6 Non-Negotiables Every Woman Needs for Healthy Aging After 50

[00:00:00]If you're a woman over the age of 50, post-menopausal, and you want to get into the best shape of your life in this next chapter, and you want to significantly improve your health outcome over the next 10, 20 to 30 years of your life naturally and holistically, then I have got your back because in this video, I am going to walk you through the six pillars that I give to all of my clients. The six pillars are very simple. Nutrition, exercise, sleep, circadian rhythms, nervous system regulation, and connection and community. But here's what I'm going to do for you in this video. That might sound complex. I am going to make it so radically simple. Because I am going to give you just one action to take right away from each pillar. So you will walk away with six actions that you can take today. I'm [snorts] a board certified nutritionist. I'm a gut health specialist. I'm a transformational mindset coach and I have helped hundreds of women to walk through these six pillars and completely transform their lives. So I'm really excited to help you today. Okay. So foundational pieces number one nutrition. So your big takeaway in this pillar if you like is to lower your intake of saturated fat.

[00:01:21]Why? We now understand that saturated fat directly raises your LDL cholesterol. That is your bad cholesterol. However way you want to swing it, that is what happens. So when you lower your LDL cholesterol, this is going to lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. It's really important. When we are in our 50s, 60s, '7s and beyond, we need our LDL to be as low as possible. There is no too low with this number. So, ideally, we want it um close to 70 80, but certainly below 100. So, one of the quickest ways that you can do this and achieve this, there are many other things, but one of the quickest things that you can do is start really understanding where saturated fat lives in your diet and how you can minimize it. So, that would be the first thing. Not only um does lowering um saturated fat lower your bad cholesterol levels, but it also reduces inflammation. It supports brain health, which is so important in this age, and it's going to make healthy weight management so much easier. But that's just really the beginning of what I teach in the nutrition bucket, as it were. Um, it's the first place that I would start. Um, but aside from that, what we're building on that is eating whole foods, mainly whole plantforward foods, lots of beans, lots of lentils, lots of legumes, whole grains, fresh whole fruits, uh, tofu, soy foods, cuz it's they're so protective against breast cancer. We now know that we want to keep our oils low. We don't want too much added oil because that's just adding a ton of extra calories that you don't need. We're going to eliminate refined sugar. We're going to elim eliminate refined starches. We're going to limit and avoid alcohol. So, those are some of the other pieces as well.

[00:03:33]But your big and that's the complete nutritional framework, but your big takeaway is to lower your intake of saturated fat. And the main sources of saturated fat in your diet are going to be animal products. Saturated fat is very very rich in meat, all meat, some fish, dairy, and very much so in coconut oil and palm oil. So those are your sort of richest sources of saturated fat in your diet. You can look to eliminating or minimizing those. You are going to be in way better shape. You're going to watch that LDL cholesterol climb down.

[00:04:12][snorts] Number two, exercise bucket. Now, your one big takeaway, I promised I'd give you a one big takeaway per per bucket, is to strength train three times a week.

[00:04:25]Now, I was thinking, okay, there's one big takeaway. It could be this, it could be that, because you do need multimodal exercise after the age of 50, but this would be the the really important one.

[00:04:36]Why? because it will obviously build lean muscle mass which is metabolically healthy. So it protects your metabolism.

[00:04:44]It builds bone. It's going to pre prevent falls. It protects independence.

[00:04:48]And it makes you feel fantastic to have a beautiful strong muscular body. Nobody got to a certain age. Your future self isn't going to get to a certain age and go, I wish I had less muscle. But strength training isn't the whole exercise prescription. That is where we start. We also want daily walking zone 2, cardio, mobility, flexibility, balance, short bursts of of higher intensity. Sometimes it's called V2 max.

[00:05:17]And most importantly, balance. So, we need It sounds like a lot, I know, but there's a way of doing it where you can just beautifully integrate this through little little bursts, little exercise snacks I call them, every single day.

[00:05:34]And by the way, if you want help with any of this, if you're listening to this and think just even with the nutrition piece, wait, stop. I need help in putting this together or the exercise piece, you can click on the link below.

[00:05:46]I'll put it in the description where you can book a complimentary, I call it a breakthrough session with me. Really is a clarity session where you and I can get clear on where you're at, what you're struggling with right now, where you want to go, cuz it really is very different. There is no one-sizefits all.

[00:06:02]and we can we can look at things together and we can see if what I call the Ignite methodology, which is the powerful methodology that I've taken hundreds of women through, we can see if it's a good fit for you or not. So, check out the description uh the link in the description below. Okay, now let's go on to number three. Number three is sleep. Now, your one big takeaway for this is go to bed at the same time every night.

[00:06:29]This with my clients is probably the hardest thing in many ways because in the evening is when we get really busy with our phones and our scrolling and our work and TV and family responsibilities.

[00:06:42]But it is absolutely critical. A lot of women that I work with don't sleep very well. Interrupted sleep after menopause is very very common for a variety of reasons. So, there's many different things that we can do to dial in sleep, which is so critical for your brain health, your gut health, and your mental health, um, and your prevention of disease. But a really good starting place is to decide, okay, what is the time that I can commit to going to bed at every night? Is it 9:30? Is it 10:00?

[00:07:13]Is it 10:30? It's different for all the clients. For me that I work with. For me, it is 9:30. And many years ago, I just committed to that. It was almost like being a little child which is like you know kid okay you're going to go to bed at that time and reverse engineer about an hour before that start winding down I am in the bed at 9:30 but it what it did was it trained my circadium rhythm it trained my biological rhythm to I just know I feel when that time is that I want to go to sleep so I've trained myself to sleep at a time that is important for me to get enough sleep.

[00:07:50][snorts] Okay. Um, and consistency does train your brain and your body and your rhythms. It it improves hormone regulation, appetite recovery, memory, brain cleansing, mood. Okay. Um, but again, that's just the starting place.

[00:08:05]We also want other things to improve our sleep. We want to actually try and wake up at the same time every day. Morning, daylight, dim the lights at night.

[00:08:13]You've heard it before, but it's so important. No screens an hour before bed. That's super important for me.

[00:08:20]Watching your last caffeine of the day.

[00:08:22]Avoid late heavy meals. Um many many different things that come into the sleep piece. Um there's various supplements that can be helpful as well.

[00:08:31]Very helpful. But if you only remembered one thing from this video, I promised you just one thing per bucket. Protect your bedtime. All right. Number four is circadian rhythm. Um, circadian just means um around the clock really. Circa means around and the day and the clock.

[00:08:51]And we have a natural biological rhythm with natural rises of cortisol and then um how our cortisol sort of it rises and then it goes down perfectly in sync with the light dark cycles. And after 50, it becomes so important to dial this in because it affects your sleep, it affects your appetite, it affects your happiness levels, it affects everything.

[00:09:17]So your one takeaway from this bucket is to get natural daylight in your eyes within the first hour if possible after waking. Light goes in the retina of the eye. It signals your hypothalamus, which signals your pituitary, which releases the hormone which is called um melatonin that you will have heard of. But you set your melatonin clock by the light that you get in your eye first thing in the morning. It also gives you this lovely natural surge of cortisol that we need to get going first thing in the morning.

[00:09:48]So it's enormously important. Now if you cannot get daylight, I don't want you staring up at the sun. Um you are just it's just daylight. It can you can get a lot of light on a really cloudy day actually. But just get outside. Maybe go do your walk. Potter around. Try and be outside, not through glass if you can.

[00:10:07]If you can't, if it's dark, you live in the northern hemisphere and you can't possibly get light doesn't get light till 10:00 a.m. and then you're at work, you might want to consider a light therapy lamp. There are lots of light therapy lamps. They're very, very inexpensive. And I highly recommend you switch one on as soon as you wake up and have that light therapy in and around you for a couple of hours. It'll make a huge, huge difference. Um so that's the beginning. Light in your eye uh within 60 minutes of waking up. Uh I always say if you can daylight before screen light but we also want other things as well.

[00:10:45]That's just the starting place. We want mean uh meal timing uh regular exercise timing morning movement evening darkness um and and again that consistent weight time. So, if you only remember one thing from this bucket, it would be just get daylight in your eye as soon as you can, your eyes, excuse me, before um before getting onto anything else. Number five is your nervous system. Nervous system regulation or stress management as it's sometimes called. We actually need lots of good stress and we want to diminish bad stress, but it's easy to say, "Oh, just stop stressing." No, this is your deeply ingrained. It is your nervous system that has become so disregulated and it has for so many women over 50 simply because we have so many stresses in our life and there are many many patterns um that we need to to deal with in order to know how to regulate our nervous system. Here's your one big takeaway. Become aware of when you are disregulated. Right? So it's just becoming aware because you you can't change what you're not aware of. So if you become aware of a pattern, it could be a pattern such as oh I'm people pleasing. Oh, this is my perfectionism.

[00:12:04]Oh, this is my procrastination. This is a pattern. This is a pattern for me.

[00:12:10]When you start becoming aware of a pattern, then you're able to do something about it and changes change it. So notice people pleasing, perfectionism, catastrophizing, all the what if, what if, what if, um, hyper vigilance, you know, the fight, the flight, the freeze, the numbing, the comfort, eating. Name it. You always want to give yourself a little pause.

[00:12:35]Name it. And then now once you've named it and you've paused, now you're in that little space where you have a choice.

[00:12:44]But I have to say this is some of the deepest work that I do with my clients because this really is the mindset work.

[00:12:51]This is your operating system. This is who you are. This is your identity. This is how you've learned to survive in the world. And many of those patterns have become maladaptive. They work when you were younger because you just adopted these patterns to survive all all the difficult things that you've had in your life, but they're not working anymore.

[00:13:10]So, this really is the deeper work that I do as a transformational mindset coach. Again, if you want help looking and even helping um uh for me to help you identify some of those patterns um then the best thing you would do, your next step honestly would be to book a complimentary breakthrough session with me. Again, the link is in the description.

[00:13:34]So other things in terms of managing your nervous system are going to be breathing. Um it's getting enough sleep.

[00:13:41]All these all these different um pillars all all affect each other. They all need to work in harmony together. So whether it's prayer, meditation, journaling, breathing, um finding a deep sense of purpose, etc. There's there's a lot that can really really help you. But if you only remember one thing, it's start developing awareness. It's called mindfulness. It's taking a step back and witnessing yourself. Witnessing your triggers, witnessing what your triggers are and how you behave. What happens when you're triggered? What are you believing? Where do you go? What is the behavior? That is your first step. And number six is community.

[00:14:23]So your big takeaway on community is don't try to do all this alone. It's really, really hard to do anything. I think in terms of growth and transformation on your own, you need a group. You need a community. Health is contagious. And it's not just health in the way that we eat and move and live, but it's around mentally, emotionally healthy people who are exciting to be around. They're inspiring. They pull you up rather than pull you down. They make you see what is possible. There's not enough of that in our world. Too little of it. So it's imperative to have a community and not only that but when you're in a community it also obviously fosters deep deep human connection and so you don't feel lonely and loneliness we're beginning to understand is one of the top killers as well. It affects health so um so it's so deletarious to our health. Loneliness, isolation, lack of connection and so you really want to be around that. And the community can look different. It could be a church community. It could be volunteering. It could be friends. It could be family.

[00:15:33]But I will say it could be coaching. It could be mentors. But I will say that whatever community it is, you can be in a community such as a work community, a church community, a book club community.

[00:15:45]And maybe you've got to really honestly ask yourself, do does this community lift me? Do I when I'm in this community interacting with these people, when I leave this community, do I feel like a better version of myself? Do I feel excited? Do I feel fed, supported, nourished mentally, you know, spiritually? And so, if not, then you might have to find a different community. All right. Now, I know that might feel a lot, but just notice something. I didn't tell you to do 50 things, did I? Um, I just went over six things, and you can go over these six things. I'll write them down in the description so you can go over them, right? And I gave you one place to begin with each of these six things. So essentially, it's just six things that I've given you, right? And again, if you're like Sophie, this all makes sense, but honestly, I don't know how to put this together in my life. That's exactly where I offer the complimentary session. Click on the link below and you can you can um book your spot. They're very limited spots cuz there's only one of me. And if you follow me, you'll notice that I am pretty busy. All right.

[00:16:50]So, um, that's it. That's it for today.

[00:16:53]You know, I'm just going to finish on this. The thing that's so exciting to me working with so many women in their 50s, 60s, and 70s is that you don't have to settle. If anybody tells you you have to settle, if any doctor tells you, well, it's just part of aging. That's what I was told on my 50th birthday. I'm now 62, and I went into my doctor's office.

[00:17:13]Oh, your cholesterol is rising a little bit and I'm like I'm getting a little bit of belly fat and my energy is down and I've got some gas and bloating and la. And he just said, "Well, you know, that's just, you know, you got to live with that. That's just, you know, that is going to happen as you get older."

[00:17:27]And, you know, and there are various medications and things that we'll be able to offer if any of these things get worse. And I made a decision on when I sat in the parking lot after that appointment. I'm like, "No. Mm- This is not going to happen like that. We're not going down that way. we're not going down that route. And that's when I really stepped up and I made these radical radical changes in my life. And I feel better. I have more energy. I'm healthier. My lab work is better now at 62 than it was when I'm 50. And and I've seen that happen for many, many, many women who I've coached. And so, don't ever feel that you have to settle. There is a way you can do this. Yes, it takes work. No, it's not easy. No, it's not just sitting around doing what you feel like doing. It does take work, but it is the most valuable work. And guess what?

[00:18:15]Your future self is depending on you to do this work so that you can become an inspiration to your children, your grandchildren, and everybody around you.

[00:18:24]I will see you next time.