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This is the Body Recomposition Revolution.
I am a former personal trainer and educator for over a decade who is obsessed with teaching
women 35 plus how to finally drop fat and completely reshape their bodies through
science-backed nutrition and training protocols optimized to meet your bodies changing hormones.
Classes in session.
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Welcome back to episode four of the Body Recomposition Revolution.
This is Robin and today we are talking about that macronutrient we all love to hate and hate
to love. Miss Carbohydrates, it is so profound to me the amount of knowledge I have
gleaned over the last two years on nutrients and how the impact women age 35 and above
it's profound because I have a couple different certifications regarding nutrition.
One is new and none of them none of them touch on the science that I've learned from Dr.
Stacey Sims and other exercise physiologists that focus on women above the age 35.
It is as I said profound. We're going to get into that today.
But as always channeling my teacher background we are starting off the episode with a learning
objective and I had I had someone ask me why I start with learning objectives. It's not just because
I'm a teacher it's because as a teacher I learned how important having an objective at the beginning
of a lesson is it tells you exactly what you're going to learn and if you know the learning goal
ahead of time it inadvertently kind of keys your brain into organizing that information so you retain
it and it also kind of gives you a motivation to understand and comprehend and file away the
information. So that's why I do the learning objective and today's learning objective is as follows.
By the end of this episode you'll understand why carbs are essential for women over the age of 35.
To build muscle burn fat and balance hormones and how if we cut them too low it actually sabotages
that progress you heard me right if we cut carbs too low you will keep your belly fat.
Now I have learned so much about carbohydrates and the way they affect women in the past year and
half two years it blows my mind that we have been so lied to and I'm not sure if that's intentional or
unintentional or if we just did not have the research I'm going to go with the latter because it
feels less icky but if any of you were around for things like the adkins diet where you are basically
eating no carbs whatsoever you probably saw results I mean you did see results or if you were like me
and was really into nutrition and fueling your body you did eat carbs but it was a small amount I
did a figure competition years and years ago and I remember having days where I could only eat
25 grams of carbs and I was dying but it worked I was shredded and that was the point that was the
point when you're going on stage so if you're a competitor on stage you're a bodybuilder whatever
I get it I got it good respected but for the average person who's not you know oiled up on stage you
need carbs and anyone who has been oiled up on stage and knows what happens to your body after
you depleted of carbs will understand why carbs are absolutely imperative to keep that body fat away
I remember after my first and last figure competition I I was lean I was cut I was completely
emptied of carbs for a two week process and I ignorantly thought that I would maintain that
amount of leanness just by going back to my normal maintenance phase I thought well I will just
maintain at this phase and go back to eating my sweet potatoes my rice oh my gosh I blew up I think
I gained 15 pounds in two weeks and I'm not kidding you and if you're a figure competitor you're not
surprised and I was much younger at the time so I got it sorted out my hormones recovered but if you
are a woman over the age of 35 you cut carbs too low and you are going to lose muscle slow your
metabolism and keep if not gain belly fat even if you are training hard and eating next to nothing
first I want to touch on why your age matters why does it matter more at the age of 35 and beyond
if you are not getting enough carbs in terms of your body's composition starting at age 35
your body is experiencing hormonal shifts okay they may be really moderate if not unidentifiable
or nonexistent at 35 but as those years creep on 36 37 those hormonal shifts are wreaking havoc
in your body and that's normal it's natural it's completely what your body is supposed to do as it ages
now if your age 40 and beyond you are well aware of the hormonal fluctuations that your body is
going through you can see it you can feel it you can identify all the frustrations that come along
with those hormonal shifts and it's not just hormonal shifts after the age of 35 you are losing muscle
every single year and your recovery time is slower so carbs are not a threat they are a tool they are
a tool carbs do not make you fat they make your muscle building machinery work but that does not
by any means mean that you should go sit down and have a donut and say it's helping because it's not
it's all about what kind of carbs you're getting and I have learned through working with women that
it is really helpful for me to go through what that means in terms of what carbs are acceptable and which
carbs are not and I won't say they're not acceptable they're just not ideal right because if we have
a goal of dropping fat and gaining muscle we're going to talk about carbs in a factual way and there are
carbs that are ideal for that and there are carbs that are not ideal for that so I don't even need
to go through the bad carbs because if it doesn't have a mom or come from the ground that's a bad
carb let's go through the good carbs the carbs that are going to fuel our fat burning machine okay good
carbs fruit vegetables whole grains but you can also have sourdough bread sprouted grain bread
sweet potatoes those are all fantastic carb sources but keep in mind you need to pair that with a
protein when you eat it because that's going to balance your blood sugar you pair it with the protein
and that moderates your blood sugar that's important I just want to share a little quote from
the goat Sims about carbohydrates being paired with protein carbohydrate co-ingestion with protein
significantly increases MPS which is muscle protein synthesis building muscle in women due to
heightened insulin sensitivity around training that was in 2020 here is another one without adequate
carbs women may fail to trigger the full anabolic response to training regardless of protein intake
that's from the international journal of sport nutrition and exercise and it was in 2020
what that means is even if you are eating as much protein as I am always preaching about and everybody
else is preaching about that's great but it's not going to trigger the full anabolic response to
training so you are not going to see the full anabolic response to your training if you are not
eating enough carbs okay back to talking about what are the good carbs and I know I listed veggies
and fruit and I know what you're thinking you are thinking um vegetables are not carbs and who would
even count fruit as a carb well we don't in America and look at our population but they are every
other society every other culture does not view fruits and vegetables as a sideline item fruits
and vegetables are the main course and then you have some protein sprinkled in our Americanized
plates are just a big slab of meat or you know a ton of noodles and vegetables are irrelevant they are
non-existent but vegetables and fruits those are the carbs we're going after those are the carbs that
are ideal for body composition when we talk about body recomposition for women above the age of 35
or body recomposition in general it is a formula carbs plus protein plus lifting not just a calorie
deficit and that is so hard for me to accept I I constantly fall back into that eliminating carbs
in general mindset um it's been really hard for me to overcome that actually in the last few years
but it is so imperative it I was forced to overcome that when I was not seeing the results
because carbs do not make you fat they make your muscle building machinery work the low carb
approach the zero carb approach that men can do that was not designed for women
I think I mentioned this in a previous episode but those foundational nutritional studies
about how women drop bat those were conducted on young healthy active men not women we are physiologically
different what that means is the studies that analyze how carbohydrates affect body fat those do not
account for hormonal fluctuations perimenopause or female specific metabolism so if we are going to
apply those protocols to women it has really adverse effects especially on your energy and your
hormone balance it might work in the beginning but then you're always going to have this feeling of
being wired and tired and I anybody who knows me knows that I battle that always and what I have
been doing a lot of studying on and re-studying in rereading because it is so deeply ingrained in me
and what I have learned is that after age 35 a low carb low calorie approach is the literal
perfect storm to derail all the progress that you've been making in the gym in the kitchen
it is the perfect storm to undo that so a few things happen when women follow that advice of doing
low carb low calorie now I just want to add this in because you have to be in a calorie deficit
to drop that that is facts it is the law of thermodynamics it's true but there's a difference
between going in a calorie deficit and starving yourself if you are sitting at a thousand eleven
hundred calories a day none of which are from carbs you are starving yourself that is going to
unravel all of your progress you are going to be larger in the stomach then you were before you
started crash-dieting okay so what exactly does go wrong when women follow the advice of going super
low carb and super low calorie number one you have a reduced insulin sensitivity what does that mean
it means your body doesn't respond to insulin well so normally you eat carbs and that insulin helps
shuttle glucose into your muscles for energy and storage but if you have a reduced sensitivity
which means your muscles don't hear insulin as well which means more glucose stays in your blood
and your body stores more as fat so remember this when you hear the term reduced insulin
sensitivity because to me I was like what what does that even mean reduced insulin sensitivity means
you're gonna have a higher blood sugar and fat storage especially around the belly that's your
body's response another thing that happens when you are doing way too low carb and way too low calorie
is you have cortisol increases that happens from the stress and the under fueling and that also
equates to more belly fat and muscle loss the two exact things we do not want to happen when you
are trying to look toned as much as I hate that word number three muscle protein synthesis
slows down so that means how your body is building muscle that slows down without insulin that's
triggered by carbs and the fourth thing that happens when you go drastically low calorie low
carb is your thyroid function your t3 drops under chronic carb restriction and that slows your
metabolic rate I know you know what that means that means you are burning less calories at rest all
of these things are the exact opposite of what you want to happen in your physique if you are
listening to this podcast you want less body fat you want more muscle because those two components
combined give you that toned look to put it simply when you look at a woman's body we need carbs
to burn fat because our bodily systems need carbs to function to get the mitochondria working to get
those free fatty acids that are in our blood not to be stored but to be used as energy if we want
body recomposition we have to fuel for that and fuel includes carbs now I have a few clients who
are women above the age of 50 or just before 50 and they had this problem they were so active they
were so fit but they had complaints about belly fat they had complaints about their overall physique
and these are metabolically active women so when you are too metabolically active your brain
says hey I need to break down the most energy expensive part of your body which is going to be your
muscle since you're not giving it enough carbs to fuel for what the task at hand is it's going
to break down your muscle first so when that happens if you are a super active woman and you're
struggling with belly fat you are not fueling appropriately you're going to put on belly fat
it's subcutaneous fat so again for my super active ladies many of which are my clients my super
active ladies who are above the age of 35 this is their number one complaint but they're barely eating
they're moving a ton and they're sporting a little tummy they look puffy in their mind they have
an idea of how they should look because that's how they're training and they're barely eating but
they can't sleep it's because their bodies are in a sympathetic drive they are in this super high
stress state there is not enough nutrients in and your body is ready to fight or flight
so when not fueled appropriately your body goes for that most expensive part which is your muscle
and it takes that apart you're left with a skinny fat look a flabby tummy whatever you call it it's
not what you want because all that hard work is being wasted and if you're transitioning into
menopause unfortunately there is a big shift in your body composition regardless of what you do it's
a hormonal change and it's it's natural it's totally natural but it is also under a sympathetic drive
just because of the onset of menopause you know that's what I talked about where you're tired but
you're wired your body is naturally in this state of overdrive and that's why we have to feed the
body and train appropriately so if we are fueling the body properly and we are training the right way
our organs they just start working better they work better together which stops our body from having
that visceral fat that belly fat and it allows our body to use the fatty acids for energy instead even
when it rest and it also helps muscles to pull glucose more easily without relying on insulin
which improves your overall metabolic health but if we don't give the body enough fuel if we are
taking away all of our carb source if we are in too steep of a caloric deficit none of those processes
can happen they don't happen efficiently and what happens is you store the belly fat as I mentioned
before so as our episode approaches an ending I want to go over briefly a quick synopsis of what we
talked about so what happens without enough carbs you eat protein you lift weights but muscle protein
synthesis stays really low because your insulin isn't triggered so even though you're doing everything
right your body cannot build or maintain that muscle and believe me I can speak to this I was going
in extreme carb deficits to try and drop weight and like what is going on why am I losing muscle mass
that never happened to me my early years it really didn't why was I why was I gaining belly fat your
body is different you have to give it enough fuel so that all the systems work properly to shuttle
that body fat out because what's happening is instead of losing body fat you might the scale will
tip downward but it's going to be water weight it's going to be claycogen it's not going to be body fat
and you're actually going to burn muscle instead of fat which in turn will slow your metabolism
and give you that skinny fat look you'll feel tired inflamed bloated it's just an overall stuck feeling
and it sucks but what happens with enough carbs and we're going to go over how much that is because
I know in your head you're probably thinking sweet how many sweet potatoes can I have during the day
enough probably not as much as you're thinking but enough so what happens with enough carbs at the
right time your carb intake triggers insulin which is great because then it shuttles nutrients
like protein into muscle flips the switch on muscle building so we are engaging that muscle protein
synthesis process we are building and it supports your recovery and your hormone balance and gives you
enough energy if you've ever gone super low carb you are burned out you're burned out but when
you're eating enough carbs you have that energy back and if you combine it with strength training now
you are preserving that hard earned muscle you're even building muscle so with enough carbs you
are preserving and building muscle you are burning more fat and I promise you talk to any of my clients
they can attest to that and you are going to keep that lean strong shape and you're going to feel
energized instead of depleted now let's talk about carb timing because you want a little bit of carbs
with each of your meal and I touched on you're going to be eating a lot more vegetables yes there's
carbs in vegetables that's a normal realization for anybody else but an American vegetables fruits those
are your main dish now I've noticed a lot of people will call this disordered eating red
rig they will say oh you're only eating filler foods if you're in a caloric deficit a filler food
meaning a bunch of vegetables because they are filling but not high in calories what's wrong with that
what it literally what is wrong with that there is nothing wrong with eating filler foods it is not
disordered eating red rig that's a healthy eating practice maybe not to an average American but
that's the problem one of many that is not disordered eating anybody can is welcome to their opinions but
in my opinion that's a healthy eating practice and if you want to sit down and have a steak in potatoes
yeah that's that's great too fabulous but if you're in a caloric deficit and you're hungry eat a
bunch of veggies you're you're making a great health choice because of the micronutrients we'll get
into that in another episode so you're gonna want a little bit of carbs with each of your meals
throughout the day but as the second half of the day passes you want the carbs after lunch to come
more from vegetables because then you have that fiber compound and you don't get the big spikes
in blood sugar because we want to signal to our hypothalamus that hey you do not need to be
storing this fat we are going to be fed again let go of this body fat use it as fuel you want to
keep signaling that to the hypothalamus by eating meals throughout the day that way it knows it's
safe here this is a safe place we don't need to store the belly fat let it go we're gonna get fed
again no worries and as Dr. Stacey Simms says she talks about training and lifting weights as a way
to kind of manipulate the signals we send to the brain to change our body's composition that's
what we're doing we're signaling to the brain hey let go of this fat let's build muscle we're never
training fast at ever never you're you're always eating before and after training we do not abide by
the same training principles as men were not men because if you're doing silly things like fasting
I believe believe me I've fasted this year even I learned the hard way if you're doing things like
fasting you are signaling to that hypothalamus we're in trouble we have a lot of stuff to accomplish
she's asking us to run and lift things and I don't have enough nutrients to accomplish these tasks
that are being demanded of me so I better store this body fat because I know she's going to ask me to
do it again tomorrow she's been doing it for years that's why I'm gonna keep harboring this body fat
exactly where you don't want it in your belly that's what your hypothalamus is thinking okay how
you're going to use carbs strategically to build muscle and burn fat so how you're gonna use carbs
to continue body recomposition you're going to have a pre-workout with carbs and it's only maybe 15
to 30 grams of fast digesting carbs what is that bananas dates rice cakes oats honey and this
blunts your cortisol it fuels your performance okay so pre-workout 15 to 30 grams post workout you
get a big one here 30 to 40 grams of carbs plus 20 to 30 grams of protein this is gonna support your
recovery after you tore those muscles up in the gym and if you're recovering you are building
that protein is getting shuttled into those muscles where you have those microscopic tears from
lifting it it's patching up the holes we're building and then it's replenishing your glycogen
another benefits of having your carbs post workout is it improves your sleep quality and it improves
your metabolic rate okay this is going to increase your metabolism and as I mentioned you're gonna
have a little bit of carbs with each of your meals but try to keep those carbs to things like whole carbs
oats sweet potatoes quinoa berries and then the second half of the day you want your carbs more
from veggies fruit this is a quote from Dr. Stacy Sims timing carbs around your training is one of
the most powerful body recomposition tools women have but most are told to fear them to fear carbs
that's me I I am 100% afraid of carbs and as I rewire all of my thought processes to align with this
new way of thinking and training and doing this polarizing method I am seeing progress but I am
learning the hard way I've been learning the hard way for two years and it's hilarious because I
had a nutritional certification about a year ago so funny how opposite it is to all of this because
it doesn't apply to us it's different it's different after age 35 so keep learning alongside me I'm
learning every day let's go over that learning objective one more time by the end of this episode
you'll understand why carbs are essential for women over 35 to build muscle burn fat body
recomposition and balance hormones and how cutting them too low can actually sabotage your progress
now here's the takeaway carbs are your recomposition weapon not your enemy if you're 35 and beyond
training and cutting carbs your sabotaging yourself believe me I've been learning this the hard
way the last two years of my life so these big mental blocks we have in our brain with carbs we
need to tear them down after age 35 we need to tear them down but that does not mean you get to sit
down with a big potato chips and and think that's going to help you with your recomposition journey it's
not it's about the right kind of carbs it's about timing your carbs and I'm going to provide a
little resource in the show notes a list of carbs that are great choices for women and anyone in
general and I'm also going to put a little blueprint for how you can time your carbs throughout the day
and this is a general rule of thumb for women above the age of 35 just kind of a bare bones outline of
when you should eat your carbs and how much you should be consuming and what those carbs should consist of
so thank you again for joining me ladies I love any and all feedback you can send my way
it all helps me to deliver information to you that is helpful I absolutely love teaching
and appreciate every single listener that tunes in each week with me have a fantastic day and
you will hear me again next week
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