413: Busy AND Fit: Practical tips for balancing work, family, & fitness - Nicole Rowe, M.D.

ELLA: 00:00

Hey, it's future Ella. I'm jumping back in here after recording this episode with Dr. Nicole Rowe. I can't wait for you to hear her tips. She specializes, she's a medical doctor, and she specializes in helping busy, busy women get fit, cut fat, and generally take better care of themselves realistically in the midst of their very, very busy schedule. Now, we're about to get into extremely practical tips for you, but I wanted to come back on the air and tell you what happened after we finished recording. So we recorded this several weeks ago, and I thought, this is exactly what the women coming to our May 9th event need to hear. They are women with personal and professional interests, and they're busy. And I asked Nicole to come to this event and be a speaker. And you know what she said? said yes. Not only did she say yes, but she is going to be speaking from the stage at this event and she is giving away a free ticket to this event. So I wanted you to know that that is happening. You definitely want to follow Nicole on Instagram. All of that, of course, is tagged in the show notes. But just know when we're talking today, you know, the tips that she's sharing, just know that she's going to be sharing deeper wisdom in person on May 9th as one of our keynote speakers. So all very exciting. Stay tuned for more. This week's mini-sode is going to be Nicole Continued, and she's speaking about acupuncture for pain relief. Okay, if you want more details about this event or more details about Nicole, open up those show notes and jump on in. All right, here's my conversation with Nicole. Welcome! You're on air with Ella, where we share simple strategies and tips for living a little better every day. If you're interested in mindset and wellness, or healthy habits and relationships, or hormone health, aging well, and eating well… Honestly, if you're into just living better and with more energy, then you're in the right place. We're not here for perfect. We're here for a little better every day. Let's go! Hey, you're on air with Ella, and I am joined today by Dr. Nicole Rowe. Hey, Nicole, how are you?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 02:11

I'm good, Ella. How are you doing today?

ELLA: 02:13

I'm excited because we just found out that we're basically neighbors. I love it. Nicole, will you please tell us who you are and what you do?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 02:19

I am a family practice doctor, board certified, and I am doing health coaching for women who are in their 30s, 40s and up. I specialize in helping them with any aspect of their health, but especially building strength and losing any unwanted fat.

ELLA: 02:34

Okay, I like that. I like unwanted fat. I think that's a great way to phrase it. You know, we went through this phase where we weren't allowed to talk about fat loss. Were you doing this then?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 02:44

I was always doing this, yes. I've always been a big believer in telling people the truth and doing it in a kind way, but making sure that they have good information for their health.

ELLA: 02:54

Yeah, I hear you. And listen, Nicole, I was very much a part of the problem. Like I used to talk about thinness, like it was absolutely the ideal and we should all be striving for it. Like, shame on me. I definitely was a part of that machine. But then I so overcorrected that I was scared to talk about fat loss at all. And now I have this hugely controversial take. And that is, we should be able to do whatever we want with our bodies. If that includes losing unwanted fat, then I'm here for it.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 03:22

100% agree. And if it's important to you, great. If it's not important to you, great. It should be your choice. And nobody should be able to tell you how you should treat your body or what you should do for it or what should matter to you.

ELLA: 03:32

Yeah, amen. And I think that if one of the things that we can do is help women who are super busy, who have competing priorities, if we can help them prioritize themselves, and that includes your physical body, your mental health, your soul, your spirit, all of these things, but that doesn't not include your physical body. So I wanted to talk to you today, because I know that you help women, women in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s and beyond, and you help them adjust, I imagine, quite a number of times to what is going on with them, not just lifestyle wise, but like hormones are shifting, like nothing seems to stay the same. The only constant in these seems to be change. What do you hear the most amongst the women that you work with? What is the biggest challenge? What makes this difficult?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 04:21

much everything makes it difficult. I mean, perimenopause and menopause are an extremely stressful time of life, not just from the body changes, although we'll definitely get into all that. But there's also a lot of other things in life that are going on. A lot of women are still balancing really demanding careers, they're probably at the peak of their career, they've got home lives that they want to invest in, they've got, you know, kids that they need to get to soccer practice, they've got a partner many times that wants attention to that they want to prioritize, they've got other competing demands. And so all that alone is enough to make a life feel kind of frantic. But then you add in all the changes in estrogen, progesterone, all the changes in your metabolism, the decreased amount of free time that you have to even take care of yourself. And it just leaves many women in a place where they just feel like up is down and down is up. And they don't even know which way to start to get their health back on track.

ELLA: 05:14

When you are talking to these women, how do you counsel them? What is the best way to balance the responsibilities of work and family and home with the, what I consider, dire need to take care of yourself and stay healthy? Where do you even start?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 05:31

Great question. The first place we always start is with taking a deep breath because it always starts with just centering yourself in your body and just bringing some peace to your nervous system for a second. So taking a deep breath, remembering that even though it feels life-threatening, sometimes most of us, most of the time are not actually in a life-threatening situation. So just having yourself slow down can sometimes be helpful in just navigating some of that feelings of chaos. And then what I like to do with them is kind of take an inventory of their life and just, you know, from the time when they wake up to the time they go to bed, what are the big rocks? What are the things that are non-negotiable? You know, do you have to be in an office and what time do you have to be at the office? You know, that's a non-negotiable. Do you have kids that it's your responsibility to feed? Like, okay, dinner time's from this time. And you put in all those responsibilities and then you work backwards from there and you figure out little snippets of time that you have that you could take care of yourself. For example, I have a client right now that is in charge of an entire company, and she's scheduled in meetings from basically morning till evening, and she doesn't get home till 7pm sometimes. So for her, when she has a five minute break between meetings, she's going for a five minute walk ideally outside the office, but if not, she's walking around the office. She's doing one minute of breathing, deep breathing, and we work on some techniques that she can do throughout the day and just fit it in when she has time. She's taking time just to think about planning her exercise so that she has it scheduled out for the week so she knows that that is an immovable appointment with herself that she can keep. So it's just figuring out shorter blocks of time that you can use for what matters to you. And then, of course, being efficient and really effective with the time that you do have so that you're not wasting your time, but you're feeling like you're really getting a return on your investment for whatever that you are able to put in.

ELLA: 07:20

Yeah, research shows that exercise snacks throughout the day, little bouts of exercise, five minutes here, 10 minutes there, that has the same efficacy as doing 30 minutes in a row, as long as as long as the intensity can be somewhere in the same neighborhood. And that surprised me. It just intuitively, I don't think I would have assumed that that was true. And in fact, I was dead wrong.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 07:45

It's a good way to be wrong, right? It's a lot more manageable for most people to be able to do two or three minutes here and there rather than feeling like having to carve out, you know, a 45-minute section of time uninterrupted. And just having the breathing room and knowing that that actually gives you just as good of results is really helpful for a lot of women who would otherwise struggle to have a good workout.

ELLA: 08:08

Well, I want to do a thought exercise with you. I want us to picture like a 40, early 40s woman, she's super busy. She has any number of the competing priorities that you laid out. The thought exercise is, let's describe what a bad day looks like for her and how to optimize it. And then what a good day could look like for her and how to optimize that. And here's what I mean. I'm going to assume that on your worst day, like you're crazy busy, you've got meetings out the wazoo, like your time is not your own, you might have a family obligation on the same day, I'm going to string together based on what you've already said that your worst day, the way to optimize that, when I say worst day, logistically a disaster, right? The best way to operate in that worst day is to catch a breath every once in a while, to do a few air squats every once in a while, to have a quiet 60 seconds when you can. Nicole, you tell me your version of how to make your worst logistical day better.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 09:04

Oh, good question. So logistical day, that's really challenging for me is having to balance working from home with a sick kid. So if you're, yeah, that happens very frequently to me. So on those days, you know, if you're, let's say you're stuck at home, and you've got to get work done, but you also have a kid that's really needy and you would like to do some exercise or at least something for your own mental and physical health. So then that's a day that you are okay with letting them watch 30 extra minutes of screen time while you go pull out your yoga mat and you do a quick Pilates workout while they're watching TV on the couch during your lunch hour. That's a day that if they're up for it, you bundle them up in a warm blanket and you put them in the stroller if they don't feel like walking and you go out for a brisk walk while you're on one of your work meetings over Zoom with your headset and you push your kid around. So you're multitasking, but you're multitasking with things that are actually healthy for you instead of multitasking with responsibilities and non-healthy or non-life-giving tasks. I'm a big fan of multitasking when it's something that you actually enjoy. That being said, that is not optimal, right? So our our brains are wired to do best when we're not multitasking. But when you have a bad day, you do what you can. So that's a way you can fit in some movement.

ELLA: 10:28

Okay, and will you apply the same logic to how we eat that day?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 10:31

Absolutely. So for me, one of the big rocks is always just trying to prioritize protein and fiber. So even on my worst day, I find ways that I can try to eat some protein and some fiber, it may not be as much as I normally eat, it may not be in the form of freshly prepared foods. But I have my emergency chicken bites that are in the fridge, and they're vacuum sealed. So they last a long time. And they've got 24 grams of protein, I know that I can always grab a pack of those if I'm having a busy day, and I don't have time to make lunch. And yes, sometimes I'm eating I'm standing up, even though that's not the ideal, but it's it's getting me my protein in a quick hit.

ELLA: 11:11

Can I interrupt you and ask you, will you tell us some other quick protein boosts that you rely on? Because everybody always wants to know this.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 11:20

Absolutely. So cottage cheese is I've eaten cottage cheese for a long time. It's got a ton of protein, it's very filling, it's can be made sweet or savory. So if you put some berries or some jelly on top, it tastes kind of like a sweet treat. If you put some hemp seeds, chia seeds or nuts on top, you've got a savory snack. I use a lot of cottage cheese. I love eggs. I eat a lot of eggs and they're pretty quick to cook. We have a I work from home so I can pretty much always fry up some eggs and then add some egg whites for extra protein. I love beef jerky sticks if I'm on the go because they're just easy and they don't need to be refrigerated. Hard boiled eggs are an easy one. And of course those little chicken bites. I eat a lot of those chicken bites when I'm just packing snacks for the kids. They're lean sources of protein and they're pretty easy and tasty.

ELLA: 12:09

You're not talking about chicken nuggets.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 12:11

No, no, no. These are grilled chicken pre cooked bites that you can buy.

ELLA: 12:15

Okay, okay, I hear you. And by the way, if cottage cheese makes you make a face like it does me, it blends really well. So I get my cottage cheese when I blend it in as an ingredient as an ingredient. And you can honestly just Google recipes with blended cottage cheese and you are way amplifying your protein intake. I do the same thing with just plain tofu, and you're way amplifying your protein intake. And you don't have to worry about the taste or the consistency if that's just an ick for you. That's just a that's just a rabbit hole. I want to go down it for just a second. Okay, so that's our worst day, like our worst logistical day. Maybe it's back to back meetings, maybe it's travel, maybe it's a sick kid at home, and you are trying to stack activities together so that you can get in a little bit of movement. You are I'm presuming you're going to throw down your yoga mat and get some stretches or some Pilates or some kind of workout while the kid has 30 minutes of screen time that will not, in fact, kill them. And you are focusing on what you're eating, even if it's grab and go. Totally get that. Is there anything else you would add to optimize that worst day?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 13:13

I think I would definitely add in some deep breaths if you can. I mean, it doesn't take any extra time to breathe deeply and slowly than it does at our normal pace. And a lot of times we don't even realize that we might be unconsciously holding tension in our jaw or breathing more shallowly. And just by focusing on deep breathing for a few minutes, you can calm your nervous system down and regulate yourself. And it doesn't take any additional time besides the time it took you to think of doing it.

ELLA: 13:38

Yeah, that's underrated. And one of the reasons I like it personally, like as a user, as a breather, one of the reasons I like it is because it reconnects my head to my body. So not only does it get you out of fight or flight, if you can focus on your breath for just a minute. But so often, I mean, honestly, Nicole, I spent years running around with my head not connected to my body. It's like they were in constant battle. but it reconnects you to like your whole person to just chill out for 60 seconds. You can do that on any day. You can do that on any airplane. Okay, Nicole, let's talk about our optimal day. We ended up with a little bit of free time. We've actually calendared time with ourself. We have made an appointment with ourself. How should we be moving ideally? And how should we be eating?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 14:20

Ooh, I love that question. So first, I'll preface it by saying that I rarely have an optimal day. So it's okay if you too, listener, do not have an optimal day very often, but it's the goal, right? It's your ideal world. It's like picture this, you've won the lottery. Right. You're at the beach. You have no responsibility. Zero responsibility.

ELLA: 14:39

I'm talking about having one hour. Like you get an hour, it might be a Saturday. What are we doing with that? How are we treating ourselves on this best day?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 14:49

So I always like to prioritize movement. So I would say that if you're a woman over 35, and you have an hour three times a week, the bulk of that should be spent strength training. And the reason for that is because muscle is so important. And it's something that we would lose every year unless we work at it starting in starting in our mid 30s. You really don't need to do that much time an hour three times a week is more than enough, but it really needs to be the bedrock of your fitness routine starting in your late 30s.

ELLA: 15:19

You know, Nicole, we have talked about that quite a bit on the show and I recently outed myself as someone who does in fact resistance train. I certainly do. I do an enormous amount of bodyweight resistance and I lift weights, but I am, I outed myself as someone who doesn't go to the gym and put a 200 pound barbell on my back and do squats. I don't like, and you probably will never see me do that on Instagram. Like I'm at home. I'm working out with free weights, and they are heavy. Like I bought a bar to connect my free weights. And now that bar is really heavy. In fact, it's a little too heavy, but baby steps. But my point to you is, Nicole, can we like really keep this real? Like so many of us, we want muscle. And I'm a big believer in this. And I have muscle on my frame that I did not have a year ago. And I'm absolutely delighted by that. And we've talked about some hacks to help you build muscle faster, obviously protein, but even creatine and amino acid supplements, like we've talked about that. But I wanna meet the woman today where she is, who is like, I want muscle, but can you please make it accessible? Like, can you please talk to me in a way where I can actually really make this real for me if I'm not gonna go to the gym and lift weights with the bros? And one thing that I like about what you've talked about recently is you said, if you weren't like ready to power lift, start with resistance bands. And I was like, let's give it up for some resistance bands. Like, tell me about that. Are they real? Can you build muscle with them? What's the deal with those resistance bands?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 16:47

Yeah, resistance bands are great. And they are a wonderful way for women who want to work out at home and don't have the space or the desire to have a huge power rack with a bunch of barbells and dumbbells all over their house. Resistance bands take up basically no space. You can travel with them. And the beauty of resistance bands is that you can make them as hard or as easy as you need to so they can grow with you. And so ideally, you're starting, you know, in a certain place, but then over time, with progressive overload, the goal is that you keep getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And so with resistance bands, you know, the kind I have, you can snap them together if you need to. So you can do two resistance bands at once. you can increase the amount of tension and therefore the amount of resistance if you stretch them more. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, so they're really infinitely adjustable to whatever you need. And they also tend to be less damaging on your muscles in terms of inflicting soreness than dumbbells and barbells do. So a lot of people like them for that reason, because they can get a really great workout that feels challenging, but they're not as sore the next day with resistance bands. Another reason I like them is because they give you variable resistance. So when you think about when you're lifting a dumbbell, you're lifting the same amount of weight, and it might feel a little bit different when you're at the top versus the bottom. But with a resistance band, the farther away you pull it, the harder the resistance. So you can set that up in a way where the hardest part of the movement is where you're getting the least amount of resistance and the easiest part of the movement, you're experiencing more resistance. So it's actually training your muscles in a really functional way.

ELLA: 18:29

And when we say training your muscles in a functional way, we mean like what real life looks like. Like this is what it means when you're picking up your groceries or putting your suitcase over your head in an airplane. So if you want to be able to do that easily when you're 82, then resistance bands, from what I'm deducing from what you're saying, is like a really functional way to train. And I always thought they were kind of wimpy. And then I got one, or like a set, right? And obviously, the different thickness and the different colors, they are different resistance.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 18:56

What's a better way to say that there is like different strengths, different resistance is variable.

ELLA: 19:01

And it's real easy to say that that looked too easy until you use one.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 19:05

Oh, yeah, you can get a good workout for sure.

ELLA: 19:07

And One use that I love is to help me do things that I can't do without them. So I am trying to work on my pull-up game. You can get a $10 pull-up bar from Amazon, right? Or you can use something more structural than that. But my point is this, I use the resistance band and I tie it, I knot it to my bar and I put my foot in it. You can also do your knees if you're building up, but you can put one foot in it. and do pull-ups. So like I can only do maybe three unassisted pull-ups and I can do maybe 15 consecutive assisted pull-ups with these resistance bands. So they have them at a lot of gyms too if you want to test my theory. I think it's a great way to build strength through movement that would be otherwise inaccessible to you.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 19:54

100% agree. And that's actually how I got my pull-ups originally. So for a long time, my goal was to do a pull-up and I would, you know, jump up, try and do a pull-up, couldn't do it. But once I invested in a resistance band loop, I started just doing a couple assisted pull-ups with a resistance band here and there throughout the day, a couple every hour sometimes. And eventually I was able to use a thinner band. And then eventually I was able to go to no band. So it's a really great way to again, with that progressive overload to challenge your body just enough so that it's you're challenging yourself and eventually building up that muscle so that you can do it on assisted eventually.

ELLA: 20:30

Yeah. And then just the last thing I'll say is I'm sure it's super easy to just Google on YouTube or something resistant band workouts. So that you can follow along with somebody, I'm sure that's widely available. But even just doing leg lifts and exercises like that, that is next level glute workout.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 20:50

They're great. I love the glute resistance band kickbacks. And you can do squats with resistance bands. You can do all sorts of things.

ELLA: 20:57

And they're so cheap. This is a really cheap, low-hanging fruit option for you. OK, thank you for going down the resistant band rabbit hole with me. It's just I really want to make resistant training and building muscle more accessible to the people who do not intend to find themselves in a gym lifting heavy next week. You know what I mean?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 21:17

100% agree.

ELLA: 21:19

Okay, you said something else that I was really confounded and sort of intrigued by. I really wanted to know what you meant by it. You said something about the quality of muscle, that it's not just about quantity, it's about the quality of muscle. I did not know I needed to be worried about the quality of my muscle. What are you, tell me more. What do we need to know? Hey, wherever you're listening to this show, would you mind making sure that you're subscribed? That just means if you're in Apple Podcasts, you're not looking at a plus sign, you're looking at a check mark when you look at the show. In Spotify, you click on follow. Wherever you're listening, just make sure you're subscribed, you're following, so that you get new episodes the moment they drop. Thanks.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 22:00

Yeah, so there. So of course, the quantity of muscle is important, but the quality of your muscle is also very important. And so when we look under the microscope at muscle tissue, there are type one muscle fibers and type two muscle fibers. And type one is related to endurance. So that's like the white meat, the chicken breast, if you're thinking about it, whereas the type two is the dark meat. So the type one fibers are things that help us with endurance. So running, jumping, cycling, things like that, whereas type two are more involved in explosive power generating contractive forces. So the type two muscle fibers are the type that we lose as we age if we do not strength train and if we do not prioritize doing those types of movements. So in order to age well, we really want to maintain those type two muscle fibers by doing heavy strength training. And it's something that you can only get with certain types of movements, you can't get it just by walking or just by running. So that's what I mean, partially in terms of muscle quality.

ELLA: 23:00

Is that also why it's important to practice like fast twitch movements and also like explosive movements?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 23:07

Yes, plyometrics is very, very important to maintain those fast twitch fibers. And unfortunately, a lot of people are doing plyometrics wrong. So you think about when you are generating this amount of force, you can only do it a few times, you really can't do it for 45 minutes at a time. So if you're trying to do plyometrics as your main form of workout, and you're doing that for 15-20 minutes, you're not training those fast twitch muscle fibers anymore. So I like to have people when you're doing explosive movements to do them fast with as much possible force as you can, and only maybe do five to 10 repetitions, because, you know, you can only hold that amount of energy for a shorter amount of time.

ELLA: 23:47

Okay, so let's be clear about what we're talking about. And I'm going to tell you what I do, and you tell me what's right with it and what's wrong with it. But if I am doing free weights, I'll do some kind of warm up. I might do the peloton for 15 minutes. I no longer look at it as an endurance training thing. I just do it to get warmed up and to get that muscle memory going. Because in the warm months, I'm going to be biking. In the winter months, I'm just trying to remind my legs that we bike. and to get warmed up, right? Let's say I'm warmed up, and then I'm doing some free weights in between doing free weight exercises, I might drop and do 10 burpees, or I might do mountain climbers absolutely as quickly as possible. Or I might do something that like approximates like a jumping squat situation. I usually use my, um, What are those? TRX bands, I think is what they're called. In any case, I try to rotate lifting heavy items with these quick bursts of explosive energy that frankly, I can't do very long at all. Is that what you're talking about? Do I have good white meat and dark meat?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 24:49

You may have good white meat and dark meat, but that's a little different than what I'm talking about. So what you're describing is very common for like a bootcamp style class where you're alternating between explosive plyometrics type movements and the strength training. But the type of strength training that a lot of women can really benefit from to really send the signal to build large amounts of strength and send that hormonal signal to the bodies that we need to put on muscle is a little bit different than that. So I generally if you're going to do explosive type movements would have it right after the warm up after you've kind of warmed up gotten your mobility done and maybe just you know, three sets of five of like medicine ball throws or something as hard as you can against the wall as fast as you can do five rest for a minute and then do five more rest for a minute do five more and maybe you've done 15 throws total and like that's it for your explosive stuff that day. And then I would go a lot of times if it's a strength training day, I would go into strict sets for strength training for most women or else supersets with antagonistic muscle groups, meaning that you would do one set of an upper body thing. And then you could alternate it with one set of a lower body that's using completely different muscles so that your upper body is getting a rest. And then you would go back and do that so that you're giving your central nervous system enough time to recover in between the sets, because what you don't want to do if you're trying to build strength is to avoid resting, you really need to have that rest and recovery time after each set. Because if you're going really, really heavy and hard, you need time to replenish your reserves of energy so that you can go hard again for the second set and really challenge yourself.

ELLA: 26:28

Okay, I have a very specific question. You talked about medicine ball throws. Can you give me just a couple more examples of the type of movement you would add in between those things as you're describing?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 26:37

Oh, as the explosive stuff? Yes. Jump squats are great. I love jump squats. That's a great one where you squat down low and you jump as high as you can. And then you land back lightly on your knees and then go back into it. So you could do that one box jumps are another good one. So I think there's some evidence that jumping off the box is just as good as jumping onto the box, if that makes sense. So really emphasizing the jump down is another explosive plyometric type thing you could do. But really, you can do almost any compound exercise explosively, it's just the pace that you do it. So even you know, let's say an overhead press, I can I can explode up, and then slowly lower the weight down. And then I can explode up again, and slowly lower the weight down. And that's explosive training. It's just, it's the same movement that you might do differently when you're not training it explosively, but you're just putting that speed with the power, if that makes sense.

ELLA: 27:29

It makes perfect sense. And I want to clarify one thing and then share why I think that's really useful. You said, do a jump squat and land easily on your knees. And I just want to be very clear that there was a comma between the statements, you're not landing on your knees, you're doing a jump squat and comma. Landing gently on your knees, but you're landing- Bending your knees. Do not land on your knees, please. That is more like Magic Mike stuff. That's a different show. Okay, different show. But I'm here for it. Okay. I just know somebody was picturing that and they're like, wait, that can't be good.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 28:03

What is going on here?

ELLA: 28:06

And then another thing that you said that I just want to underscore, and Dr. Vonda Wright talks a lot about this, that pounding, one of the reasons it's so good to do like a reverse jump and like just jump off the bench onto your feet is because it's pounding and that pounding is really good for building muscle density. So I just wanted to say cheers to that. The reason I asked you to share more of those examples with us is because if I had to work in an office all day, You better believe I'm going to have a small pair of weights under my desk, and I'm going to be on the phone and in between calls, I'm going to do just 10 quick movements like you just described, where you go fast and then bring it down slowly or something like that, like these little tiny movements throughout the day, just to tie a big ribbon around this whole conversation. So, doing these things sporadically throughout your day, these exercise snacks can be far more effective than personally, as I said before, than I ever realized.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 28:58

And just to also add back to the resistance bands, resistance bands are a great way to do explosive movements too because, you know, for example, you're doing a row, instead of just pulling the resistance band back slowly, you pull that resistance band back with a lot of force and then you slowly let it stretch back to the beginning point, and then you pull it back again. So you can work these explosive things in with resistance bands at your desk in the middle of the workday. And it's a great time to do it. Because like I said, you only need to do a few of them at a time, you don't need to do a million of them. So you're still getting the benefits. And it doesn't take a lot of time.

ELLA: 29:34

Last question in this vein, Nicole, if I'm a woman that comes to you and I say, all right, I want to lose weight, what must she prioritize? And again, give me like the top five things, but we'll go ahead and count one of them as resistance training.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 29:49

Perfect. So if you are in the 40 plus range and you would like to lose weight, the biggest thing that I think a lot of women are missing is adequate protein. So many of my clients, all of my clients, when they start, I have them track for at least a week or so just to see what their nutrition is like. And without fail, they are low in protein, even if they think they're trying to get more protein, it's still lower than what they actually need in order to meet their health goals. It's really hard. I've seen these memes about it being a full time job eating protein. And I don't necessarily disagree with that. It is hard even even for me. I think it was. It really does feel like that sometimes, though. And you're just like, is this really necessary? Is it really necessary to eat all this protein? I'd say the hardest part for my clients is eating enough of what I tell them to eat. And then they say, this is really hard. I can't eat all this protein. And I said, just try. Just stick with it. Do it gradually. Work up to it. And then without fail, by the end of the 12-week program, they've all lost weight. And they're like, I can't believe it. I was so full. And I was like, I told you.

ELLA: 30:56

Every time, I promise I'm going to let you finish, but every time I eat adequate amounts of protein, I'm like, oh, this is what satiety feels like. Like I've never been full in my life, but every time I incorporate a proper amount of protein into a meal, it's like I've been let in on a secret.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 31:14

It's like a secret club and when you do it, you realize this is how you don't have cravings for sugar because you're so full, you just don't even want to look at any more food at that point.

ELLA: 31:26

Okay, so protein, so we're weightlifting, we're doing some sort of resistance training, I should say. We are truly focused on prioritizing protein. What else?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 31:36

So fiber. Fiber is protein's best friend. Really for any woman who is trying to be healthy, eating fiber primarily from whole natural foods is going to be such a benefit to health and also to weight loss if that's your goal. I usually recommend that women get between 25 and 35 grams a day. And again, you don't have to start at the top end of that. Start small and work your way up and make sure to drink plenty of water with it because fiber absorbs water. So you want to make sure that it's paired with hydration. But it is so good for keeping you full for energizing your body and for all the metabolic processes that are going on inside your body to keep your body fueled well and to keep your body looking and feeling its best.

ELLA: 32:23

Adding fiber very obviously is so incredibly good for your gut health, but it also just makes you feel full when you're doing the fiber and water thing. Okay, we're prioritizing protein, we're prioritizing fiber. Any other secret tips that you can share?

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 32:36

sleeping. So sleeping is a secret weapon if you're trying to lose weight. The first reason is that if you are getting enough sleep, your body is naturally going to change its hormone profile to de emphasize abdominal fat storage. So people that get adequate amounts of sleep tend to accumulate less belly fat over time. There are studies to support this. So if you are noticing a lot of the dreaded menobelly fat gain that a lot of women do, there's a good chance that you may need to figure out your sleep. So most people are not getting enough and the sleep that they are getting is often interrupted, whether it's from external factors, or from hormone changes. So probably the most fundamental thing anyone can do to improve their health is to make sure that they're getting good sleep.

ELLA: 33:23

Yes, I will tag the show for easy access that we just did recently with the head of human performance at Whoop. And she's talking about sleep, Kristen Holmes. And she's talking a great deal about sleep and what we don't know about the detriments of not getting good quality sleep. And yeah, it affects your longevity. Much less your belly size, it is affecting your longevity. That is probably the thing we take most for granted, is thinking we can just run on fumes. until we run into that proverbial wall. Okay, so protein, fiber, resistant training at whatever level feels accessible to you, start where you are, use what you have, do what you can, and solid sleep. Do you want me to do the last one or no? Oh, I forgot about it. Let's go back and do the last one. We don't have to. We don't have to. I'm not even editing this out. Yes, please. What's the fit? Are we at five? Who knows? I don't know.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 34:21

The last one, if I could give a recommendation to women is to prioritize walking. I know it sounds kind of lame to people that may be used to more intense forms of exercise, but walking is really one of the best ways to keep your body and metabolism healthy. It can help with blood sugar control. It is a gentle form of exercise, which is so nice to have when you're in midlife and your body is already prone to more inflammation and stress. So it does not affect your metabolism or your body the way that more intense exercise does. So pretty much everyone barring, you know, severe injuries or limitations can walk. So it's very accessible. You can do it every day. You don't need to take breaks from it. And you can do it in small amounts. You can do five minutes here and there. It all adds up. So I encourage everyone to try to aim for at least 8000 steps a day if you can. And if you can do more great, but the kind of ideal level for health usually peaks around 8000 steps per day. So that's a great goal for many people if they're trying to find a number to shoot for.

ELLA: 35:30

Okay, well, I'm glad that I gave you enough space to share the last one, because this is hugely important. And one of the things that we bump up against is just not having the time because actually, at the end of the day, walking takes time. So I love that you said that you can break it up into bits. And I just want to say as a woman who owns two businesses, can we please normalize phone calls while walking? Like if, if enough of us do it, you guys, if enough of us do it, it will become the norm. And I'm just begging you, can we please start normalizing that because we might not always have a spare hour to do that. But we definitely can take a call on the move.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 36:08

Absolutely. And we actually think more creatively and are better problem solvers when we're moving. So if your boss needs a reason why you have to take a call while walking, Uh, you can tell her that, that it's, it's good for our brains. It's good for our processing when we're moving and there are studies to show that. And then if you do have the luxury of working from home, I always recommend getting a walking pad or a really inexpensive treadmill, um, because that's an easy way to get some steps in while you're working. Just, you can walk really slowly and your body does learn to kind of do that while you're working. So it can make a big difference in your steps over the course of the day.

ELLA: 36:45

Yeah, you'd be surprised. You don't even know that you're walking. And I'm so pleased to have yet another opportunity to share how my walking pad has absolutely changed my life. And if I get only two miles a day now, that is like a bad day, so to speak. So two is like two miles is the minimum, but I'll have like six, seven, eight mile days if I've got an enormous amount of intense work. And it adds up to somewhere between 20 miles a week that would just absolutely not be happening otherwise. So if that is accessible to you, I just can't say enough. And by the way, you can buy those used because people buy them and then they don't use them and then they hang the duvet on it and then they sell it.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 37:23

Yeah, and another hack is that if you have a really small office that won't accommodate that I've had some of my clients get these under the desk stair steppers that you can kind of step on and they're like 50 bucks on Amazon. It's maybe not as good as a walking pad because it's not the same motion completely, but they're at least stepping up and down and getting some motion. So some of them will do that.

ELLA: 37:43

Our ancestors would, by the way, completely gag. The things we have to do to go out of our way to use our bodies the way that they were intended to be used, because we live in a box, we work in a box, we spend time staring at a box. But you know what? This is the way we live. I can't live on vibes in a camp. Exactly. Nicole, tell us. I'll make it super easy for you to be found, but just tell us your main home on the internet or where you want to interact with people.

Dr. Nicole Rowe: 38:08

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at Dr. Nicole Rao. And I'm also on threads. And I also have a website and it's Nicole Rao.org if you want to sign up for my newsletter. Nicole, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, Ella. It was great chatting with you.

ELLA: 38:25

Okay, if you enjoyed today's show, please share it with someone you care about. And be sure to check out our new YouTube channel and head to onairella.com for today's show notes. You can also learn about how to work with me there, onairella.com. And I would love to hear from you, so if you DM me on Instagram, I promise I will reply. P.S. All the links you need for us to connect are right here in your podcast app in the description for today's episode. Check them out. Thanks for listening, and thanks for inspiring me. You are, quite simply, awesome.