Sometime in midlife, it’s common to hit an exercise wall. Maybe your go-to workout is no longer cutting it—or, worse, causing pain. Maybe hormone changes are kicking your butt and you’re too tired to exercise. Maybe no matter how much you move, you’re gaining weight in unexpected places.
Suddenly, it’s becoming more challenging to stay fit.
A few years ago, I began noticing that the resistance exercises I’d been doing for more than a decade weren’t keeping me toned and I was feeling tired during my three-mile run. It was a hard pill to swallow for someone who came of age during the Jane Fonda era, who was taught to “feel the burn” to stay in shape. So I began searching for information on working out in midlife. But I came up with mostly one-size-fits-all exercise tips and a serious lack of research on women in our age group. The primary advice? Take it easy and try to avoid injury. I also found some conflicting recommendations among fitness experts, particularly when it came to HIIT vs. endurance training.
If you’re as confused as I was, read on. Because I did a deep dive and have answers for you.
Help, My Workout’s No Longer Working!
As we approach midlife, staying in shape becomes harder for both men and women. Muscle mass starts to diminish as early as age 35, and since muscle burns more calories than fat, our metabolic rate progressively slows.
But for women, things are more complicated.
When we approach and transition through menopause, our hormones start to go out of whack, wreaking havoc on our bodies. As this sex hormone declines, our cells begin storing more fat and are less willing to part with it. Insulin may become less effective at lowering glucose. And we can experience hot flashes and night sweats, which is a formula for sleepless nights. This sleep deprivation produces increased levels of ghrelin, the “hunger” hormone, and decreased levels of leptin, the “stop eating” hormone, and may make you too tired to work out.
To make matters more confusing, if your progesterone declines more rapidly than your estrogen, you can experience estrogen dominance, a hormonal imbalance whose symptoms include bloating, weight gain and mood swings.
Meanwhile, both everyday stress and certain types of workouts can cause a spike in the stress hormone cortisol, which is associated with increased appetite, weight gain and insulin sensitivity.
These pesky fluctuating hormones can influence your body’s fat distribution. As they get older, most women notice that excess weight now collects around the middle, rather than on the hips and buttocks. If you’re noticing that your clothes don’t fit quite like they used to, you’re not alone.
Bottom line: Perimenopause and menopause can dramatically alter your body shape, energy levels, and response to exercise. Workouts you did in your younger years may not work as well now, which might leave you frustrated and unmotivated. Worse, exercising the wrong way can exacerbate symptoms and lead to other problems.
Note: Certain health conditions and medications can also trigger appetite, slow your metabolism and cause weight gain. See your doctor if you’re experiencing any new symptoms or starting a new workout regime.
Something’s Gotta Give
“The solution to losing fat over 40 is multi-layered and complex,” writes Dr. Sara Gottfried, author of Younger, one of my favorite books on midlife hormone management. “It’s not as simple as eating less and moving more, as so many mainstream doctors would have us believe.”
You can say that again.
For the purpose of this article, I’ll assume you’re eating a healthy diet of lean proteins, good fats and lots of veggies. That you’re managing your blood sugar with foods low on the glycemic index, getting enough fiber, and watching your portions. That you’re limiting intake of alcohol, caffeine and salt, and don’t smoke.
If you’re already rocking your diet, it’s time to get moving. Most experts agree that you should work out for at least 30 minutes, most days of the week, to stay in good health. Exercise lowers your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. It may also tame some symptoms of perimenopause and menopause such as hot flashes, joint pain and sleep problems.
But what kind of exercise should you do for the best results? That’s the million-dollar question.
We’re at an age where the desire to look good in our clothes remains strong, but health and longevity are becoming our primary goals. Workouts are becoming less about exertion, more about balance and sustainability. And that’s OK.
Here, the most common forms of exercise and how they affect your body in midlife.
Aerobic Cardio
Cardiovascular exercise can improve cardiovascular fitness, which is a marker of how efficiently your heart can deliver oxygen and nutrients during physical activity. Cardio is typically aerobic, meaning your heart rate is elevated and your body is using oxygen to convert glucose into cellular energy. (It can also be anaerobic, where you’re working at a high intensity, converting energy in the absence of oxygen—but we’ll get to that later.)
Aerobic cardio is sometimes referred to as endurance exercise, because it should be done for at least 10 minutes straight. Examples include walking, jogging, swimming, dancing and certain types of yoga (Vinyasa and Ashtanga) that get your heart rate going. This type of workout has been shown to reduce blood pressure, which might be higher than normal if you’re experiencing hot flashes and poor sleep. Aerobic cardio can also improve heart health, lung capacity and physical endurance, reduce your risk for disease, and keep your weight in check.
Nicole Meline, an iFit trainer and a More Beautiful Podcast guest, is a big fan of endurance cardio. She says working out within an RPE (rate of perceived exertion) of 5-6 is ideal for both weight loss and sustainability. Working out this way, she says, “you’re telling your body to stay in the parasympathetic nervous zone—that rest-and-digest zone, rather than the flight-or-flight panic mode [that triggers cortisol production]. It’s possible to train in this zone, and this is where your body is going to best engage its fat supply.”
The American Heart Association recommends working up to 30 minutes a day of low to moderate aerobic activity several days per week. During aerobic exercise, your heart rate and breathing should increase, but you should still be able to chat with a workout buddy. According to Meline, another way to check that you’re exercising within this range is by making sure you can breathe in and out of your nose throughout most of the workout.
Checking your heart rate during cardio is always a smart idea. If you don’t have a heart rate monitor or a smart watch, do a simple pulse check by counting the beats for six seconds and multiplying that number by 10. For example, if you count 16, your pulse is 160 bpm. The target heart rate for a 40-year-old is 90-153, with a maximum heart rate of 180. For a 50-year-old, the range is 85-145, with a maximum of 170. The American Heart Association has a free chart here.
Many experts say moderation is key when it comes to cardio, so you can avoid injuries and keep yourself motivated. When we engage in endurance training, says Meline, “we’re going faster than we do in our warmup mode, but we’re definitely working. We’re working sustainably, which is what we’re made to do.”
High Intensity Interval Training
We’ve all heard about the benefits of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) for weight loss and fitness, and many experts, including More Beautiful Podcast guests Claire and Jim Davis, highly recommend it to clients.
HIIT involves short bursts of intense exercise that speed up your heart rate, alternated with periods of slower, less-demanding work. The actual activity can be sprinting, biking, jumping rope or any other bodyweight exercise. For example, a HIIT workout using a stationary bike might consist of 30 seconds of cycling as fast as possible with high resistance, then several minutes of easy cycling with low resistance. If you’re a runner, you might jog for a few minutes, then run at full speed for 20 seconds, then repeat.
Done correctly, HIIT is an effective way to build muscle, boost endurance, regulate insulin, lose weight and increase heart function. This type of workout also seems to turn back the clock on a cellular level, improving the function of mitochondria (the battery cells of the body). And according to studies, the older you are, the greater the impact HIIT can have.
High intensity intervals can also burn more combined calories during and after a workout than other types of exercise. In a 2008 study, 27 overweight women with an average age of 51 and an average BMI of 34 who performed bouts of high-intensity aerobic exercise reduced their waistlines and visceral fat more than women who did not exercise or did only low-intensity aerobic activity.
In addition, HIIT is time efficient. It takes just four to 30 minutes to complete a workout, easily fitting into your busy schedule.
However, HIIT may not be suitable for everyone.
One study at Penn State University found that the benefits of HIIT workouts dwindle—and can even be harmful—if you do them too often. Quick bursts of energy are more likely than lower-impact activities to cause injury, muscle soreness and heart problems, especially in those who are new to working out or over 40. In addition, if your body is working too hard under stress, it produces the hormone cortisol, which can trigger inflammation, joint and muscle pain, and even cause weight gain.
If you’re experiencing moderate to severe menopausal symptoms, you need to be cautious of chronically high cortisol, which increases your risk for a variety of health issues. When cortisol is spiked day and night, it “steals” progesterone from the adrenal gland pathway, making this hormone unavailable for its usual role: keeping your mind happy, calm and clear. Mood swings, hot flashes, anxiety and depression may all become worse and, for many women in midlife, body fat levels increase—again, particularly around the stomach area.
In addition, if you’re having trouble sleeping, your body’s production of the restorative hormones that assist with workout recovery are sluggish. If you’re experiencing symptoms of adrenal fatigue—including low levels of iron, calcium, magnesium and/or vitamin D, poor thyroid function and high cortisol—recovery from high-intensity workouts is even slower.
If you’re experiencing these symptoms, put a pause on the high intensity workouts and see your doctor, who can help you get your stress and hormone levels under control. If you’re new on your fitness journey, it’s best to start out with less intense activity. Maybe add a little interval training to your cardio, but don’t go full-fledged HIIT until you’ve been exercising regularly for at least a month. Then slowly build up.
If you’re an HIIT veteran whose hormones are under control, you’ll still need to exercise mindfully in order to maximize the benefits and avoid adrenal burnout. There’s no one-size-fits-all with HIIT, so it’s best to work with an expert to design a personalized program that matches your fitness level and overall health. A fitness tracker can help determine if you’re pushing things too far. A fitness coach is a great idea to make sure you’re using correct form and positioning.
Some HIIT guidelines everyone should follow:
- Give yourself enough time to warm up.
- Allow sufficient recovery time between peaks of intensity, using a heart monitor to make sure you’re returning to 65-70 percent of your maximum heart rate between bursts.
- Get adequate sleep at night, and if you start to have trouble, reduce the intensity of your workouts.
- Limit the HIIT to 30 minutes three times a week, which is enough even if you’re very fit.
- Consume enough calories to fuel your workout. A combination of high-intensity training, other stressors and low carb diets can raise cortisol levels and create weight loss resistance, so embrace healthy carbs like quinoa and brown rice.
Strength Training
Experts agree that the one type of exercise we all need to embrace during midlife is strength training.
Once you reach age 35, you start to lose 1 percent of your lean muscle mass every year, and this loss accelerates during perimenopause and beyond because of estrogen loss and sleep imbalances. This muscle wasting (called sarcopenia) slows your metabolism, increases your fat ratio, and compromises your balance. In addition, during the first five years after menopause, you can lose as much as 10 percent of your bone mass, making you more prone to osteoporosis and fractures.
According to research published in the journal Menopause, strength training can help women in midlife increase muscle mass and bone density, improve strength and balance, and rev up metabolism, which in turn improves the body’s ability to burn fat. It can also boost brain function and reign in the risk of osteoporosis, cardiac death and cancer.
One of the great things about strength training is versatility, as any physiological movement that uses body weight or equipment to engage the muscles is fair game. You can use dumbbells, weights or resistance bands. You can do Pilates, T’ai Chi or yoga. You can swim, play tennis, and even walk with ankle weights, and so on. Many types of strength training are considered resistance training, which involves pushing or pulling against the resistance of an object (including your own body), so it’s easy to work out even when you’re on the go. Personally, I love my TRX bands because I can squeeze them into my suitcase and use them when I’m traveling (as you can just hang them over the top of a door).
Most fitness experts recommend muscle-strengthening movements at least two days a week, and advise short and intense workouts over longer sessions, which can trigger cortisol and its various side effects.
There are a couple other things to keep in mind when strength training.
First, know that ab-targeted exercises alone won’t shave off belly fat; you must also incorporate a healthy diet and a well-rounded workout that includes cardio. Second (and sorry, here comes the dreaded age-related injury warning), recognize that certain strength-training exercises we did in our youth can now do more harm than good. For instance, sit-ups can cause spinal problems, and crunches can strain your neck if you’re not keeping your back completely straight and engaging your core. Squats, which are one of the most effective exercises for toning the legs and glutes, can cause lower-back pain and knee injuries if not done correctly. Again, it’s worth meeting with a trainer to ensure you’re doing these exercises correctly.
Good alternatives to squats are lunges with hand weights, and a great replacement for sit-ups are planks, which RGB was known for doing well into her 80s. If you love planks, try doing them with a chair for added support. And strength training that incorporates deep-breathing strategies, such as yoga and Pilates, can be as effective as, yet less exhausting than, weight training with heavy loads.
No matter which strength-training method you use, make sure you’re getting enough sleep in between workouts to allow your muscles to recover.
High Intensity Incidental Physical Activity
For many of us, finding the time to work out several days a week can be difficult. We know we should prioritize our health, but work, family and household obligations are all fighting for our attention. While I’m lucky enough to have a flexible schedule that enables me to squeeze in a run and some floor exercises most days, sometimes it’s just not possible.
So what do I do on those days? I give myself a break and promise myself I’ll resume my workouts tomorrow. But even on the days when I can’t do my run or Pilates set, I practice something that experts are now calling HIIPA, or High Intensity Incidental Physical Activity. The premise behind HIIPA is that every movement during the day counts. Think: hauling groceries, running around with the kids, walking the dog, or climbing the stairs at the office. Bonus points for activities that get you huffing and puffing.
HIIPA is not only a good exercise compromise for the supremely busy. It can also be a first step for people who haven’t worked out in a while or are thinking about starting a fitness program. Research shows that if sedentary people engage in more of these activities during the day and repeat them—just three to five sessions for 5 to 10 minutes per day—they could reap health benefits similar to those you get from HIIT.
So the next time you’re faced with the big dilemma—elevator or stairs—you know what you gotta do.
Balance It Out
If you do too much of any one exercise, your body can become adapted, locked with too much tension, or develop weakness in certain areas, which can lead to injury. That’s why it’s a good idea to balance out your high-intensity exercise with calming low-impact activities, and to give yourself a break when it’s warranted.
I used to push through my runs even when I didn’t feel so great. Now, at the first sign of knee pain, I slow down to a brisk walk and evaluate my symptoms. Or when I’m feeling “hormonal,” I give myself permission to do a few stretches and call it a day.
The older I get, the more I find myself intrigued by two exceptionally well-rounded forms of exercise: Pilates and yoga. Both incorporate all the different types of exercise we talked about—cardio, strength training and stretching—as well as increase stability and flexibility, and help with alignment. More significant, they incorporate breathing exercises that can help you feel calmer and more centered. A longtime practitioner Pilates, I’ll admit that I never fully jumped on the yoga bandwagon. But lately, I’m seriously considering it. The women I know who do yoga are lithe and chill, and from what I’ve seen, are able to practice it until well into old age.
A few other tips for working out kindly in midlife:
- Relax. Include relaxation techniques such as a sauna, meditation and yoga in your exercise schedule, which can help you combat stress, recover more quickly and reduce cortisol levels, helping you reach your health and weight loss goals faster. For more relaxation tips, read this.
- Hydrate. Drink adequate amounts of water during and after exercise and eat clean, unprocessed food. Consider supplementation with B-complex, Vitamin C and magnesium to support adrenal function and aid recovery.
- Listen to your Body. For instance, if you’re not sleeping well due to night sweats, consider doing less HIIT and more lower-intensity workouts until you’re catching more Zs. Several people I know swear by the Oura ring, which monitors your sleep and exercise patterns and tells you when you’re ready for your next workout (or when you need more recovery).
At the end of the day, remember that exercising is about self care. It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to hit the gym or the pavement, not a punishment.
Go easy on yourself when you need a break, but always make healthy living the fallback.
Aging is inevitable, but getting out of shape in midlife is not. Even if you can’t exercise “like you used to,” you can embrace a new routine that works for your life now, incorporating all the activities you love. And when you make metabolic health your goal, everything else falls into place. You’ll be less prone to illness and feel stronger, faster, more flexible and more alive than ever before.
As a nice side effect, that belly fat won’t stand a chance.
Remember, if you’re starting any workout for the first time, make sure to check in with your doctor—especially if you have risk factors for heart disease such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or family history.
For more, read “Is Weight Gain During Perimenopause Inevitable?” in the More Beautiful Blog.
Sources:
AARP: High-Intensity Interval Training: Why It Just May Be a Miracle Workout: https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-2018/high-intensity-interval-training-workout.html
The Journal of North American Menopause Society: Metabolic Effects of Menopause: A Cross-Sectional Characterization of Body Composition and Exercise Exercise Metabolism: https://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal/Citation/2022/04000/Metabolic_effects_of_menopause__a_cross_sectional.3.aspx
Mayo Clinic. Rev Up Your Workout With Interval Training: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/interval-training/art-20044588. Accessed January 14, 2019.
Journal of Midlife Health: Exercise Beyond Menopause: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296386/
PLoS One: The Effect of Exercise on Visceral Adipose Tissue in Overweight Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
