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Let's dive into some of the questions I've heard most frequently asked. We'll go over all things from effects of sleep on weight loss, muscle soreness in relation to workout effectiveness, cycle syncing - what is it and is it worth prioritizing, how to stay consistent in nutrition habits while traveling, and more!
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To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
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What is Fit for Hiking?
Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discuss here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. 1s Hello and welcome back to another episode of the fit for hiking podcast. Today we are doing a Q&A style episode, so these are some frequent questions that I've gotten regarding fitness, health, nutrition. So kind of more on the fitness side of things today. Um, so I have a few questions that I've gotten frequently from clients, from people in DMs and question boxes, things like that. So I wanted to address those on a bigger scale than what I can just on social media. So I figured today would be a great day to dive into some of these topics and frequently asked questions. So let's get into it, you guys. The first question that we have is how does sleep affect weight? This is a really great question because you probably always hear how much getting sleep is important to a healthy lifestyle, to maintaining a healthy weight. But let's get into why so recent studies on sleep and gym performance correlation followed two groups who were doing the same workout regimen. So exact, same variables. As far as training the group that was getting upwards of eight plus hours of sleep and night saw significantly more strength and muscle gain than the group that was getting less than seven hours per night. So we know from this study and from studies like this that have been done in recent years, that getting proper sleep definitely does affect our, um, you know, effectiveness of our workouts and actually getting strength gains out of them and muscle gain as well. So another area that this affects is adherence, because if you are sleeping less, if you're exhausted, if you're just chronically under slept, you're probably not going to have the same energy that you normally would, therefore making it harder to adhere to a workout regimen. I can speak from this personally, because my daughter was a notoriously rough sleeper for the first year and a half of her life. Like, we really struggled with sleep. We tried all the things, you know, did sleep consultations, tried it all, and she just was not having it. So I spent about a year and a half on and off, being extremely overtired and not getting good sleep, and I often felt like I was a walking zombie because life goes on. I had to work. I had to get through the day, still try to maintain my healthy habits. And yeah, my exercise habits definitely suffered. During this time. I was working out a lot less because I didn't have the energy I needed to show up to a workout. So you're just going to have less motivation overall if you're constantly drained of energy. And then it also can affect, um, adherence to any sort of nutrition regimen because it affects our hunger hormones. So what's really interesting here is that your hunger hormone, which is called ghrelin, actually rises when you are getting less sleep. So if you're waking up after only like five hours, six hours of sleep, or just really poor sleep, your hunger hormone is actually going to go up while you're satiety hormone, which is called leptin, is going to decrease. So this is why it makes it a whole lot harder to make good decisions around food. When we are exhausted. You're probably just not going to put the same amount of care and you're going to be hungry. You're not going to be as satisfied. Um, so all of this together kind of makes it a perfect storm to not get optimal results out of what we're doing. As far as our gym efforts, if sleep is not a priority. So getting good quality sleep. So not even just like the amount of time you're in your bed, but actually getting good deep sleep is so important, especially as we get older, to like functioning our best, showing up in our workouts, getting the most out of our workouts, and eating properly. Okay, number two, how important is exercise for weight loss? So again, talking about some studies that have been done, a systematic review pulled 80 studies that all looked at exercise alone for weight loss. And the studies follow these participants for a year plus. So the conclusion of these studies was that exercise without food restriction really does not produce meaningful weight loss. So this tells us quite a bit. And unfortunately, a lot of people turn to exercise as their sole means to losing weight. Like if someone's on a crusade to lose some weight, it's like all about the workouts. And this is really I mean, evidence backs this. This is not just me spouting this, you guys. Exercise alone is not a meaningful method for for weight loss, especially for sustained weight loss. Okay. So let's talk about why it's extremely easy to eat back the calories that we're burning during exercise, which are often far less than what we think that they will be like. Oftentimes if we're working out for an hour, we assume we're burning, you know, 6 to 800 calories. And in reality, you might be burning way, way less than that, depending on your body size, the amount of muscle you have, and the adaptations that take place over time. The longer that you work out and the more that you do lose weight. So it's not a super cut and dry equation here. We can't rely on calorie burn for for our weight loss. Um, and also it's really easy to get those hunger signals up the more that we are exercising, especially if our goal with exercise is calorie burn. If we're all about the cardio, we're all about burning calories, going as hard as we can. Not only is there that mental component that kind of lets us know, like, oh, I did a hard workout, I earned this, which, I mean, I've heard that so many times working in fitness like, oh, I gotta earn these calories. Um, it's a really hard mental thing to undo that, you need to earn your calories. Um, and that when you've worked out, then therefore, you can eat whatever you want to eat. Very, very not true and really hinders people, oftentimes leaving us like super in a vicious cycle of working out really hard, eating it back and then not really seeing any weight loss progress if that's the goal. So it's going to affect the mental side of things, as well as just the physiological side of things, where you will be physically hungrier the more you're driving up that activity. So you're kind of going to be putting yourself in a place where it's a lot harder to adhere to any sort of calorie restriction. If you are constantly over exercising to the point that your hunger is out of control, right? Your body is going to win out eventually. And I talk about this really in depth in episode 29. So that podcast episode is all about, um, why it's not super effective to use exercise as your main goal for, uh, fat loss. So I definitely recommend listening to that if this topic piques your interest. All right. Number three. This is kind of a quick one but is being super important for seeing results. The answer is no. You can see the same amount of physique change with or without being saw. So this is kind of a mental trick I think. Like if we are super sore we often associate that with a successful workout like, oh, that was productive. I made my body so sore that I can hardly walk. Man, I really crushed it. But the reality is, being overly sore is actually not ideal and it can hinder workout consistency and volume, which are the two biggest precursors to actually changing the body and adding muscle. So if we're not consistently loading the muscles and we're not getting a proper amount of volume in a given week over time, week after week, then we're not going to see progress in the gym. So what happens is if we do an extremely hard workout and we totally fry our muscles, let's say on a Monday, and then we are so sore that we can't walk or workout again until Friday, we're really lacking that consistency and volume component. So you're really honestly getting in your own way. It would be so much better to work out at a moderate intensity, not working out so long and hard, and choosing weights that are maybe inappropriate for where you're at, to the point where you're so sore that you can't work that same muscle group again for another week. Um, we want that consistency more than anything else. That would be better to do 4 to 5 moderate workouts a week versus like 1 to 2, where you just totally fry your muscles. All right. Number four, should I skip workouts on my period? I like this question. It's been such a big thing. I feel like in social media this this topic of cycle thinking, um, and I do feel that it is a bit overhyped when you actually look at the data and what women are capable of. And we are not gentle flowers just because we are on our period. And I think it's worth mentioning that because I think sometimes these cycle thinking people are like almost fear mongering women into thinking like that, it's harmful for us to work out on our periods at all, which is just not the case. So actually, if you look at what's going on in that particular week of menstruation, physiologically our bodies are at a very high capacity for recovery as females. So actually the week of menstruation, we have the ability to really do a whole lot of benefit as far as weight lifting and get some good muscle building recovery during that week. It happens to be the week before menstruation, which is called the luteal phase, where we are a bit more sensitive to hard workouts. We're going to be more sensitive to inflammation and more likely to actually injure during that week. So if you're going to take it easy and kind of pull back during one week of your cycle, it should probably be the few days leading up to when you actually start menstruation. So that doesn't mean you need to do absolutely nothing. It just means you might not want to try to set PR as that week. You might not lift the heaviest weights you've ever lifted, and you might not want to do intense cardio or hit, um, in a, in a way where you're going to drive up inflammation during menstruation. Yes, you might have some cramps. I definitely struggle for like the first few days of my period with bloating cramping. I'm probably not feeling like working out really hard. Um, but that's okay. You can definitely do gentler forms of workouts like long walks, hikes. Ladies yoga, even just lighter weight lifting. Maybe you want to stick with your weight lifting schedule for that day, and you're just not lifting as heavy. And maybe you're resting a little bit, or it's not going to do any damage to you, though to work out during your period is really what I want to kind of get across with this answer. Okay, so now we covered that. Let's move on to number five. Um, how to stick to a healthy nutrition regimen while traveling. I love this question too, because I have done so much travel over the last few years, literally living in a van and doing long van trips. Even after we moved out of the van, doing international travel for several months at a time. And all of that time I've managed to kind of maintain a healthy weight, not really swing too much in my in my weight or my, you know, body composition. And it's been through these few principles. So that's kind of what I want to share with you guys. So the biggest thing to remember is not to take an all or nothing approach. If you treat every single time where you leave your house or like go on a weekend getaway or anything as like a free for all with your nutrition and alcohol, then you're definitely going to struggle to maintain, um, results from the gym or just a healthy weight overall because you're really not doing your body any favors by those large swings. Um, so what we want to focus on is a moderation approach, and you can kind of take two different revenues here or two different avenues here, rather, um, you can go a tracking route or a non tracking route with your nutrition. So let's talk about the non tracking route first. So if you don't want to track nutrition maybe it's a vacation or you just don't like tracking in general and you just want to enjoy. Then these are some of the things that you're going to want to focus on. The first is getting veggies in at at least two meals a day. If you're mindful of veggie intake, you're just naturally going to pick healthier options. If you really make that a priority and make it a non-negotiable when you're traveling, you're going to gravitate towards healthier things on the menu. So just make that a non-negotiable. When you go out to eat. When you're in these situations where you can't necessarily control everything, focus on veggies and protein. So the other thing you're going to want to do here is try to get at least a half full or fistful of protein at every single meal. Okay, so that is going to be huge. And this is where having some sort of history of tracking is helpful, because you can also kind of know, all right, if I'm having Greek yogurt or if I'm having eggs, like generally this is kind of the amount of protein that I'm getting. And if you're already aware of those things, that's going to make it a whole lot easier to choose options that are more protein forward. So choosing protein and veggies as many of your meals as possible is going to help with satiety and filling you up with the right things, but also maintaining lean muscle and getting good micronutrients from the veggies. You're just going to feel better overall than if you're just eating like greasy food. Eating out, um, you know, for an entire week on your vacation. Trust me on that. You're definitely going to feel better and thank yourself later. The next tip is to go to a grocery store right away. When you land, or arrive at your destination and go get some of your like, go to high protein snacks. So whether that's like protein bars, Greek yogurt cups. Um, you know, any of your go tos that you're like, this is what I typically gravitate towards to get protein in between meals, protein powder, um, you know, protein smoothies, things like that. Um, have those on hand so that when you are snacking, you're not just like, mindlessly eating all of the unhealthy things that might be around while you're traveling. And the next is to shoot for a limited amount of alcohol. Alcohol can be a massive part of what derails people while traveling. Um, or just in everyday life in general when we overdo it. So setting some boundaries around, maybe it's a daily limit, you know, if you're going to an all inclusive resort and you know that there's going to be a lot of alcohol around choosing to only have 1 or 2 per day while you're there, or if it's a not, you know, it's a type of trip where you're not really around much alcohol anyways. Maybe you just pick one day where you go to dinner and have a few cocktails or glasses of wine and keep it at that. But settings and boundaries before you go, so it doesn't just again turn into a free for all with alcohol, because that also is going to affect the food that you're choosing, your sleep quality, your activity the next day. I mean, the. The ripple effect of going overboard with alcohol is massive, so we want to make sure that we're choosing wisely as to when we want to indulge in alcohol while traveling. So the other approach is to keep track of nutrition, at least loosely, while you're traveling. And if you want to not really focus on food quality at all, and you want to just be able to eat all the things, then I recommend tracking. This is because you can keep things at a moderate amount without having to choose veggies at every single meal. And while I wouldn't recommend this in everyday life, if you're traveling and you don't have access to choose like healthy options, then you're going to want to keep track of your nutrition and try to stay in a moderate range. So this is going to depend on the individual as far as the range that you're staying in, what your goals are, if you're trying to maintain, if you're trying to lose weight, if you're trying to gain weight. So I can't necessarily tell you the calorie range. This is where working with a coach is helpful to kind of identify what your basal metabolic rate is and what you should be eating as far as a calorie intake based on that information. And this is something that we can help you with in Mountain Metabolic coaching, which I always link in the show notes the application form there. So if you want some specified help with nutrition, definitely apply at the link in the show notes. But having a range that you're trying to stay in within your calories and all things can go into that. But we want to make sure that we're moderating food intake, even if it's like you're eating fast food for every single meal, you can still like, maintain or lose weight. You need fast food to every single meal. There have been studies done on this, like there was a McDonald's study where someone lost weight eating McDonald's for every single meal for an entire month, simply by restricting the amount of calories. So remember that quantity is going to affect kind of the direction the scale moves. But food quality is still very important because it affects how we feel and our overall health markers. So we don't want to neglect food quality long term. But definitely if you're traveling and you don't have access to healthy options or you're not really able to control these things, then you can still focus on maintaining a healthy weight through food quantity. And another fun rule that I kind of live by. This tip has really helped me in eating out situations. Is choosing one option between dessert, a drink, or an appetizer? I think too often we just are like in eating out mode. So we're like, okay, I'm just going to do all of the things because it's all an option. It's all available, it's exciting. But then what we do is we end up like way over eating at that one meal. So with my meal that I order, I only give myself the option to choose a drink, a dessert or an appetizer instead of multiple of those or all three. Definitely helps keep the calorie count down so that I'm feeling my best, and not just overeating and indulging for an entire week's worth of eating out. Right. All right. And then the final question is how does stress impact the body and weight loss? Um, this is a great question and one that I've answered in depth in a couple other episodes. One of the beginning episodes, um, stress and exercise. I definitely recommend going back and listening to that. If this is a question that you are intrigued by. Um, but long story short, what we want to think about here is our total stress bucket as humans. So this could be, you know, current work stress, relational stress, your disposition in general, if you're a kind of a higher stress person or if you're more relaxed and you sort of physical stress that you've been under, um, and sleep quality, all of these things are going to affect your stress threshold, your stress bucket. So let's say that you are in a very stressful situation at work right now. You have a stressful commute home, and then you go home and you have a lot of responsibilities, and you're also kind of a Type-A person, and you are in general a little bit more anxious. And then you're also throwing on top of that like a hit class five days a week and running, and all of that starts to kind of bubble over the top of your stress bucket over time. So this might not happen to every single person, kind of depending on the other stressors in their life. For them, hit classes every day might be totally fine, but it is not black and white. It is different for every single person. And there was a study in 2019 that was done on the pro-inflammatory effects of chronic excessive exercise. And basically what this, uh, conclusion was, was that there are, uh, inflammation. There's inflammation that's going to affect the central nervous system and sympathetic nervous system, as well as the HPA axis, which kind of affects all of our hormone signals. As ladies, when we are excessively training and doing too much exercise as women. So that is really important to note, because it's not always better to just do more and more and more, especially if you are stressed out. What we gather from this is that our sympathetic nervous system is going to be triggered into a fight or flight state, and when we are chronically in that state, we're not able to fully relax, rest and digest. And so we're just kind of heightened all the time that's going to increase inflammation and that's going to negatively affect our hormone signals as well. Um, and I talked about this actually a lot on a recent episode, um, with uh, Amber. So definitely go back and look at that. It was all about how hormones affect are affected by how we eat and how we exercise. And I kind of dove into my personal background with losing my cycle for a while and my own stress journey and weight loss journey. So definitely check that out as well. Um, but we want to understand our nervous system here and how it responds to stress. So our parasympathetic state, that's when we're going to be relaxed, rest and digest. And then sympathetic is when we're in that heightened fight or flight state, our body senses danger or a stressor or some sort of trigger like that. So if we are constantly in a state of stress through all of the different components of our life that are stressful, and then we're throwing stressful exercise on top of it, then we're never really coming down from that. And that's going to lead to, um, some different like hormonal responses over inflammation and not really being able to lose weight. Really. Some people really hold onto weight when their body doesn't feel safe. Um, so you might want to scale back on intense exercise if the following apply to you. One, you're experiencing hormone dysregulation, such as any sort of thyroid disorders, amenorrhea, which is the loss of your cycle, adrenal fatigue or PCOS. You're chronically bloated or feeling inflamed. You feel like you have a super puffy face or your stomach is distended no matter what type of food you're eating. Um, if you're constantly tired, sluggish, and have cold hands and feet, if you're experiencing hair loss, you have a very low appetite. You're never waking up hungry despite working out a lot. If you're always prone to doing activities such as hit classes, CrossFit, um, orange theory, type of classes, running, just all like go go go type of forms of workout, cycling, things like that. Um, or if you're just experiencing a high volume of stress in other areas of your life, if you're going through any sort of traumatic life changes, divorce, big moves, big career changes, parental stress, relational stress, work stress, all of those things definitely can affect your overall stress load and nervous system. So things that you can do to stay active but still keep stress a little bit lower would be adding and load week. So this would be for someone who's a really consistent in the gym. Always works out, you know, 3 to 5 times a week and never really takes good rest weeks. Um, definitely adding in some weeks to give your nervous system a bit of a break as well as your muscles is going to be very helpful. And depending on the stress in your life, you might want to try to do this at least once every 3 to 4 months. The next is focusing on strength training and lower intensity cardio such as walking, biking, or hiking with a little bit more of a rest emphasis when you are doing your strength training. So this is a great fusion of activity. If you're trying to come off of like a super high inflammation, stressful time of life, the next is deep belly breathing after exercise or after stressful events that's going to bring you back down into your parasympathetic nervous system state. Um, and aiming to get you out of that fight or flight state. The next is to lower overall stimuli in your life by doing less things like task switching throughout the day, less scrolling on social media, less screen time, and adding in things like walks and time and nature. The next is to just take rest days and go for walks. Like if you're feeling super overwhelmed and getting up in the morning is going to be less helpful to your health and maybe a bit more harmful. Sleep in a little bit. Go for a walk. I think the whole like no days off grind mentality is so dangerous, especially for women. We are not meant to operate at that capacity 365 days a year, and then the next is to ensure that you aren't chronically under eating. This is a really big one because as women for chronically underfed, that's just going to kind of contribute to the amount of stress our body's under. And then you're going to experience symptoms like the hormonal and that type of things. So we want to make sure that we are eating enough. And being aware of that is the first step, because a lot of clients of ours in Mountain Metabolic come in and have no idea that they've been under eating, and that's the first thing that we have to address to get their metabolism into a better place to actually see results. Um, so that is kind of the conclusion of all of our questions today. If you guys like this type of format, let me know. Um, and I will, you know, every few months, put open a question box and get your guys's feedback on what other questions you want answered on this style of podcast episode. So I hope that this has been helpful and informative. As always, if you want to work with our amazing coaching team, get some one on one support for your fitness, hiking and weight loss attempts, then definitely check out the show notes. Get that link going for the application process, and I will be in touch with you to see if it's a good fit. All right you guys, thanks for tuning in today and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on a trail.com. Happy and healthy trails.