7: Stop Shrinking and Start Building! The Secrets Behind Protein, Hormones, and Muscle

In this episode of The Ageless Women Podcast, Cindy Grow, APRN, is joined by Brianna, Registered Dietitian, and Lauren, Movement Medicine Specialist, for an empowering conversation about one of the most overlooked foundations of women’s health: protein, muscle, and strength in midlife and beyond.

Building on the hormone conversation from Episode 6, Cindy connects protein and muscle back to the bigger picture of the hormone concert — the way estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, insulin, cortisol, thyroid hormones, sleep, stress, inflammation, and metabolism all work together to influence how women feel, function, recover, and age.

For years, women have been told to eat less, shrink more, do more cardio, and accept fatigue, weight changes, muscle loss, cravings, and slower recovery as “just part of aging.” But the truth is, aging well is not about doing less for your body. It is about learning how to build a stronger foundation.

Brianna explains why so many women are under-eating protein, how protein supports muscle, blood sugar balance, metabolism, satiety, recovery, and healthy aging, and simple ways to make protein easier and more realistic throughout the day.

Lauren breaks down why muscle is medicine — not just for strength or appearance, but for bone health, balance, mobility, insulin sensitivity, independence, confidence, and long-term resilience.

Cindy ties it all together through the lens of women’s hormone health and healthspan, reminding listeners that protein, muscle, metabolism, and hormones are not separate conversations. They are deeply connected.

This episode is for the woman who feels like what used to work no longer works. The woman who is tired, inflamed, under-fueled, losing strength, struggling with body composition changes, or wondering how to support her body in a smarter way through perimenopause, menopause, and beyond.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why protein becomes even more important for women in midlife
• How muscle supports metabolism, blood sugar, hormones, and longevity
• Why strength training is essential for healthy aging
• How under-fueling can affect energy, cravings, recovery, and hormone stress
• Why muscle loss is not something women should ignore
• How protein and movement support the body’s ability to repair, adapt, and age well
• Why the goal is not to shrink your body, but to build strength, resilience, and vitality

Protein matters.
Muscle matters.
Hormones matter.
And aging well begins with building a body that is strong, nourished, supported, and resilient from the inside out.

To learn more about personalized women’s health, hormone optimization, advanced testing, metabolic health, and longevity-focused care, visit My Venus Club at www.myvenusclub.com.

Your body is not failing you.
It may simply be asking for a new strategy.

Transcript

0:27

Welcome to the Ageless Women Podcast, where modern science meets timeless self-care for limitless vitality. I'm Dr. Cindy Growe, a board certified nurse practitioner and the founder of My Venus Club. This is a space for women who are ready to understand what's actually happening in their bodies and finally get real answers. If you've been told your labs are normal that this is just a part of aging, or that you just need to try harder, and if you've sat through those 15-minute appointments, left with just another prescription to manage symptoms, or maybe feel like you've lost a part of yourself, you're in the right place. Before we begin, just a quick note this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to replace personalized medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with your healthcare provider regarding your individual health needs. Here we go deeper. We connect the dots between your hormones, your metabolism, your genetics, and your lifestyle so you can stop guessing and start feeling like yourself again. So let's get started. Welcome back to the AGES Women Podcast. In episode six, we took a deep dive into one of the most important and misunderstood conversations in women's health: hormones. We talked about how for decades women have been taught to fear their hormones and in many ways fear aging itself. But hormones are not something women should fear. They're something women deserve to understand. Hormones are powerful signaling molecules that influence nearly every system in the body. And one of the biggest concepts we talked about in episode six was what I call the hormone concert, because hormones don't work alone. Everything is connected. And most importantly, every woman's hormone concert is different. That's why two women can have similar lab numbers but feel completely different. So today in episode seven, we're building on that conversation. We're talking about two of the most powerful tools women have to support their hormone concert and extend their health span, protein and muscle. Because protein is not just for bodybuilders, and muscle is not just about looking toned. We need to talk about building strength, resilience, and metabolic flexibility. So muscle is the foundation that supports hormones, aging, recovery, and vitality. So today I'm joined with Brianna, our registered dietitian, who will talk about protein nutrition and why so many women are underfueling themselves. And Lauren, our movement medicine specialist, who'll talk about muscle strength training and movement and why muscle is one of the most important predictors of how well we age. And I'll be connecting this all back to hormones because protein, muscle, metabolism, and hormones are not separate conversations. They're all part of the same concert. So let's get started. Hi girls, thank you for being here today. Hey, hey Cindy. Hey Breezy. Hey, Lauren. So for decades, women have been told to eat less, do more cardio, and we know protein and hormones provide such important building blocks for muscle, tissue repair, immune function, and recovery. And muscle is metabolically active and it regulates blood sugar, supports insulin sensitivity, protects our bones, improves strength. It's really helps to influence our long-term health span. Not only, but as we age, protein and muscle become essential tools for just supporting our body. So, Brianna, let's start with protein because this is one of the biggest places women are often underfueling without even realizing it. Yeah, I would definitely say that diet culture has really kind of created this atmosphere where we're just told stop eating, like eat less, move more. That's the way to lose weight, that's the way to tone, that's the way to feel better. But it's the opposite once you hit midlife. Once you go into this, you know, post-baby making stage, perimenopause, whatever you want to call it, our body really needs a lot more nutrition. We need to stop restricting ourselves and start fueling our body. So protein is one of the best ways to do that. And um, just for basics, I always like to tell people that um what you hear in the media is that amino acids, you might hear a lot about amino acids and peptides. They make up proteins and proteins make up muscle. So if you think about muscle as your house, proteins are the bricks that build your house. I like that. You have to stack the bricks up. You have to have enough bricks, you have to have good foundation between the bricks to hold up your house. So protein is vital in almost every system of your body, whether it be um satiety, meaning that you feel full, that you stay full for longer, you feel like you've had enough food uh to prevent energy crashes, to help stabilize blood sugar, keep you focused, help with hormone production and regulations. And then obviously to help build lean body muscle mass, which is something that we all want as we age. I mean, we're not trying to look like bodybuilders or anything like that, but we just want to have a nice muscular physique. And um, protein is gonna help you get there. So a few of the things that I deal with a lot with women is helping them, number one, to understand what protein is, how much protein they need, and the sources of protein. So whether that be uh protein from real food or supplements, where to get it and what's the best um options for them there. For the most part, I don't put anybody on less than 100 grams of protein a day, which sounds really scary to most people because we've been told to restrict protein our whole lives. Uh, but 100 grams is really a starting point. And if you break that up, it's about 30 grams of protein per meal. And we want to front load that. So we want to get definitely 30 grams at breakfast, not just cup coffee with collagen protein in it. We need some sort of actual food there. We need a substantial lunch that has a good protein source. So a grilled chicken Caesar salad from the restaurant on the corner is not gonna cut it. You need to get um at least four ounces of protein in there, which most salads don't have that. And then a good substantial dinner that's gonna keep you full throughout the evening and through the night. So 30 grams at each meal, and then maybe somewhere in between you're adding in a 10 or 20 gram protein snack or two. Okay. Can you give some examples of those snacks? Yes. So um one of the one of the biggest protein myths that I deal with is um this well, number one is eggs. Like I still get patients that are like, I can't have eggs. My doctor told me I'm not allowed to have eggs. Oh, cholesterol, right? I hate. Or like I'll have two one egg and then like three egg whites. And so that's one thing that we have to get over. Eggs are perfectly okay. Um, there's also been a lot more research um going toward whole fat dairy products. So whole fat yogurts, whole fat milks, grass-fed beefs. Um, these are all have a lot more research to them and really just pointing to the fact that they're less processed. Yeah. So there's more vitamins and minerals to them. They're um because they're processed less, the the fat content is it is a full fat product, but if you're not overeating it, your body needs fat. And if you're eating no go, if you're eating enough protein, you're gonna be full. So you're not gonna eat that actually. And they're gonna get C15, which is pentadicanoic acid, which we're gonna talk about in the next episode, which is critical. So important. Yes. So um obviously, anytime you can, you want to try to get real food products in there that have all the essential amino acids. So anything from animals, any sort of meat or the muscle of the um animal, dairy products, beans and lentils are huge. They're really easy ways to add protein to like a salad or even like your dinner, and they're um high in fiber. Um, tofu or soy-based products are also good. Quinoa is a really good um protein source that has all the essential amino acids. And then there are some reasons why you might need to supplement protein. So if you have to use a protein powder, a bar or a shake, um there are there is room for those, but it shouldn't be the foundation of your meal throughout the day. Like your meal shouldn't be a protein shake in the morning, a bar for lunch, and then you have dinner. Right. Um, so we really want you to eat more real foods, minimally processed, that give you not just protein, but also fat and vitamins and minerals and fiber and and all the things that your body needs in little simple foods. Yes, so important. Macronutrients. Yeah, all your macronutrients. Yep. And then you get your micros too in their micronutrients, all very important. Right. So we try to work with people to create meal plans that uh fit their lifestyle, that fit their work style if they have families with young kids. Uh, what can you do to maybe like meal prep or plan on a Sunday or a weekend day? And then you have food ready. Um, maybe you do need to eat a protein bar in the car on the way to your next appointment. Um, so there's always ways that we can work around things and we try to make it so that it's sustainable for that individual. Yes. Can you give just a quick breakthrough of a day where how easy it is to get a hundred plus grams of protein in, just like take them through like a quick like breakfast snack, lunch snack, dinner? Because I think people think, oh my gosh, she's talks like that, but how am I gonna get that in? How am I gonna get it in? But it's so easy to get in. So I'm I'm guilty of it as well. So this is like let's just say today, for example. So this morning I had um my cup of coffee with two scoops of my collagen protein powder because the just because the it's 20 grams of collagen per scoop, that doesn't mean it's 20 grams of protein. So I do two scoops of that, and then I do that because I work out early. So I worked out this morning and then I came home. I had two eggs and a cup of cottage cheese. So that's roughly 32, maybe 35 grams of protein. And then um for lunch, I had some rotisserie chicken that we had in the fridge because we do a lot of meal prep at the house. So I had about five ounces of rotisserie chicken. I had a couple um pieces of parmesan cheese, I had an avocado with that, and then a handful of grapes. And then for dinner, I have in the crock pot like a pot roast. So again, I'll probably have four or five ounces of that, and um uh like a quinoa rice mixture. Um, another thing that I meal prep at the house is when I do any sort of rice, I use bone broth instead of water. Fabulous. So I'm adding protein to my rice, so that's a high protein option as well. And then I'll throw in some vegetables, and then I do like a little, I make like a Greek yogurt ranch dip, and I do like a dolb of that over top. And so I'll have like a rice bowl with the pot roasts and vegetables and the Greek yogurt. Oh, that sounds delicious, Lauren. Anything you want to comment on food? Anything that you do? Give us some hints of some of your favorite foods with protein. Yeah, sometimes I um well, not sometimes, all the time, I have a can of tuna every day. Yes. Um, maybe not on the weekends, but during the week, because that's an easy 32 grams of protein. It's ready on the small can. The small can of tuna. Perfect. Yeah, the three, the three and a half ounce can, I think is 45 grams of protein. Yeah. So that's if you're on if you're trying to get 100 grams of protein, that's already almost half your protein. Yeah, I try to hit 120 on my protein, 120, 125. And um, you know, I still have to focus on that. Like it's not something that is ever just you know, consistently moving in my daily life. I have to really be intentional about hitting my protein in the morning, like counting through it. A lot of people will say, What, you know, how do you count that? Well, at first I just Googled everything. How much protein is in this, you know, four-ounce piece of chicken? Right. Um, but yeah, tuna, um, eggs, cottage cheese if you're doing dairy. Um I eat a lot of meat, a lot of red meat, salmon, red meat, salmon, cottage cheese, tuna, eggs. That's the base of my diet. Those are my staples too. I would say eggs, and I mix my egg with cottage cheese because I just don't like cottage cheese. I know it's it is delicious with cottage cheese. I might do a lot of nuts. I do a ton of canned tuna, chicken, and salmon. And I use the big cans, and that's like eight grams of protein. And I don't eat that all at once. Yes. And it's easy. Yes, it's important. Pay attention to that. Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't get the cans packed in oil, get it packed in water. Very important. Yeah. Um, so some of the other things I do is like I'll do I'll do the grass-fed beef, and I'll if I could buy like a two-pound or three pounds, I have a I have a my husband is large and I have a 17-year-old son. Okay. So two pounds of beef in my house doesn't last very long. So now I've moved up to three pounds of beef at a time. I cook the entire thing. I divide it in half. I make half of it taco meat and the other half plain. And then I put it in a glass container and I have it in the fridge. So I have that's great. You know, grass-fed ground beef all the time. We do the rotisserie chickens and then we make the bone broth from that. We have that in the fridge all the time. I all my like you were saying, all my fruits and vegetables are cut and washed and ready to go. Little bowls in the fridge you can just open the fridge and snack. Yes, because everybody's busy. And that's when you're busy and you're hungry, that's the time that you don't make good choices. Agreed. Yes. And we're all guilty of that. Yes. And if you if you have it right there in front of you, it's it's an easy choice. You just grab the the Tupperware and then you put it over a bowl of cottage cheese. Yes. Or you take the washed berries and put it in with some Greek yogurt. Yep. Or share them with some nuts, pair them with some nuts. Yeah. No, those are great, great points. So Brienna's really helped us to understand why protein matters. Now, Lauren, let's talk about what protein is helping us build. So important muscle. Yes, muscle. Um, Breezy, I really liked how you talked about foundation, like the foundational things, the protein, the diet, um, and how you described the bricks of the house. Because I actually tell my clients, you can't build muscle, you can't build a sand castle without sand. So you can't build muscle without protein. Um, I like to put that picture in people's minds because they will be lifting and lifting and lifting and working out and working out, and they're like, I'm not getting that toned body. And really, I want to just say, you're not building muscle. Right. Um, because that's how you get a toned body. So the foundation is the most important, your diet, uh, your sleep, and lifting um heavy weights, actually doing progressive overload, really challenging your strength, not just burning yourself out on cardio sessions. Can you explain what that is, Lauren, for people that may not understand progressive overload? Progressive overload is lifting, um lifting until you can't lift anymore. So you will start on a certain set of weights, like a certain weight, and then you will lift that weight eight reps, ten reps, three sets, and then you'll get to where it becomes easy for you. And then once it becomes easy for you, you shift to the next weight up. And then you want to be lifting at the end of your sets, it should be you should barely be able to lift the weight. That is when you get to the point of building muscle and growing. So, you know, they say diamonds are made under pressure, so are muscles. I like that. That's fabulous. Women like diamonds and we like diamonds and muscles. Yes. I like that. Um, so really that's the foundation. It's it's really simple. We overcomplicate it, and um, it's just like we talked about before, it's all part of our design. Like we have to have sleep, we have to have a good diet, and we need to do things to challenge our bodies. Yes. Um I think it's so I hear so many women are just like afraid of getting bulky if they lift too heavy. Yes, talk about that myth. Because I don't bulk up. You girls don't bulk bulk up. So let's talk about that because I hear that a lot from women too. That's a good thing. Like they don't lift heavy because we need to talk about. Yes. Yeah, because they don't want to look like men. Well, the the good news is that you're not a man, so you're not gonna look like a man unless you are putting the hormone in your body that is going to internally change your hormones. Like that's how would you say that, Cindy? Yes. So if they're if they're supplementing with hormones, testosterone or DHEA, and they're oversupplementing, pushing to to sub, or not sub, but super therapeutic levels, then yes, then that can happen. They can get that barrel waste, they can get big legs, big glutes, bigger than what they want. But we don't do that at My Venus Club. That's why we test, using advanced testing, understand why a woman is why and what a woman is producing, and if we supplement where those levels are, how the body is utilizing that, and then most important, how the body is excreting what we're not using. So very important. So, yes, but you're absolutely right. If your hormones are in balance, your hormone concerts working correctly, you're not going to look like a man when you work out. That's right. Um, and I've been lifting for I want to say nine years now. And even at the place where I felt like I was at my peak of my fitness, I did not look like a man. And I don't want to look like a man, but I love lifting. And even more beyond that, you know, at a certain place, I feel like we start doing it because we want to look so good. Like we want to look so great in that bikini, right? But it becomes even more than that because as we get older, we realize that we need this to sustain ourselves and to live a good quality of life, you know. Um, medicine can only take us so far, and that's where you know, muscle is what is going to give us that quality we're looking for. Um, it's like the 401k for your body, you know, we deposit into the bank every month to sustain us through our retirement. But if we don't have the muscle in our body, the quality of life, all the money that you have, it's not gonna do any good for you because your quality of life is gonna be so low and you're not gonna be able to enjoy that. So investing the muscle into your body is going to balance out both of those, and then your quality of life will be better in every area. They can enjoy the fruits of their labor all those years that they worked. Right. I can't tell you countless of patients I've encountered over the years who have worked and worked and worked, and then they get to that point of retirement in their 50s or 60s, whatever that is, and they become sick. Yeah, now they can't even enjoy all of the money that they've invested and saved because they didn't invest in themselves. They didn't invest in their physical. I've I've seen it countless times. And I don't care how much money you have, you cannot buy your health. You have to put the time and effort into building your health and wellness. It's so important. So that those are great points. So why is it that as we age it gets harder to build and maintain muscle? That's a hormone factor, so important. So that's why looking and understanding your personal hormone portfolio in concert is critical. Understanding for a woman, that is, her estrogens, and we have three different estrogens, and they're all important, and they all play a role when we're young and post-baby age. And then progesterone, which is our feel-good hormone, it makes us sleep well and go through all those restoration processes while we're sleeping. And then, of course, DHEA and testosterone and adrenal health, because our adrenals are what produce our DHEA and testosterone and cortisol, and all of that matters. And then stress, how we handle stress, mindset, all of that is really important. And if we don't have all of those foundations built correctly, then that is going to affect how we are able to build our muscles. And we can fuel it with all the right amino acids, all the macro and micronutrients, but if we don't have the right hormone concert, then it's not gonna work. So and you can see how everything is connected. You can't have one piece without the other. So it's very important. We're fueling our bodies, we're exercising in movement properly, we're getting our levels tested for hormones, we're um also sleeping. Sleep is foundational. It's absolutely critical. So um that we can do a whole episode on sleep, but it's really important. Yes, I talk to a lot of women that or see a lot of women, you know, they're they want to work out every day. They don't take a rest day, they work out maybe two or three times a day, or they say their sleep is terrible, they got three hours of sleep, and they're like also on the other end talking about, you know, how they're not losing weight, or you know, how they feel overstressed and they just feel so tired. And I'm like, well, I only eat one meal a day. I don't understand how I'm not losing weight. Yeah, because I'm I've seen it all the time. I see it and hear it all the time. Their adrenals are so burnt, they're not sleeping, their body's not going through recovery or something. Can you explain that? I mean, I know what it is, but I think that that would be a common question. So your adrenals are a very important gland in your body, and they talk to the brain, they talk to our ovaries, they talk to all the organs in our body. They really work very closely with our gut as well, and our microbiome is connected to our brain, they're all sending signals, and they really think of them as our stress organ. So our adrenals are there to help us when we're under the most stressful situations, and they're there to to to help us fight or flight type of system. But if we're constantly in that fight or flight stage and we're never giving them a chance to rest, which so many women do. Yes, I see it all the time and I hear it. And it's hard to get women to understand because they want to just keep doing more. If I do more, if I do more, if I try harder, it'll I'll get the results I want. And they just don't understand. They have to give their body rest and recovery. And so that's where the adrenals play a role. So when we do advanced testing with the Dutch test, we really evaluate the adrenals. We look at cortisol and cortisone and how it's all interconnected with the sex hormones. And once a woman sees that picture, when she sees her results, and then she understands and sees how everything's connected, then she starts to say, huh, maybe I do need to start listening. Maybe I do need to do less. Maybe less is more in this case. But it it takes some time to convince them because too, we talked about on that other episode, they get that high, that endorphin rush when they're working out so hard. So it's hard to pull back from that and get them to understand you can get that same rush, like you mentioned in our previous episode, Lauren, with rest and recovery, with restoration type movements, which is so important. Yeah. Do you want to comment a little bit on restoration movement for women? Because I think we forget about that. I mean, I am even guilty sometimes not taking enough time for restoration. Like I make myself do at least two classes of restoration or yoga a week at least. And it's important. Yeah, I see it a lot in the classes that I teach. Um, typically the classes that I'll teach, we end with um rest. Like I like to say two minutes to just, you know, recover, let your heart rate come back down to resting heart rate. And what I see mostly is women just hurrying up, picking up their weights and running out of the room. And I do realize that, you know, we all have things to do. We have to get to work, like maybe we're barely fitting in the workout, but the class is designed and incorporates that two minutes into the class so that you can take that two minutes to just reflect and recover and just be still for a second before you have to rush out into the world. And I think that we're just so busy rushing and um never getting. Go ahead, go ahead. No, because I wanted to mention that just made me realize about breath work, how important I really love doing breath work in your class. I it's so important. But I wanted to comment, I've had a few patients, I think this is important, to talk about that don't understand the importance of breath work with exercise. And so I've had a few patients with what you call weightlifter headache. They're not breathing properly when they're lifting, especially when we're lifting heavy. And that's so important to understand your breath and how important breath work is when you're exercising, specifically lifting. So can you comment a little bit on that? Yeah, I like to say like your breath is your fuel, like for lifting. Um when you're exerting, I say that that's like the gas in the car. When you push the pedal of the car, the the car is gonna go. It's gonna give you that extra little push. And that's what your exhale is. And then your inhale, you're you're fueling your body with that air, that breath. And in when you're in a restorative class, I always say your inhale is sending your all of your body. Wherever you feel tight or restricted, I want you to envision that breath going to that space. And then when you exhale, completely releasing that tension. Um, because we don't bring attention to those spaces in our daily movement. So when we take a moment to sit down and really breathe into that, we can bring attention to it and notice where we hold on to stress in the hips and the neck and the knees, and even in the feet. When I I see people in restorative classes and their feet, they don't even know it. They think they're completely relaxed. And their feet, I can see their little toes all clenched up. And I'll just say something gently like, relax your toes. Yes. Um, but the lengthening and the restorative movement is part of it, it's part of the balance structure. These are all simple things, again, that we overcomplicate. And these are, they're all within us, movement, diet, they're all given to us, and we outsource everything to um too much, I think, to medicine and trying to do more instead of just taking a breath and really focusing on the foundation. I love that. That is so important. And you're right, let movement be your medicine, let food be your medicine. That's really critical. And um, these are such important points. Um, I think of that as like we're shifting exercise from punishment to being movement. And so many times people feel like they're punishing themselves when they're exercising, but they shouldn't. They gotta find their jam and enjoy it because it's what's gonna take them to a long health span and vitality and resilience. Oh, it is not punishment, it is a privilege. It is a privilege, it is a privilege. Because there are people that cannot move, they cannot get up out of a chair, they have to use a walker, or maybe they're sick from some sort of illness, cancer, anything anything. There are so many people that do not have the privilege. And instead of looking at it as a punishment, I have to do this, it's I get to do this, I get to show up, and I get to move my body. I know. I like that you make that point in class because it's so important. I think people forget that. And you get to eat healthy. Yes. You get to eat protein. That's right. I don't know if somebody would agree with you with that. I do. I love to eat protein. Me too. It's nothing better than a great state. You're not wrong. Yes, it's delish. So let's make this a little practical. If there's a woman out there listening, thinking, okay, where do I start? What do I do? Help me, girls, tell me something. What do we want to tell them? If we want to help give them a few pointers on where to start, besides calling us at my Venus Club, which I highly recommend because we're here to help them. What can we tell them? All right, so I would say if you don't know how much protein you eat in a day, don't change anything about what you do. Eat exactly the same way for a week and track how much protein you eat. Like look at the label and actually look at how much protein you eat through the day. Because most of you would be surprised to find out that you don't eat nearly anywhere where you think you do, that we are severely underfueling ourselves, especially in protein. So just track it for a week and see how you do. If you are getting more than 100 grams of protein, then that is great. Good for you. If you're not, call us. Yes, I like that. Yeah. Yes, ask for help. All right, Lauren, what do you what do you want to tell us? Um, I would say start with walking, just start with moving your body every day and um taking it one step at a time, quite literally. One step at a time, one breath at a time. Ask for help. We all had to start somewhere. Um I love to help women discover these things within themselves. Um, so I love to help, and I know both of you ladies do too. So just reach out, call us. Yes, call us. For me, it would be for women to really become in tune with their body, pay attention to what their body is telling them, really understand themselves, and precision matters. So to get answers, advanced testing. So understand what your genetic predisposition is, understand what your hormone concert is, know what your numbers are. And I don't treat numbers, but there's a reason why we do testing, and it's to make sure things are safe. And those are the right things for you because every woman is different. So um I think that's important. Advanced testing and really knowing your body and understanding your body. Right. Don't chalk it up to just I'm getting older, this is the way it is. Yes, most of you are only halfway through your life. If you're 45 years old, you're only halfway through. You still have half your life left. If you have six, if you're 60, you still have 30 years left to live. At least how do you want to live these 30 years? Exactly. 60 is the new 40. I know. Exactly. And quite honestly, they probably weren't doing it right the first half, anyways. They were just younger and had more mitochondria. Exactly. Well, or we were cellular health. We were trying to develop a career, we were raising kids, like all the things, and now you're on everything else. It's your time, ladies. Yes, it's our time. Exactly. All right, let's do a few myth busting statements. Okay. So, Brianna, what do you want to tell women? What myth bust buster do you want to talk about? Okay. Um everybody needs to eat, or um, I guess the myth would be protein is only for bodybuilders that pro like eating more than 100 grams of protein is bad for my kidneys, or it's too much. I don't want to be a bodybuilder. That is not true. That's a total myth. Every woman needs to eat uh enough protein to provide them with energy, muscle, stabilize their blood sugar, and age healthfully. Great. I like that. Lauren, what do you want to talk about? What are some myth busting comments you want to tell us? Lifting weights will make women bulky. Yep. Um, strength training helps women become stronger, capable, metabolically healthy, and resilient. And also makes you look good. Yeah, it's a good thing. So there's that's a plus. When we talked about that feel good, like you're women just can't bulk. You're not gonna bulk. Yeah, we did hit on that. So yeah. And I think for me, I'll bring it back to hormones. Hormones are only there to sustain us or help us from hot flashes, which is completely false. They affect every organ system in the body from brain, bones, muscle, uh, your mood, your sleep, inflammation, your heart health, and ultimately how you age. I mean, hormones are are vitality. So that's so important. Um let's see. Any takeaways, anything else before we wrap it up, girls? Lauren, you had a good one earlier about cardio. Yeah. What were you saying about cardio? Well, cardio is not enough, first of all, and it's not gonna build muscle. Look at cardio like your um heart, heart longevity. This the cardio is for your heart, for your breath, like your stamina, where lifting is for the muscle, the building. So lift more cardio less. Um I like that. The muscle is the medicine. I like that. Yeah. That one was for you, Breezy. How about you, Brie? Anything else? Um, oh, eating less is always the answer. That's one that I think we've talked, we've talked about a lot, but just, I mean, for the most part, I'm telling you. So it breaks my heart when I'm not gonna be able to do that. I'm telling almost every patient you need to eat more. You need to eat more. Yeah, I tell them that too. Yeah. And it's really scary. It is scary to tell them that you need to like double the amount of calories you're eating, but it's the truth. When you because they're starving themselves. Yes, literally. That's what I was just gonna say. When you have a nutrient-deficient body, you are setting yourself up for disease and just shortening your lifespan there and your health span. There's just no way around it. If you don't give your body what it needs, it cannot survive optimally for sure. And then disease steps in. So today's biggest takeaways I would say is that protein, muscle, and hormones are not separate conversations. They're part of the same system. Protein gives the body the raw materials, strength training gives the body the signal, muscle supports metabolism, and hormones help conduct the entire concert, influencing how we build, burn, repair, recover, and age. And when we talk about protein, we're really talking about amino acids, the small building blocks that help support muscle repair, tissue healing, immune function, recovery, resilience. But amino acids are really only one nutrient to the story. In the upcoming episode, we're gonna widen the lens and talk about another incredibly important category of nutrients called fatty acids. And specifically, we're gonna be talking with Dr. Stephanie Vin Watson. She's a pioneering longevity researcher whose groundbreaking work with the Navy dolphins led to the discovery of C15, an emerging essential fatty acid that is changing the conversation around cellular health, inflammation, and healthy aging. This is a conversation every woman needs to hear because it reminds us that aging well isn't just about hormones or willpower. It really begins at the cellular level. And I love this conversation because it connects perfectly with everything we've been building here. Women's health is not compartmentalized, everything is connected, and cellular health really determines how we age, and it's foundational, truly foundational. We want women to understand health span begins at the cellular level, and everything we've discussed today affects our bodies at that level. And in our upcoming podcast with Dr. Stephanie, we're going to go deeper into the science of C15, that's pentadecinoic acid, and how it affects cellular health, disease prevention, and health span. So keep building your foundation, ladies. Keep listening to your body and keep supporting your hormone concert. And reminder, aging well is not about shrinking yourself. It's about building a stronger, more resilient body from the inside out. So thank you, Brianna and Lauren, for joining me today. And thank you all for listening to the Ageless Woman podcast. Make it a great day, as Lauren would say. Keep building your foundation, and I'll see you in the next episode. Go ahead and I have something to say. Yes, go ahead, go ahead. I just had this really great picture that I wanted to share that would maybe help women um understand that you can't just treat one one of these things that you have to put them all. It's like um, Cindy, you bake sourdough bread, right? I do. Okay, so what are the ingredients in that? Water, flour, salt, that's it. And if you leave one of the ingredients out, what happens to the bread? It does not form dough and it definitely does not rise. So if you leave one of the ingredients out of your health, you don't lift, but you're getting the proper nutrition and the proper hormones, you're not gonna have the full loaf of bread. I love that. So you have to have the ingredients, or it's not giving you the well-balanced life being that you are setting as your goal. I love that. Thank you. So how to say that? That's good. All right, guys, we'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, everyone. Thank you for being here with me today. If this episode resonated with you, I invite you to share it with someone who may need to hear it also. And if you're ready to start understanding your body on a deeper level and getting the clarity you deserve, you can learn more about my Venus Club at myvenusclub.com. We offer a limited number of memberships for women who are ready to take a more personalized, in-depth approach to their health. So apply for membership. There's no pressure, just an opportunity to start a different kind of conversation, one that focuses on you, your body, and what you truly need. Because once you understand your body, everything changes. I'll see you in the next episode.