In Part 1 of this series on menopause, you learned how valuable it is to Eat Clean. If you want to avoid many of the unpleasant symptoms, including midsection weight gain, that come with the change of life, you’ll have to make friends with clean, nourishing foods.

Today,  in Part 2 of this series on menopause, you will learn how to create a workout routine that will help keep your waistline tight and lean.  

 

Body Beautiful Body Healthy

It’s helpful to consider a formula that addresses where to place your efforts. It’s called the Body Beautiful Body Healthy formula.

80% Eating clean + 10% Exercise + 10% Genetics = How You Look

Your diet accounts for 80% of how you look and feel. It’s a big number but by leveraging another 10% of your effort through physical exercise, you’re creating the most ideal conditions for staying slim and symptom free as you move out of your fertile years. That’s why Eating Clean and Exercise are big components of my new program The Menopause Method.

 

Muffin Top, Meno-pot, Middle Aged Spread

Muffin top is high on the list of dreaded symptoms women complain about. It’s a way of describing abdominal obesity that seems to cling stubbornly to your middle no matter what you do.  Blame it on declining estrogen levels.  Most women gain between 10 – 20 pounds over the life of their menopause as estrogen levels decline.  This is part of the problem. With plummeting estrogen levels, healthy fat metabolism is interrupted.  This exacerbates age-related decline in metabolism, something that is already in progress since age 25!

“I just started gaining weight around my middle. It happened so fast it caught me by surprise. What was so frustrating was that I felt like I had no control over it.” ~Menopause Method Client

It’s shocking to think that at such a young age you’re already in decline but that’s your female human design.  

The effects of this metabolic decline catch your attention in your thirties when you notice you can’t eat quite the same way as you used to.  How much does your basal metabolism drop? By 2% per decade starting at age 25.

To make matters worse, you also lose from 3 – 5% of your muscle mass each decade at the same time!  So by the time you reach age 25 not only has your metabolism dropped but so has your muscle mass and that’s when weight gain threatens to take over.

 

Move It to Lose It

The absolute best strategy to offset this decline is to W O R K  O U T.  There is simply no other way to help yourself stay in a high fat burning mode, shape a lean, healthy physique, stave off middle age spread, keep your sanity and a long list of other beneficial side effects. 

When you combine diet and exercise on a regular basis the end result is always optimal health.  SIDE NOTE: strengthen yourself even more by practicing emotional self care.

There’s a problem with working out as you age.  Have you ever noticed how few older women are in the gym? How do even fewer of them lift weights?  

Apparently you have to feel strong to lift weights and you may even need to feel somewhat in shape to enter a gym.  This is an odd reality because gyms are places where the good work of shaping healthy bodies should happen. But often it’s fit people in the gym and the unfit ones are peering in the windows thinking one day they will get there too.

Still there’s a powerful bonus to working out.  You will avoid middle age spread – the meno-pot and you’ll stave off the risk of the top health risks: cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, cognitive decline and more. 

 

Home Gym Plan

Let’s stay home and let’s build an effective workout plan.  How do you put together a solid workout routine at home that will challenge your body?  What will you incorporate into your training regimen that will test your strength enough to build muscle, challenge your heart/lung engine enough to build endurance and activate muscle groups enough to improve and maintain flexibility?

Consider your exercise routine, not one day at a time but in week long chunks.  In that seven day period you will want to incorporate the main elements of a solid exercise plan.  You’ll want to move your body through these components on varying days of the week to maximize your results.  

The Components of a Solid Exercise Routine  

1. Resistance training – anything that puts your muscles under strain and encourages a strengthening response.  This can be accomplished through:

Weight lifting using free weights and/or machines

Resistance band training

Kettlebell training

Body weight training

Cellercising or rebounding on a mini trampoline

Creative use of heavy objects training (backpack filled with books, stones, etc)

Frequency: 3 – 5 times per week for 30 minutes if it’s your main workout that day or a minimum of 15-20 minutes as part of your overall workout 

2. Cardiovascular endurance – anything that puts your heart/lung engine under strain and encourages a greater oxygen consumption capacity.  This includes:

1. 1. High Intensity Interval Training (HIITs) – sprinting alternated with a moderate pace. 
   2. Circuit Training – alternating between different cardio activities (cycling, running, elliptical machine) that work different muscles.
   3. Speed Play – a mixture of interval training and continuous training. Once you have a good basic level of fitness, you might run a mile at a strong pace, recover by walking, and then do some intervals.  An example of this is Tabata.
   4. Rebounding – jumping on a mini-trampoline 

Frequency: 3 – 5 times per week for 30 minutes if it’s your main workout that day or a minimum of 15-20 minutes as part of your overall workout.

3. Restorative Exercise – anything that puts your entire body into a state of gentle balance, stretch and physicality through yoga, walking, gentle cycling.

Frequency: 3 – 5 times per week for 30 minutes 

4. Posture, balance and core strength – anything that puts your abdominal core muscles under strain.

1. Pilates – a low-impact form of exercise combining deep breathing and gentle stretching to improve strength, balance and mobility.  Workouts target glutes, abs, quads and hips. 
2. Dance – a health-promoting physical activity that is a series of steps and movements set to music. It can be considered aerobic exercise.
3. Rebounding – performed on a mini-trampoline, this form of jumping burns more calories than other common exercises while activating all cells in all muscle groups on 3 levels: gravity, acceleration and deceleration.  Gentle on joints. Highly efficient.
4. Kettlebell training – efficient and effective tools for providing total-body strength and conditioning as well as flexibility and cardiovascular training. 

Frequency: 3 – 5 times per week for 30 minutes if it’s your main workout that day or a minimum of 15-20 minutes as part of your overall workout.

1. Stretching – anything that helps you lengthen, open and improve range of motion in your muscles. The goal is to reduce damage or injury to muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints.

Frequency: 5 minutes before every workout and 5-10 minutes after every workout.

 

Home Gym Plan to Maximize Fat Loss During Menopause

“Using The Menopause Method I lost 12 pounds, lowered my cholesterol by 22 points, increased my longevity by 3.4 years, and most importantly, I’m now committed to prioritizing my health.” ~T. Cook, Menopause Method Client

As you view your workout week, consider the activities you will be doing every single day of the week.  You will want to incorporate all of the components of a workout routine as I have described above.

Daunting right? When you look at everything you’re encouraged to do to keep middle age spread at bay, you will probably quit before you start.  Who has time to do stretching, flexibility work, cardio, strength training and core work every single day?

Most of you don’t.  

That’s why you can follow my lead. I’ve already figured out the best ways to work out efficiently with the most challenging exercises that deliver results on every level.  

 

Harness the Power of the Metabolic Catalyst – Train these Muscles for Maximum Fat Burn

I use one principle to do it all. It’s called the Metabolic Catalyst.  And when I combine the biology of this phenomenon with certain high efficiency, high results workouts, you get incredible results. 

The Metabolic Catalyst happens naturally when you activate certain muscle groups – the biggest ones in your body. These include the glutes, quads and abs.  A catalyst is known to stimulate or initiate a reaction. The Metabolic Catalyst is stimulated by the activation of the muscle fibers in your large muscle groups when you train them through any manner that stimulates muscle contraction. 

Why does this happen when you train glutes, quads and abs? These muscle groups are the largest in your body. They are densely packed with muscle fibers which when activated through training, become voraciously hungry. Working muscle tissue needs fuel and what does it consume? Glucose. All circulating glucose is the blood is quickly gobbled up by the trillions of muscle cells you’re working and when that glucose is gone, more fuel is pulled from your fuel storage in your body – fat and glycogen.

Training large muscle groups improves athletic performance, stimulates glucose metabolism which helps to manage blood sugar levels and catalyzes fat burning.  After you’ve finished your workout your body continues to experience post-exercise oxygen consumption and that drives calorie burning.   

It’s why I include glute, ab and quad training every chance I get in my weekly workout plan.  

 

Must do Exercises for Noticeable Results

The best forms of exercise through which to harness that fat burning power in the least amount of time to get maximum results, I have discovered in my career, includes kettlebell training and Cellercising.  Perform them in combination and in Intervals or Tabatas and you have got the secret to fat burning 🔥 locked and loaded! 

Kettlebell training, especially kettlebell swings, Turkish get ups, snatches and presses. A study done by the American Council on Exercise found the effectiveness of kettlebell training for burning calories far surpassed cross-country skiing, long considered the king of exercises for fat burning. According to the study, “doing kettlebell snatches for intervals of 15 seconds of work and 15 seconds of rest was equivalent to the calorie burn of running at a six-minute-mile pace.”  

Not many of you, myself included, can run that fast so this is amazing and you’ll want to take advantage of this knowledge for your own fat burning potential. Take note that the caloric burn for those 15 second intervals didn’t include the afterburn effect that happens for hours afterwards. 

BONUS: Doing the exercise in intervals shortens your training time!

 

Cellercising – your answer to a sleek waistline

One of my absolute favorite ways to exercise is by using my Cellercise unit (a rebounder).  

I’ve had it for many years and have been faithfully jumping away fat, flab and fluffiness.  

There’s tremendous science to support the value of rebounding.  

Here’s the short list:

🔥 Cellercising burns calories 11 times faster than walking, 5 times faster than swimming and 3 times faster than running.

🔥 Cellercising works ALL 75 trillion of your cells, 100 times per minute.

🔥 Cellercising increases traditional weight lifting results by up to 26%, if you do it for 30 seconds between sets.

🔥 At equal levels of oxygen uptake where you’re breathing hard, rebounding is 60% more effective than running and also twice as efficient as running. 

🔥 Jogging, running or skipping on a traditional hard surface is too jarring.  It injures joints and other body parts, creates stress and tension which then results in restricted circulation.

🔥 Using the Cellercise rebounder is the only piece of exercise equipment in existence that harnesses the three main weight-bearing movements: Acceleration, Deceleration and Gravity.

🔥 Cellercising enhances proprioception. The brain spends 90% of your energy trying to figure out where your body is in space at any given moment.  This is called proprioception or your body’s ability to know where it is in three dimensional space.  It’s critically important for your balance and posture. Cellercising is one of the few exercises you can do to improve this. 

All this to say, Cellercising or rebounding is one of the most effective and pleasant ways to build a lean, healthy, injury free physique during any time of your life – and yes, even during menopause!

 

Your Exercise Routine to Destroy Muffin Top Meno-pot

Now you know my secrets to staying lean and strong, even after menopause!

In short, I have harnessed the power of the Metabolic Catalyst and Interval training, combined the efficiency of highly specific and targeted exercises and created your one way ticket to the strongest, healthiest, most head turning body you’ve ever owned, DESPITE age and stage, including menopause.

Are you ready to get there now?

Make sure to get your complimentary meno-pot blasting exercise guide right here.  

It’s the best of the best and I can virtually guarantee you’ll get results.

I’d love to hear from you, comment below ⬇️ and please tell me what is getting in your way of starting or maintaining an exercise routine currently.

Wishing you success on your menopause journey.

My passion is your wellness.

Tosca