said, Mom, you know, this is my, you know, 23-year-old kid. He's like, I it was so real. And I just like I was so devastated that you were gone and had a son, and you were never gonna meet my son. And I woke up and it was one of those nightmares where you feel like, wow, I'm so glad that was just a dream. But it made me realize for my 23-year-old fireman's son to call me and say that he felt that way. Man, my kids want me around and I know that, but I I have a responsibility to them, not just to me. So losing this final weight is not just about vanity or muffin top, it's also about being the greatest version of myself. Because let me tell you what, unless you go through what I went through where I was really, really sick for that long, you don't realize how if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. And unless you've really been sick for a long period of time, and I mean, I wasn't even like really sick with something horrible. I just had a pneumonia. But uh guys, people can die from pneumonia. I mean, look at there, there's a couple actors this last week that were there in their 60s that died from complication with pneumonia. You gotta take health seriously, right? That hit me out of nowhere. But I do realize that my health is so important because it matters to my kids. They want me around. I know that I want to be there for them, and I want to live the best quality life that I can. So for me, this uh 16-week challenge is basically what it is is to get down to the perfect version of me. I know exactly where that is. I just got to have the discipline to do it, and you do too. So I just wanted to share that with you. It's been such a busy week. This was more of just a little dive into where I'm at right now. Something I definitely think about health and wellness as I'm getting a little bit older. And I hope you'll join me on that journey and just be healthy and start making little changes and being consistent in ways that will improve the quality of your life. We have to think about those things as we're getting older. It's more important than ever. I've said this many times, but in my head, I feel like I'm 30. And after getting sick this last time, I realize I am definitely not 30. And I look in the mirror, I see it in my face, I'm aging. I have to treat my body with extra care. Do you think missing that workout doesn't matter? It does. And so that's where I'm at. I'm just about healing and getting my body back to where uh even better than it was before I got sick, but at least getting back to that baseline so I can build on that. Um, that's it, you guys. I just wanted to share my health journey with you, and I hope you guys will join me. If you guys are my age or younger, it's never too young to start. I wish I had gotten more into this at an earlier time in my life, but it matters, you know. I see people my age and and a little bit older dropping dead from crazy stuff like heart attacks. Like, I do not want that to be me. I'm gonna do everything that I can to make sure that I'm around for my kids and eventually my grandkids and for myself, living a quality life for myself. So I that's it for me this week. If today's episode resonated with you, please don't stay in silence. Share it with somebody who might need to hear it. And if you're walking through your own fire right now, know this you are not too broken, you are not too late, and you are never ever alone. This is Burn It Down and Begin Again. I'm Erica, and I'll see you in the next chapter.