Today on the Body Pod, we are re running one of our most popular episodes from last season with doctor Stacy Simms.

Stacy is not only my business partner, but a dear friend, and in this short episode we cover insulin resistance and how it really creeps up in perimenopause.

So enjoy this short session with doctor Stacy Simms.

Hi everyone, my name is Haley and this is Lara and welcome to the Body Pod.

Hi everyone, welcome back.

We are so excited.

I'm so excited I have doctor Stacy Simms.

I'm actually sitting in New Zealand with her right now, and we decided to answer some questions that have come up since we did our Instagram life a couple of weeks ago.

So Stacy, are you ready?

Yes, let's go.

All right.

So, a question that a few of you asked had to do with insulin resistance and if this is a piry post menopause symptom.

We do see insulin resistance coming up in perimenopause, so this can contribute to some of that abdominal adipacity, some of the serial fat gain.

So what we need to be very mindful of is making sure that we are doing our high intensity work because that does help with metabolic control as well as a type of carbohydrate we're eating.

So if we're talking about changing and having more fruit and veg, make sure they're very fibrous for our gut, but also to help moderate and modulate that insulin resistance.

Okay, So it really comes down to dyeing an exercise.

Yeah, like everything else exactly.

And the other thing is I know that I always harp about strength training and the more metabolically active tissue we have by building that lean mass, the better it helps with our insulin and our glucose control.

Because as we are training and we are teaching our skeletal muscle to be active by theft and doing high intensity work, it's also telling the muscle that we don't need insulin to pull that blood sugar in, so then we are able to rely less on insulin to have better blood glucose control.

So this is another reason why we're always harping on that high intensity spread interval for metabolic control as well as that strength training to get more metabolically active tissue to help with blood glucose control.

Okay, So anyone that is aging, say entering that perimenopause phase somewhere in the late thirties forties.

Whenever they're hitting that do you recommend and when you're recommending that carbohydrate, we know that plays a role.

You're not saying to eliminate carbohydrate or go very low carb but not because of the insulin.

Resist not at all.

I'm saying, instead of eating more refined simple carbohydrates, which we tend to gravitate towards, especially in the States, we don't want to go with ultra pross foods.

These process the better.

So we're looking at bananas, pairs, peaches, carrots, apples, potatoes, rice spilt, any ancient grains, anything that has fiber with carbohydrate screen.

Women need carbohydrate.

You need it to fuel your brain, you need to fuel your muscles.

Help avoid getting into a low energy situation because when we have low carbohydrate intake, it can be perceived as low energy availability.

So it's not the elimination of carbohydrate, it's not dropping it to a low point.

It's being very mindful of the kinds of carbohydrates you're eating.

And you do have the opportunity, if you are someone who loves more simple carbohydrates, to have that before and after training because before training, your blood glucose comes up, you use that during training, then after you have an acute window of recovery where glucose is up taken into the muscle without the use of insulin.

Okay, so we're still fueling for the demands of training.

We're just being art with our carbohydrates.

And is this something that people that women will figure out or find out if they're insulin sensitive by a blood test or can it be they just don't feel great?

Does it have to be diagnosed with a blood test?

It doesn't.

But you'll find that you might be putting on a little bit of extra body fat if you're eating more carb than you know.

You're eating pasta meal or something, and you've always been doing that, and then all of a sudden you're like, why am I putting more weight on?

I don't understand that.

Then it's like, let's change to pulse pasta instead of wheat pasta.

So you're just putting more protein fiber in with that carbohydrate.

And then you'll notice that, oh, Okay, I'm feeling better, I'm not as bloated, I'm not holding on to as much weight is coming off a little bit easier.

So you'll start seeing signs and symptoms.

If you're really worried and you have a family history of diabetes, or you have preclamcy or anything like that, any complications during pregnancy, and yeah, you might want to get a fascinating lucas.

Okay, and if women, So we talked a little bit about strength training.

We both talk about this a lot for women that are postmenopausal and they're hearing the message about strength training, but there's still a little bit timid fearing injury.

There's still a way that they can work around that strength training without this fear.

There's more than one method to the heavy lifting.

Yeah, so I want people to realize that we're not talking about a training block.

We're talking about a lifestale change.

We're looking for the eye of resistance training the rest of our lives.

So we want to encompass a lot of mobility work, some functional movement work.

So we're looking at how do I squat, what are my sticking points, how are my knees, my hips, my ankle is flexibility there, you're working on mobility through that range of motion before you add load.

If you're someone who is compromised in their squat position instead of trying to do a deep squat, you're squatting to a box or you're squatting to a box with the plateon it.

So you're within your own range of motion.

You're developing strength, but as you're getting stronger in that range of motion, you also are able to increase your range of motion.

So we want to make sure that you move well before you add load.

And when we say lifting heavy, it's all relative.

So if you don't have a history and strength training, you know, not even go in and start trying to squat sixty kilos or you know one hundred and fifty pounds.

You are going to go in and start with maybe some dumbells, maybe you start with a twenty pound bar instead of a forty five pound bar.

So it's all within your own individual capabilities, with the eye of being able to add load as your mobility gets better, as your ligaments and your muscles and tendons all get stronger, it's not the eye of going in I got to do this right now, get injured and the stuff.

Yeah, okay, And this question always gets brought up too.

I feel like answered again for someone that is doing maybe pladus, which has multiple benefits, and what we should be focusing on when we're doing plateus is all of those major benefits.

But say, like the cardio classes where they're using a jump board, is that considered like could that be considered plometrics or heavy lifting or is there a difference.

When we look at the jump board or in plates.

It's not typical plymetrics because of what we're after with true primetrics is the rebound effect from the grounds.

You're getting that fast explosiveness as well as that absorption through the bone and the muscle, so that you're getting more than just the power part of the plyometrics.

We're looking for bone mineral density increases.

We're looking for the tendon and the ligaments to respond to it.

In kind.

If someone has really bad joints and they're or afraid of some of those power moves, then maybe starting the jump board because it's already in their PLATES class, is one way to start to feel what it's like to jump off something.

But I'd rather people go with the eye of doing a very low depth jump so they're understanding what it feels like to step off something, do a proper landing with soft knees.

Absorbing through the muscles and not necessarily the joints and then building up because there's so many more benefits to doing true pliometric work rather than something that is a jump board.

And I don't want people who do.

Plotis to hate me.

I'm not a hater on it.

I'm just saying, like, when we're talking about plyometric and the explosiveness, it's better to get really comfortable doing real plyometric like the depth jumps or the box jumpster jumping lunges or even things like jumping rope.

You want that explosive kind of movement for bone mineral density as well as the power.

Okay, so really to some things up when we talk about this phase of life that we're entering into our late thirties, our early forties, whatever we want to Whether we're in perimenopause, we're not there yet.

We're getting into menopause.

The lifestyle, everything that you just touched on is a lifestyle approach.

It's not just for this time period while you're transitioning into menopause or right when you hit menopause.

This is what we need to look forward to with the nutrition with a carbohydrate intake as well as the fitness of heavy lifting and going that route for the rest of our life.

This doesn't change, right.

I get a lot of questions of when do I know I should start veering towards the peri and postmenopausal type of training, or I'm postmenopausal, how does this apply to me?

So when I'm talking about the sprint interval training and the resistance training and taking care of our gut and the right kind of carbohydrate, I really want people who or women who are in their early forties to kind of start transitioning that way.

And then definitely in your late forties, you are definitely a perimenopausal, so you want to incorporate more of that external stress to cause those adaptations.

If your postmental puzzle, it's not too late to start, Like we want you to say, Oh, okay, these are the things that are applicable for my body.

Now I don't have estrogen progesterone.

I need to find an external stress that's going to cause these adaptations the way that my body used to respond to when I had estrogen progesterone.

I'm really concerned about the quality of my muscle.

I'm concerned about my bow mineral density.

So one hundred and fifty minutes of modern intensity activity is not right for my body when I'm postmenopausele If I'm already moving, great, but I need to look at doing some spread andr wal work.

I need to look at doing resistance training into heavy lifting, but it takes time.

I want to look at my ability because I don't want to get injured.

So all of this is with the eye to how I'm going to be ninety plus and still be independently living.

We see that as you get older, you need smaller volume, so small doses of intensity and resistance training in a regular time period.

So we're looking at, you know, five to six days a week of ten to twenty minutes every day rather than three times a week of a big session.

You need smaller doses just because the body needs that reminder of what we're doing.

Yes, and I love how you said that it's never too late.

So there's a lot of women on here that have been endurance athletes and they just might need to add in more of that heavy strength training and shift from a lot of that low intensity work.

But there's also women that I think we're both very passionate about.

It is never too late to start even if you have walked your whole life and that's it.

There is a place for everyone with strength training, with cliometrics, with mobility, and with this nutrition changes absolutely.

My husband sent me a link from the National News Radio News, the equivalent of MPR.

They're interviewing this guy that started resistance training when he was seventy six.

Now he's ninety six, and he's way stronger independently living.

And then we look at someone like train with Joan On.

She started lifting and taking care of herself with high intensity work when she's in her mid sixties, and now she's seventy something.

It's stronger and more robust now than she was earlier.

So it's never too late to start.

I love that well.

Thank you so much, Dacy.

This has been such a fascinating quick little podcast to answer some episodes, so we look forward to having one again.

Thanks for listening everyone.

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