FFP 370 | 多吃少动来减肥？| 以女性为中心的减肥方法| 凯蒂·布隆菲尔德
**FFP 370 | 多吃少动来减肥？| 以女性为中心的减肥方法| 凯蒂·布隆菲尔德**
https://fertilityfriday.com/kitty-blomfield/
凯蒂成年后大部分时间都在节食。她从一种流行饮食跳到另一种，奶昔，无食，生酮和低碳水化饮食。据说她做到了。她沉迷于食物，觉得自己要么限制饮食，要么暴饮暴食。她在瘦的时候感觉最快乐，但她不得不挨饿，每周训练 6-7 天来维持。她的月经不规律，痛经，流产，晚上睡很少；她臃肿、便秘、筋疲力尽。这一切在 2015 年发生了变化，当时她遇到了她的搭档 Craig，偶然发现了雷佩特 Ray Peat 和 艾玛·斯古拉基斯 Emma Sgourakis 的作品。她学到的东西改变了她的身体和健康。现在，凯蒂的使命是让女性摆脱限制性饮食，帮助她们恢复代谢、平衡激素，塑造她们喜爱的身体。
今天凯蒂和我一起讨论优化女性身体、月经周期和激素周期的运动！少运动、多吃、减肥可以吗？收听就知道了！
本期节目讨论的话题：
- 凯蒂的饮食历史、她的陪伴以及她如何支持女性
- 凯蒂如何被引向健康的生活方式
- 为什么女性最终会进入“理想体重”的循环？
- 为什么需要多吃来帮助身体生存
- 关于减肥的迷思
- 健康安全的减肥需要时间
- 一致性对健康生活的重要性
- 间歇无食如何影响训练目标
- 如何确定蛋白质、碳水和脂肪之间的平衡
**与**凯蒂**联系：**
您可以在Facebook和Instagram 上与 Kitty 联系。
**提到的资源：**
**相关播客和博客文章：**
Participant #1:
This episode is brought to you by my Fertility Awareness Mastery online self study program. Learn fertility awareness from the comfort of your own home at your own pace for a fraction of the cost. Head over to Fertility Friday.com Mastery for details. That's Fertilityfriday.com Mastery. This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 370.
Participant #1:
Welcome to the Fertility Friday Podcast, your source for information about the fertility awareness method and all things fertility. I'm your host, Lisa Hendrix and Jack. I'm the author of The Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Journal. I'm a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth Vital sign through menstrual cycle charting, balancing hormonal health, and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones. I'm outspoken about hormonal birth control and its impact on fertility and overall health. Because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt the natural process, I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health because it's important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies. I'm also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys. I know I'm a busy girl, but I managed to fit it all in. This podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your cycles, your fertility, and your overall health. And I'm so excited that you're here with us today.
Participant #1:
In today's episode, I'm talking about a topic that I have not covered a ton on the podcast exercise and weight loss. There are a number of reasons for that. There's so many different topics to cover, but ultimately, as you've gathered, especially for my longtime listeners, the purpose of the podcast isn't directly related to weight loss and not fitness and those types of things. It's more so related to achieving menstrual cycle health overall and achieving hormonal balance, and, of course, fertility awareness cycle charting. But I've certainly seen a trend and I've talked about it and alluded to it many times on the podcast with the effect that exercise, as well as intermittent fasting and a lot of the current fitness trends and strategies can have on the cycle. And so in today's interview, I'm interviewing Kitty Bloomfield, and I'll go ahead and read a little bit from her bio here. So Kitty spent most of her adult life dieting. She jumped from one quick fix diet to the next shakes, fasting, keto and low carb. You name it, she's done it. She was obsessed with food and felt like she was either restricting or binge eating. She felt happiest when she was thin, but she had to starve herself and train six to seven days a week to maintain it. And during that time, she had irregular and painful periods. She suffered miscarriages, and she rarely slept through the night. She was bloated and constipated and exhausted. And for Kitty, it all changed in 2015 when she met her partner Craig and stumbled across the work of Ray Pete and Emma Scorakis. Hopefully I said that right. What she learned transformed her body and her health. Kitty is the cofounder of New Strength and the founder of the Win at Life podcast, and it is her mission to free women from restrictive diets, help them restore their metabolism, balance their hormones, and build bodies that they love. And in today's interview, we really dive deeply into some of the most common myths as it pertains to weight loss. And I feel like these myths have really permeated the culture many women kind of follow in these paths, which, ironically, don't necessarily lead to success. And so certainly this isn't the only way to do it, but hopefully this podcast will be really informative as to different ways that you can achieve your goals without having to lead a lifestyle that feels restrictive. So with that being said, let's go ahead and jump into today's interview with Kitty.
Participant #1:
And I'm really excited to be here today with Kitty Bloomfield all the way from are you in Australia? Australia, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's right for me and morning for you. Sure. I'm so honored, Lisa, that you're interviewing me on your podcast because I just love your book and I recommend it to all the women in our program and anyone who follows me on Instagram because I think it's just the best resource around cycle education, the effect of hormonal contraception on your body. And I obviously love that you recommend women eat liver and seafood and good quality dairy. Really, your nutrition approach, I think, is incredible. It really aligns with ours. So thank you for having me on. Of course. Well, thank you for all of your kind words. I'm really glad that we connected. And so I'd love to start just by telling us a little bit about you. So what do you do? Tell us about your company and how you have been supporting women. We actually started our company seven years ago, and it actually started with the gym. So my partner Craig is like he's a strength coach, he's a certified sports nutritionist. And when I met him, I had just been cycling through all of the crazy restrictive diets I'm sure like so many women do. So I've done keto, I'd done every protocol of fasting. Oh, God. I've done low carb, you name the diet. Basically, I'd done it. I tried a lot of silly stuff, too. I don't know if you guys have this over in the States, but it's this medication you take and you poo out any fat you eat. Oh, wow. I took Dura. Mine. I drank a lot of party, and it was all in an effort to be skinny, basically. And sometimes I would try to be healthy. Like, I would think that it was to be healthy, but really I just wanted to try and control my weight, because I think I felt that if I was skinnier and I weighed less, I'd be prettier. So it all came back to that self image and body image. And when I met Craig, I also met my now business partner in Saturday. So we have another company where we make pro metabolic, really clean supplements, and we're releasing a skincare line and a makeup line. And I started working with her. She's a nutritionist. And she introduced me to this whole world of repeat eating and pro metabolic eating and actually eating the liver and the oysters. And good, because for so long, I'd cut out dairy, I'd cut out sugar, I wouldn't eat fruit, I drank almond milk, and I just flogged myself in the gym like 2 hours a day. So I met Emma. She introduced me to this eating, and I was like, oh my God, everything I ever knew about nutrition was wrong. And then Craig introduced me to strength training, and I just fell in love with strength training. I competed in power lifting, and I finally started nourishing my body with all of this great food and training for performance instead of training for how I look. And prior to that too, I had all these symptoms. Obviously, you would just nod your head and go, make so much sense, because I was just dieting and starving myself. So I had a regular and painful period that a miscarriage had polyps removed. I had a DNC, and I never linked it back to the fact that I was just starving myself all the time. I didn't sleep very well. I was bloated and constipated. I just had no energy. My hair was all falling out. So all of that stuff improved, body image improved, just happier and healthier. And then I was actually working in mining, doing FIFO, and I just hated it. So Craig and I just were like, we're just going to buy into this gym, and we're going to open this gym. And we called it New Strengths nutrition and Strength Training. And we did that for three years. And then we decided to create an online program specifically targeting or helping women like me. So women who have cycled through all of the restrictive diets, who wanted to improve their relationship with food and their body, learn how to train, to get strong instead of punishing themselves with cardio. So we opened that, did that program for another three to four years, grew that, and then Emma and I decided we wanted to do the skincare because we just couldn't find really good, clean skincare with saturated fat. So that's what we're doing now. And that's, I guess, basically sorry, that's a bit long winded. That's how we help women. It's an online program. We've actually got women all over the world. Women from the States, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand. It's awesome. Well, there's so much that I want to pack about your story. I mean, I feel like there's quite a few women who are listening who might have even selected this episode specifically because of that part of it, because of the wanting to get that ideal weight. So to go deep for a second, because I remember you saying also in our previous conversation, but you also mentioned it now, that you created basically a program for yourself. Right? Like, it was like, this is what I needed. So thinking about the women that you are working with and the women that are coming to you, and just in general, why is it that so many of us end up in this cycle of really trying to get that ideal weight, like, kind of that deeper? Like, what is this about? Look, for me personally, it really stemmed back to and I'm a bit of an overshare, but I lost my virginity when I was 17, and I just wanted to find someone to love me. And from that night, I thought that for men to love me, they need to have sex with me, and they're only going to love me if I was skinny and I wanted to be prettier and skinnier. So for me, it really stemmed so much back to I needed to be a certain weight to feel good about myself. And that weight for me was under 62 kilos. So I weigh between 69 and 70 kilos now, and I'm 174 CM tall. So you can imagine how slim I was with eight kilos less on me. And in order to maintain that body weight, I really had to cut calories and do a lot of cardio and exercise. And it just made me miserable. And I think when you're doing that again, weight really isn't a good indicator of progress. We try and educate women in our program, and what Craig really taught me to focus on is, can you get your focus off the scales and start like you want this toned and athletic physique. So he's like, train like a strength athlete. Instead of flogging yourself and starving yourself, he's like, build this strong, energized, capable body. And he really taught me how to strength train. And then I started to eat more food and I realized I was like, okay, all right, well, I can't lift these weights if I only eat 1200 calories. And I really just fell in love with that training. And this is not the same for everyone. Like, we have women in our program who've lost 30 kilos eating 2400 calories, strength training three days a week. So if you've got a lot of fat to lose, you will lose weight. But if you're someone like me who's really restricted for a long period of time to maintain a lower body weight, lower body fat, I actually gained quite a bit of muscle and I gained a little bit of body fat, so I was really lean. But now I'm in a much healthier body fat range. I'd probably sit between 25% to 30% body fat. But I also got a lot of muscle as well. And I think once I took that focus off the scale and started going, okay, I've got to perform. I'm going to perform in the gym. I'm really going to do training that I actually enjoy. I didn't care about the weight anymore. The weight didn't mean anything to me. It was more about eating to feel good and sleep well and like you say, have a regular menstrual cycle and pain free menstrual cycle and then being able to lift, I've lifted some pretty heavy weights and I couldn't do that if I didn't eat food. Well, I was just going to say, like when you said that, when you said if I only eat 1200 calories, I won't be able to lift that weight, I thought that was a really interesting statement. I don't know if you want to explain that a little bit more. Is it because literally you need the food in order to build the muscle to be able to lift the weight? Exactly. Break it down. Yeah, but you've said it perfectly, Lisa. I think women too, and I was the same. I overcomplicated it. I was like, I need to eat 1200 calories. And yes, you will lose weight if you consistently eat low calories, but your body is going to prioritize survival over health always. So you'll lose weight, but your metabolism will down, regulate, your temper impulse will drop. You'll start to see issues with your menstrual cycle like you do with all the women in your program, digestive issues. Because your body is downregulating, the production of stomach acid and enzymes that are needed for digestion, you end up with all of these issues because basically you're just not feeding your body. So instead of destroying the body you have with cardio and quick fixed diets, it's like build the body you want. So your body needs a certain amount of energy just to survive. So, like, we always talk about the menstrual cycle. It's an energy intensive process. So your body isn't going to want to reproduce when it doesn't happen, when it thinks that there's salmon. If you really want to build muscle, you have to eat enough to just maintain your daily energy expenditure plus a little bit more to actually build that muscle. And muscle is so great because it's metabolically expensive. It needs more calories to maintain and it burns that at rest. So what we find with women when they come into our program is we find their maintenance calorie range. And most women grossly underestimate what that is because they will starve themselves in their binge. But the majority of women in our program are eating over 2000 calories a day. They're strength training three days a week. And as they strength training gets stronger and their muscles, you break the muscle down while you're training and then it repairs itself and it becomes bigger and stronger so that you can then lift more weight when they're eating at that calorie range, eventually it turns into a deficit. So what they find is that they're eating more food but still losing body fat, and they're able to maintain that lean physique while eating more food. Plus, it's a much more enjoyable process, obviously, than eating 120 calories and just starving yourself every day, if that makes sense. Oh, it totally does. So I feel like this is a good opportunity then, to talk about some of the myths about weight loss. So on this podcast, I really haven't talked a lot about weight loss. I can think of one episode right now where I interview Dr. Dennis Wilson and he talked about some really interesting research because it's basically, correct me if I'm wrong, because this is your wheelhouse, but it's like if you want to lose weight, like if you have weight to lose and legitimately you want to lose weight, it's like the opposite of everything we've been told is true. So the top myths that come to my mind are that eating less calories is the way to go. First of all, if you want to lose weight, like myth number one, starve yourself. Myth number two, it's a good idea to exercise more and then eat less. Like it's a math equation, right? So that's myth number two. And then I would say myth number three is like just cardio, just steady state, like just do the same thing all the time and not do it. I feel like I could just keep going a little bit. But what I think is interesting about that is that those are the ways to mess up your menstrual cycle and actually gain weight. So I just take it away. Kitty I really think context is important. So, like, this is why Craig and I in our program is so much into measuring and data, because it really gives you information about your body. And I don't believe that you should track your food forever. I don't track everything that I eat exactly. Now I have like a base diet because I train and I want to fuel my body. And I told you we're trying to have a baby. So it's really important for me to ensure that I'm eating enough calories to support my body. But let's say you're a 100 kilo woman who's been doing zero exercise and just sits in front of the TV all day and eats 4000 calories. Eating less and doing some more exercise in that case would probably be a good idea. But most women aren't like that. Most women, the reason that they gain so much, like, there's obviously women that have gained a lot of weight, and there are women who are restricted to be small, so you can't physically get to 100 kilos eating 1200 calories. But what happens with most women is they restrict, restrict, restrict. So they might eat 1200 calories, period. Of time. And then you can only do that for so long. Like the biological response of your body is, I am starving, feed me. I'm craving sugar, I'm craving carbs. And then they go on these epic binges because I used to do it every week I'd be strict for two weeks and eat my 1200 calories. And then I'd get so far and I'd be like, I can't do this anymore. And then I'd eat corn chips and ice cream and crap, or I drink wine and I'm sure women who are listening to this can relate. And then their metabolism slows down, so the body down regulates. Also they're eating crap food, vegetable oils, just really crappy takeaway food. And then they gain all this weight. And then they're like, oh God, I've got to restrict again. So most women who have gained a lot of weight are stuck in this restriction binge cycle and they find then, okay, they have to eat less to try and reduce their body weight. And then you've got women at the other end of the scale, like me, who really, truly ate low calories a lot of the time more than they binged to maintain a lower level of body weight. So in either case, the answer isn't to eat 100 calories. The answer is to eat enough to adequately fuel your body so that you can sleep well, have good energy, have a normal regular menstrual cycle, and then strength training to build pro metabolic muscle. Because cardio doesn't build muscle, cardio just burns energy. So let's say you're training six days a week and eating 1500 calories a day. Where can you go from there? You're going to do more cardio to lose more weight. And then what we find when women do that is they just need to because you do need a calorie deficit to lose weight. But it's not that simple. It's not as simple as going at 1400 calories. But once you build a stronger, I guess, metabolic base where your body is actually healthy, your hormones are in check and then you build muscle, what you'll find is that that calorie deficit is small. So these women who are losing body fat in our program, they're eating 2000 calories a day. They're only strength training three days a week. We encourage low intensity movement for recovery. So get out in the sun, walk your dog, get out into nature. You might want to go for a swim, but you don't need to be running 510 kilometers or doing boot camps and hit because that doesn't build muscle. So I guess calories in, calories out does work, but not long term for health or weight maintenance. At a healthy weight maintenance, it just keeps you on this yoga cycle of restrict binge, restrict binge. Hormones get out of balance. You cycle, you have all these cycle issues, you have all these stages. Does that make sense? It does. So to break it down a little bit more. It's interesting because it's like this I remember that show, The Biggest Loser. That's what it's called, that American show. And I mean, I don't even have TV. Like, I don't have cable. And I cut my Netflix this year. I don't have that either. By Netflix Guitar. That's another story for another podcast. But the point is that yeah, so I remember that show, but I didn't watch it religiously or anything. But anyone who saw that show or is nodding their head, it was about punishment. Exactly. Maybe that's why I couldn't watch it. Because you have these people that are quite overweight, and obviously they treat people for the shock factor because that's what they're going for with this show. But it really seemed like punishment, this whole idea that you need to punish yourself. And it's a cultural thing because it's like right. Like fat is bad. If you go to doctors, they'll shame you if they perceive you to be fat or overweight. And it's like you did this to yourself. It's really shame me. It's just not very nice overall. So it seems like, well, this is what they deserve. You know what? I'm not saying I believe, but I'm saying that is definitely so how much of that is internalized? I feel like if you're doing the cardio and obviously it would seem like that's what you should do. I grew up in the this is what they tell you. They tell you to do all this cardio so that you can lose weight, and they tell you to eat less food. And so what you're saying, basically, it sounds like is that it's not just about doing something. It sounds like we need to have a strategy for actually what's going to work best metabolically for our bodies. And so you can lose more weight, get stronger, eat more food, and have better results. Yeah, and it's got to be slow, too. I think that's the thing, like, the biggest lose, of course, is absolute extreme. Like taking it to the extreme, and they lost so much weight so quickly, which is really unhealthy. And then their metabolic, their metabolism is adapted. I think if you are a woman who has a lot of body fat to lose, you have to remember that it didn't take you months to get there. It took you years. So, like, the women in our program who've lost 30 kilos plus, it's taken them 18 months plus to lose that slowly and safely to get to a point where, like I mentioned and I talk about calories, because I think the other thing, too, is women either grossly underestimate or overestimate the food that they're eating, and they don't eat consistently. So something that we and I'm sure in your book, too, is balancing your blood sugar is really important. We recommend that women, it works well in our program, is getting them to eat regularly, well balanced meals of protein, carbs, and fat, keeping the stress hormones low. Because I think a lot of women and we've talked about this, they get up, they're busy, they skip breakfast, they smash their coffee, they fasted all night. Stress hormones are already high. Adrenaline and cortisol kick in to try and create fuel for your body. So you're just automatically starting the day on the back foot. So having that good quality breakfast in the morning when you wake up is really key and your body craves consistency. And I think too, we live in a very stressful world. I'm not a mum personally, but moms with kids working, trying to train, and then we're not eating enough fuel to adequately fuel our body. So what happens? Well, your body, like we said, is always going to prioritize survival over long term health. So the stress hormones kick in again. So your blood sugar is going up and down, up and down. And it seems so simple. But honestly, the women in our program, they've got the best results just follow a simple process. They plan ahead. They eat consistently, they eat their liver, they eat the good quality nutritious food. They strength training three days a week. They try and get stronger. And over a period of like twelve months, the body fat comes off, the body weight comes off. If they need to lose body weight, they get healthier, their menstrual cycles normalized. If they've got menopausal issues, they get better and they've lost this body fat and they haven't had to starve themselves. But it's got to be slow. I think too, that's another thing, is we also conditioned to want. We feel terrible in our bodies and being there where you just hate your body, you're in this place where you hate your body like, oh God, I just want to get this off me now to feel better. But I think once you take that approach of, okay, this is going to take me probably twelve months, depending on where your starting point is. I'm going to focus on nourishing my body and sleeping well and feeling good and eating consistently and getting stronger in the gym, suddenly you're like, okay, this is cool. It's taking a bit longer, but I feel really good, I'm getting stronger, I'm enjoying my training. Instead of like you say, punishing myself for something that I ate, which I think is really key. And that's why I'm so passionate about the strength training. I found it really helped me love my body and appreciate it for what it can do, rather than punishing myself with hours of cardio for like something that I ate yesterday, which I think so many women do. Yeah, well, and it's that whole mindset about it. We think it has to be hard and that's basically kind of like programming. There was something that you said that I feel like I want to highlight again, which was kind of like when you build that muscle, the muscle itself you said muscle is expensive. I think you said that, yeah. Metabolically expensive. Yes, that's what you said, metabolically expensive. And I think that's interesting because what I heard you say was essentially that when you build the muscle, it's almost like you're making your body require more fuel. But I feel like I talk about that oftentimes in a different way because I have conversations regularly with clients who are really active or really athletic, and those athletic clients are working out four to five times a week. It often is very kind of extremely low activity. They don't necessarily identify as athletic, but they are athletes because they're athlete level. And what you've seen and what I've seen, and exactly what we're talking about is that they're often eating less. So let's talk. I'd love to hear you talk about intermittent fasting because this is obviously a trend. You're in the fitness world, so you must see that a lot, this trend of skipping breakfast and not eating. And just talk to us a little bit about how that could affect your training goals. If you're working with someone who actually does have some goals, they have some weight loss goals or some training goals, maybe they're working towards lifting or whatever the goal is. How can that type of strategy make it better or worse? Like, how does intermittent fasting affect it? Well, just to start with, I've done all the protocols fasting for like twelve months. I did the 16 eight, the five two. I did 24 hours fast. And I think, too, I just try to keep things really simple. It's like, imagine if you've got a car and you're going to drive it to the other side of Australia and you only put half a tank of fuel in, it's not going to make it right, it's not going to have enough energy. So it's the same thing with your body. If you are trying to do all of this exercise and you're not eating enough, your body's not like a car. It doesn't just suddenly drop dead and stop working. It has built in mechanisms to help it survive. So it releases stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. So anytime you fast, like women always say to me, yeah, but I feel so amazing when I'm fast. I'm so alert. I'm like, well, that's because you're just running off stress hormones. I was the same, and you will feel good for a while, but those stress hormones are breaking down. The thing that we want to build more of, which is muscle, because it's breaking down your skin, your thymus and your muscle to release amino acids to be taken back to the liver, to be converted to glucose. So you're sort of going, I like interject because you're not eating, so your body is eating itself down. Yeah, totally. I know it makes a bit said to me, and I think, Kitty, you idiot, why did you do this? Because to me, I was like, it's just a quicker way to be skinny. It was quicker. Whereas building muscle and fueling your body and eating consistently takes time. It takes discipline, it takes persistence. And it is in a way, it's easier, but it's harder because you have to play the long game. So when you're constantly undereating and you're an athlete, think about where does your body draw fuel from? It has to get it from somewhere. So like you said, you just literally are breaking down your body. You deplete your body of progesterone, of minerals. If you do that year after year after year, that's when you're going to be in, like, some serious strife. I think you talk about it in your book, like, women with osteoporosis because they're not actually ovulating, so they're not making progesterone. So I think a lot of women and I was under the same impression because I didn't know about mental. So I was like, why do I need to ovulate? Like, I'm not trying to have a baby. Like, it doesn't matter. But it does matter because progesterone is this amazing hormone that helps with so many other things apart from just trying to fall pregnant. So I think just think about it logically, ladies. Like, if you fast and you don't put any fuel in your car, your body, where does it get fuel from? Well, it just breaks down your muscle. And if you're trying to lift 100 kilo deadlift in the gym and you've got no fuel in the tank, do you think that's going to be easy or do you think it's going to be hard? It's going to be fucking hard. It's really hard. Trust me. There's no way that I could lift the weights that I could now with no fuel in the tank. So I think you've just got to like I always think about this, and that's why I love your books so much, because of the nutrition information is like, just go back to like your grandparents used to eat. That's how my grandma used to. Steak and kidney pie, liver ice cream, good quality homemade ice cream. Custards, beautiful roast meat. Salads from a garden, fresh fruit she'd squeeze, orange juice, eggs, butter, ghee, lard. None of these disgusting vegetable oils, processed vegetable oils. And just eating regularly and fueling your body to build muscle instead of destroying it with cardio and restrictive diets. And you'll look better, too. I think I look a million times better. I'm healthier. My skin is good. I can maintain a much healthier level of body fat eating way more food. So now I eat 2600 calories minimum per day versus when I was starving myself, I was eating 1600 to maintain that, really, I think women underestimate what they need. And you're not going to know until you track your food. Like, track a few days of food, like an app, like my fitness power. And you'll see, and you'll be like, a lot of women go, I'm only eating like 1200 calories. And then on the weekend, I'm like, oh my God, I just ate 5000 calories. So I smashed a bottle of wine and some chips and all this other food. So it's just like this all the time. You can't see what I'm doing, but up and down, up and down. So, yeah, I just think fasting. And I don't know if you've probably read that Katharina Dalton's work, her books The Progesterone Doctor, and she talks, she's amazing. And a lot of similarities to your work. And she talks about that progesterone receptors don't actually work in the presence of adrenaline. When does your body release adrenaline? When your blood sugar is low. So if you're fasting and skipping breakfast, then your blood sugars me low adrenaline gets released and your body isn't. The receptors can't do progesterone can't do its job. So when you dive a bit deeper into how the body works, you're just like, oh my God, this makes so much sense now. I was just starving myself this whole time when I didn't need to. Well, and quick question for you, just to put it into perspective. So you mentioned you're eating 2600 calories a day, minimum, you said. And so just generally, how often are you working out? Like how many times a week? So I only work out three to four days a week. Strength training. Okay. The reason I wanted to I just want that qualifier because I know the listeners who are actually working out, who are more on the fitness train and who are tracking what they eat. So I typically don't talk about calories for a number of reasons, but I end up having to talk more about protein, specifically protein amounts. Because what I find a lot, and I'm not sure if you found this as well, is that a lot of women just first of all, they're not eating enough, obviously, so there's that. But specifically, especially the women who are working out, I feel like we really underestimate how much protein we need, how much fat we need, and also, obviously carbohydrates. So I'm certainly not anticarb. And I'd be interested to hear where you've come because you mentioned you've tried all the diets and you've done low carb. And so maybe talk to us about the blood sugar balance aspect of it and also the protein for your women who are training. How much protein are they eating? So, Craig, because again, my Craig partner looks after coaching, we work off about 2 grams per kilo of body weight. So I weigh 69, 70 kilos. I actually eat about 160 grams of protein a day. But that includes I eat quite a bit of collagen, like hydrolyzed collagen. So I'd probably eat 20 to 30 grams of collagen a day. And then the rest comes from dairy and fish and meat, cheese. But I think a good rule of thumb, especially if you're heavy strength training and you're quite active, 1.5 to 2 grams per kilo of body weight. I don't know what because you guys talk in panels, this is all very interesting. It's roughly about 1 gram, 1.2 if you're doing heavy strength training. But even just having that, as if you work out a lot, just to give you a ballpark of how much. And it's interesting because that's exactly about the amount that I've been sharing with my clients. Just as like an upper range for when you are doing a lot of and honestly having that conversation with someone. Most of my clients are not £100. Right? We're human women that are typically over 5ft tall. And so that for many of us means over 100 grams of protein a day, maybe 120, 30, 40, 50, depending on how much exercise we're doing. And I feel like those type of numbers are what really kind of puts it into perspective for a lot of women. Well, just to finish the thought, pairing it with also tracking, it's exactly what you said. Because if you track and I'm not for tracking forever, like you said, I'm for tracking for just a couple of days just so that you see for yourself what generally is happening. And I've certainly seen that many, many times where, oh, yeah, I'm sure it's all fine, but then when you actually track, it way less than what you think. I think too, just on the tracking, something that really helped me because I always tracked, and it was about restrictions, restricting, restricting. And then when I came into this program of Eating world, it was more around optimization and fueling my body to help me improve my sleep digestion menstrual cycle. So I had to really shift my perspective. And now, like I said, I don't track exactly what I eat, but I have a baseline, so I know how much 2600 similar foods, mostly during the weekend. On the weekend, I might have some different stuff just because I'm really busy. And like I said before, it's really important that I eat enough because I don't. Like, today I'm squatting like 120 kilo. Deadly squats. Like, that takes a lot of energy. If I'm not fueled tonight, I'll sleep like and then there's this flow on effect. But I think if you're a woman who really think if you're training and you want to be a better athlete, you've got to track your food, and you've got to track it to ensure you're eating enough. So you are recovering from training, you're sleeping well. Because if you don't eat enough, your cycle. Like, I noticed issues with my cycle. If I don't eat enough, like, it'll shorten or I'll get cramps, I'm like, okay, kid, you got to eat more food. You got to eat more food because really sensitive to that. So the tracking, I think, is really important if you're trying to achieve a certain result. And then once you get there, you can go okay, I've got that baseline. I know how much I need to eat. Now, if I go under that, it's not going to support my body. And I think too with the carbs, and women will be surprised at this, over 300 grams of carbs a day, like between three to 400 grams. So two times the amount of protein, plus and a lot of women will go, holy. But if you're eating 100 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs per day, and 50 grams of fat is only like 1650 calories, it's not a lot. So I think, again, the tracking really shows you where you're at. Are you getting enough protein? Are you balancing your meals correctly? I think viewers, as a data gathering process that's going to help you make some really informed decisions about your body and how you can actually optimize and get it to your goal. I actually find the tracking process and with the cycle as well, I really got into when I started tracking my cycle and doing the temps and pulses and looking at I find it fascinating and going, oh, well, I ate this today. What was my temperature the next day? Or how did I recover from training? So I think if you go into it going, this isn't about restrictions, this is about helping me become happy and healthy and strong and giving me information about my body that I can use them to make choices about food and lifestyle. And if you can make that shift, I think it just becomes so much easier. So, yeah, I think women, athletic women, four to five times a week, I mean, look, again, context is important. So Craig will do different training programs for women in our program. And there's a lady, this is just an example, she can only train for half an hour a day, six days a week, because of her kids. So she actually has a program where she trains three days on, one day off, three days on, but the sessions are half an hour and they're very short. And then she can't lift as heavy weight. So her ability to recover is better. But someone like, who's really wanting to get stronger, if you're squatting these heavy weights, you can't go and back that up and do that again the next day. You've got to allow your body time to actually recover. And I think that's where most women go wrong, is that they're training too much, they're not eating enough, and they're not giving their body enough time to recover. So now, like, these days, I have a program, but if I need an extra restor, I just take it, and then I just find I'm so much better. I'll hit PBS in the gym the next day and I'll wake up and I'll feel leaner and more rested. So I really think that's another important aspect for women who are training is listen, if you're tired, exhausted, flogging your body isn't going to help you. You're just adding layers of stress to an already stressbody. Women have got this assumption that, like the fitness injury said, god, train every day. There's no workout that you're not going to regret like that, that I used to do. And even when I was exhausted, I just grabbed myself out of bed, smash the copy. Then I'd be like patting myself on the back, like, good work, Kitty. Did that work out? You were so tired. It's just so toxic. But I used to do it, too, so I totally get it. But when you really get specific with your training and train to get stronger and really focus on that performance and listen to your body and rest, you're going to get so much more bang for your buck. You'll progress more, you'll look better, you'll feel better. Because I only do two sets of all my exercise. Just about I'll just do two sets of squats. My whole training program today is four exercises, two squats, two leg presses, one set of I think it's step back, lunges, and then some line legals. That's it. And people are like, is that enough? But it is when you're training at the right intensity, when you're lifting heavy weights, you can't lift more than that. Your body just can't recover from it. But that's the thing. I think most women, more isn't always better. I wanted to pop in with a quick message from today's sponsor, audible. Did you know that you can listen to the fifth vital sign for free? When you sign up for a 30 day trial with audible, head over to fertilityfrite comaudiblefordetails. That's fertilityfriday.com audible. Now let's jump back into today's episode.
Participant #1:
Well, there are so many pieces of what you were saying that are really interesting. I think there's women who are listening who think, well, I'm not, and rightfully so. They're like, I'm not training in the same way I'm not lifting as heavy weights. I'm not doing that. And of course, that's a conversation for maybe that's something that would make sense for you, depending on your goals. I suppose one thing that I was thinking as you were talking about is I had this conversation with a lot of my clients where they are working out. Maybe they're doing CrossFit, which is conversation. Maybe they're doing training at home, maybe they are doing lifts. Maybe they're doing whatever they're doing, but they are doing whatever they're doing four to five times a week, and they don't identify as an athlete. And I feel like a lot of the things that you talked about are really, really important. Even if you don't consider yourself an athlete, if you work out four to five times a week, that's four to five times more than most people. And so I feel like for real estate, yeah, you're right. And intensely, too. Like CrossFit is cycle periods to CrossFit, and it's not necessarily CrossFit's fault. It's how you're doing it. So, as you said, if you're doing a really intense workout, are you giving yourself enough rest? Are you eating enough food? Are you tracking your food to ensure you have enough? And I feel like if there was one thing that all those took from the episode be that like, are you tracking your food to make sure you're eating enough? And so I really appreciate that because I feel like it would be easy for some of the listeners to kind of hear what you said and think, well, that doesn't apply to me because I'm not an athlete. Kenny is obviously an athlete. She's working out, she's got these goals. But ultimately if you are working out in a similar frequency, then I feel like it all applies to you because you are an athlete. If you work out four to five times a week, like, accept it, look in the mirror and tell yourself, like, I'm athlete level here, and you need to start acting like it and taking care of yourself 100%. And I think too, if you're thinking, or am I overtraining? We'll track some of the things that we track. Like look at your resting temperature and pulse. So if your metabolism is good, then you should have a warm body. You should have a strong resting pulse. When your pulse is low, like, people think that's a sign of fitness, but it's an adaption to stress. Your body is trying to conserve energy and run on less. If you're not warm, if your body is cold, that's another sign that your body is adapted to stress. I take my temperature every morning, tracking the cycle. But you really see it in women who are overtraining is they've got these low resting temps and pulses. Am I sleeping through the night? Am I getting obviously, unless kids or shit wake you up, you can't help that. But do you go to bed and wake up after seven to 8 hours? Like, you say your cycle is yours. That's a really good sign. Like, if you got issues with your cycle, I'm like that's showing that things potentially you're doing too much and you're undernourished and you're not eating enough digestion. You shouldn't be bloated, you shouldn't have all these food intolerances. Like you should just be able to eat a lot of foods without having any issues. People develop. Like, I was diagnosed with lactose intolerance when I was twelve. I drank soy and almond milk for 17 years. Now I eat ice cream, drink milk, because my digestive tract isn't stressed anymore. I'm fueling my body so my body can actually digest dairy. So I think you can look. Do I have a sex drive? If you've got no sex drive, that's another sign. That how's your skin quality, how's your energy? Is your hair thick or is it falling out? All of these things can tell you whether or not you're actually eating enough, I think, or not overtraining because that's what I find with the athlete women in our program that come in that are really I mean, it's not always the lean women. There's women at the other end of the scale who are the same, whose hair is falling out and they've got no libido and stuff. So I think those things are just really good to track because it is possible to be, I believe I guess it depends. Like, I don't think you can be really lean and healthy. You just can't like there's a certain level of body fat. Just from my experience working with women, if you're like under 20% body fat, they usually have cycle issues because they're training a lot. But you can be within a healthy body fat range and have lots of muscle and train hard and fuel your body and still have a healthy cycle and good subjective measures. But like you say, you've really got to prioritize rest, recovery and eating enough like that, it's just so key. Well, so I have a question for you. So for some of the listeners who are thinking, well, this sounds pretty intense, and if I'm lifting all those heavyweights, am I going to look like a dude if that's not my goal? So talk to us a little bit about some of that, kind of because I mean, a lot of women are working out because they want to be lean and skinny. They don't want to be muscular. And maybe that's what they're thinking. Like, this is going to make this muscular. Oh, God, it's so hard to build muscle. It's taken me seven years of like and I'm committed to strength training. Like, I trained for powerlifting comps to build the muscle that I have. You're only going to look bulky if you don't lose the fat over the top. Think about it. Five kilos of muscle. And if you had five kilos of muscle and five kilos of fat together, what's going to be smaller? The muscle. So if you're a 70 kilo female at 25% body fat versus 70 at 35%, you're going to look way slimmer and more toned if you have more muscle. So, like, just honestly, ladies, craig always has a joke. He's like, tell them if they find the way to quickly put on muscle, tell me because I'm still trying. Like, it's really hard for women to put on heaps of muscle. It's hard. Like, you've got to be really strong to excuse my French, to look to have a lot of muscle. It's just not possible. Like, you're not going to turn into the hole. Trust me, it takes a long time. I don't know if I expected that answer. That's really interesting. So, I mean, I exercise a little bit, but I'm not a big exercise person, you know what I mean? Like, I'm big into gyms. Like, I have my beach body. Like, it's not an advertisement, but I have insanity and I do that occasionally. And then literally I do the warm up. Ten minutes, I'm jumping around in my basement and doing all the things that I'm done that I stretch. So I'm not a big exercise person. And so this is really interesting and I think really reassuring, and I've heard it before, I've heard of the importance of women doing strength training for a number of different reasons, but I feel like one thing that certainly comes up from this conversation is kind of like doing what is working for your hormones. Like do a type of exercise that is going to make your hormones work for you kind of thing. And so from that perspective, doing that long, like, 30 minutes of cardio, six days a week puts you in a state where that raises your cortisol. And so many women have probably had the experience of working out six days a week, doing the 30 minutes of cardio or hour of cardio or whatever, you initially lose a little bit of weight, but then you just seem to be gaining more and you never actually end up getting to the size that you want. And that's doing it a different way is how to actually get the results for your own body type. Yeah, because when you build the muscle, you're just burning more calories all the time. So you really don't, in the actual gym, burn that many calories. Like in a training session, you're not going to burn a ton of calories, but it's the muscle that you build that will then obviously require more calories over time. And the strong you are like, I'm pretty strong. I can deadlift double my body weight for ten reps. I actually wish that the world is crazy right now and that there would be a time when I could fly to you and go to the gym. It would be hilarious if it ever happened, we'd have to put it because it would be like, ridiculous. You'd be lifting all this stuff and I'd be like, there with barely any weight. Do you know what I think? So I always say to women, like, do what you enjoy as well. I love lifting. I find it so empowering. But if you're a woman who comes to me and says, kitty, I want to look tone and athletic, you're going to have to lift some weights because the only way that you can build muscle is by progressive overload. So, you know, but if your goal really isn't to like, be that real toned athletic body, just do some strength training and then let you say, do the exercise you enjoy. I've got friends who do roller derby or who surf, so it's like go out and do activity that you enjoy and just eat enough to fuel your body. But I really like I just like this conversation and I like how it's kind of getting rid of dispelling some of those myths because I do think that there is a lot of value in. I mean, is it fair to say that women tend toward activities that aren't like weight bearing often, so they tend to work fitness classes and things that ironically don't always get given the results that they're looking for. And so even just that little bit of encouragement of adding some degree of strength training to your workouts and the potential benefit and to the point that you could add in some strength training and potentially cut down the time even of your workouts because you don't necessarily need to run for an hour, you could do strength training for, I don't know, 1015.
Participant #1:
I think a lot of women look at me and go, kitty, I would never be as strong as you. I'm like, you can do anything. You really don't understand what you're capable of. Like, so many women come into our program with women in their 50s with zero experience lifting, and they're posting our faces going, oh, my God, I just hit 100 kilo deadlift. Which is so inspiring and so exciting for them. So you really can do anything if you put your mind to it and just take the time because everyone starts at the bottom. And then if you just chip away and get a little bit better each session, in twelve months time you'll be deadlifting over 100 kilos. It is totally possible, but like, anything, you're not going to go from zero to 100 kwh in a month. It's just that very gradual progression over time. But it's honestly, I just love it. Even today. I just love my session today. I was thinking, I can't wait to squat today. I'm just so excited about trying to get these whatever weights I've got in my program. It's just the most impact and you don't always get it. When women come into our program, we customize programs for them based on their experience level, what access equipment they have, access to, any injuries they have, time commitments. Again, so it's about what can you be consistent with. Most women in our program just train three days a week because their moms were kids. They don't have time to spend hours and hours in the gym. But again, got women who lost ten kilos training three days a week, and it's perfect. They can fit it in the schedule. You get so much bang for your buck. And then, like I said, the movement is important, too. Like, I think everyone should move every day, some sort of activity, if you can, to get in sun, like sunshine, vitamin D, so important as well. I walk my dog Winston every day. Yeah, well, one question that I wanted to ask before we kind of wrap up for the day was about men versus women. So it's kind of a nod to the conversation we had about intermittent fasting, because what I'm hearing from you is essentially eat three meals a day, enough food, consider the type of exercise that you're doing at some degree of strength training, if you are into exercise and just fine with this different way of looking at it, it's about being healthy, being strong, feeling good, being fit, but it's like all of these things which is really refreshing to hear. And it's also what I'm also hearing from you is that I was able to get to the weight that I wanted to feel good about myself and I didn't have to starve. In fact, I had to eat more food to support my training. And I feel like this is a really interesting message from this, but I think that the challenge is that so many of us follow these male influencers. I did a whole podcast on it, I've called them out already, so I don't need to do that again. But ultimately, we see men have really great results from doing things differently. So many men can do this intermittent fasting and the weight training, and they seem to have incredible results from a different strategy. So maybe share your experiences with how men and women are different in that respect. Do you know what, though, Lisa, I'd really like to question their subjective and objective measures of metabolism. So, yes, they may get good fat loss results and they may look lean and muscular, but I guarantee that their resting temperature impulse will be low. It's true though, look at it. They might have hair loss, low libido. So interesting, Craig and I were because Craig follows a lot of other, like, bodybuilders and power lifters and listens to his writing to that. And there's this guy that he followed and he was just talking about how when he was quite low body fat, like, I don't know, five to 8%, he really low libido, low energy, couldn't train properly, he didn't talk about the tens and pulses. But then obviously, when he bought his body fat levels up to a higher, more healthier amount, everything got better. So I would argue that, yes, they do get good fat loss results and look good, but so did I when I did fasting, I was lean, I still trained, but I felt like I didn't sleep. My menstrual cycle was so it's like anything will probably get you good results in terms of how you look like if you can stick to it long enough. Because some women have really great willpower and they can flog themselves and they look like, I get women texting, but I've got this friend and she fast and she runs and she trains six days a week. She looks amazing. I'm like, Yeah, but she'd be fucked fit. So many of them come out and say, oh, I've got digestive issues and I haven't had a menstrual cycle for so long and I've got these binging issues. So anything works to lose weight, but at the expense of what? Like at the expense of your health. So, again, I would just say I don't believe that these men would have optimal health markers either. Probably being super lean. For example, Craig eats and trains the same as me. He trains the same. He eats more than me because obviously he's a man, but he does his training. He eats six meals a day like me. He eats the similar foods as me. Like, he eats the food he likes but heats dairy and he eats meat and he eats cheese and whatever but the food that he likes. So I would actually argue that for optimal health, it's the same for women and men. Like, they still need to fuel their bodies. They still need to eat enough, they still need to have rest from training. I just think that maybe women's bodies are more sensitive to calorie cuts. I think, like, men might be able to get away with more for longer before seeing some negative health impacts, whereas women, I think, just do. Obviously we reproduce. We will see those impacts of that quicker. I think so, yeah. Like, I would argue that probably a lot of these guys don't talk about the negative health impacts of what they're doing because I think it's not healthy to be grossly overweight, but it's also not healthy to be shredded and exercising six days a week and fasting for anyone male. Like, no fat on your body. No. Yeah, I think we just and I was the same. I was always like, I've got to be leaner. I want to look leaner. But it's just not healthy. There's a certain level of body fat you get under and then your body's like, oh, it's salmon. I can't perform in the gym. I'm not going to sleep well. My cycle is affected. I just think if women could just build a bit more muscle too. Like, a lot of women say to me, you will keep silent than you actually are, but it's only because I've got so much muscle. So I'm like, instead of focusing on getting dieting to get lean, build some muscle, build some muscle, eat to build some muscle, and you'll feel so much better too. Again, I don't know that I expected that answer, and I think that's really great because I've been saying this kind of thing for a while about how women aren't necessarily getting the results as men, but I'm not necessarily thinking about those men and asking if they themselves are healthy. And I mean, we live in the world of the Internet where everyone takes selfies all the time and post it. Well, not everyone, but it's a thing. And so we can often get mired in that kind of, like, front facing presentation that people are doing and believing that that's also, like, a person's front stage isn't their backstage. They don't always look like that, and you don't know what's going on in their lives. And so I feel like that was a really fantastic kind of reorientation with both men and women, regardless of how a person looks, it isn't healthy. So I personally am very aware of that from the female angle. And so I'm the first one to say, if you're following all these women who work out a ton and are super skinny, you don't know that they're having a period at all because many of them are not, or they have cycle challenges, especially even just for a period of time. And even in the research, women who are athletes are much more likely to have psychic disruptions and irregularities. And so following the practices of those who potentially aren't healthy isn't going to necessarily work for you. But I feel like what you said really put it into perspective with regards to just all across the board. So this could have worked for him and that could have been great, but you don't know what's going on for him and if he's healthy. Yes. And I think at the end of the day, it's like, just look at your own body and everyone's lives are different. We've got women in our program who sit at lower levels of body fat relative to other women that still have good subjective measures, but their life is so set up to be really consistent, like low stress. They eat, they take all their food with them, they eat so consistently, they track everything. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but in order to be leaner and still remain healthy, you've got to really be so consistent. Like you can't and your life has got to be set up and stress free. And most women aren't set up like that. Like, most women have stress in their lives. I really do believe that you can find a balance. I really feel like because I've been at every end of the scale, I've had no period for seven months. I've been so lean, so light, and then I've been at the other end of the scour. I just don't give my heaviest. I've probably felt like I've ever been over. I've never been overweight, but I just have. And I've drunk more alcohol and not being as consistent. But now I feel like I've got this really good balance where I just generally really happy in my skin and my body. Like, I really love my body and I love what it can do and I feel good and I've got that good balance. I eat similar foods during the week and I do am quite structured and regimented with my food because like I said, I need to fuel my body. But we went out to dinner with some friends on the weekend and we just ate the food at the restaurant and I didn't freak out and go, oh my God, this doesn't fit my macros. So I do believe that you can have a good balance and it's about finding what works for you and what makes you happy. And that's going to be different for everyone. But I think being ultra lean, it's just never healthy. It's not I see your point and I mean, from a menstrual cycle perspective, it is really hard to be excessively thin to have where you don't necessarily have enough body fat on you and to have a healthy cycle for sure. And if the cycle is the marker of health, then ultimately that is what you should be looking at. And this is again, why at the end of the day, I always bring it back to the menstrual cycle because this is why, just like another hill that I'll die on, which is that the menstrual cycle is a sign of health. And also you can't follow what other people are doing when you're paying attention to your menstrual cycle. And I feel like even this episode is a really great example of if you're training, then your cycle will guide you in terms of what you need, in terms of how much you need to eat and what that needs to look like for you. For women who aren't training as heavily or as much, again, they can follow their cycle once the cycle starts to be disrupted. The luteal phase is a particularly good, I mean, the whole thing. But ultimately the luteal phase is a great way to track in terms of how your body is responding to your exercise routine because it's very sensitive. As you said, it'll get shorter, you'll have the spotting, you'll have PMS, raging symptoms which are a sign of low progesterone. So all of those things can help you tailor this to you. And what I always say too is like, it doesn't matter what you say or what I say or what the listener thinks about their cycle. What matters is, is your cycle healthy? Because that is the objective kind of marker from my perspective. Like you can say, oh, it's all fine and everything is working great, but if you lose your period, it's not fine and it's not great. And that's the end of it. Totally, 100%. Yeah. And that's why we get women to track it along with other marketers that just show them is their body too stressed, are they eating enough? And you know what? It is challenging because it goes against everything that fitness industry says. And it's really like you have to play the long game. Like it's not a quick thing, you know, it's to do it in a healthy way, take persistence, commitment to the path, even when your head might be screaming at you to go cut the calories and do more cardio. We do these round tables every fortnight. They're like mindset things with another lady in our program. She's a psychotherapist. And a lot of women get on and talk about their challenges around being consistent and how because this approach is about it's not quick weight loss, it's fueling your body and getting you healthy and strong and how a lot of them struggle with. I've always just cut calories to control my weight, to control things in my life, and I can't do that with this. And it's really challenging. So I think it really forces you, maybe to dig up demons around why you're doing this again. For me, it was always back to the body image and wanting to find a man and thinking if I was skinnier and prettier and I had the implants put in and then I had the implants removed in December last year, and just this like I think for so many women, it just goes so much deeper than health. This crazy world that we live in that makes us feel like we need to like this is like a result of all of the messaging and this is what is pretty is, and this is what we need to look like, and this is how we can validate ourselves. And this is related to myself words. I mean, it's so deep. And that would be a whole other podcast. Yeah, you see, on Instagram, even I have to like, when I got my boobs out, they were like, obviously if I had these huge implants in them, they just drag them down for seven years. They obviously don't look like that now. They're quite saggy. And I had these big divots. And I would look in the mirror and I'd think, oh God, they look terrible. And then I'd have to remind myself and go, kitty, just remember why you did this. Like, you did this for your health. And you've got to learn to love and appreciate your natural breath. You're 40, you're not 20. They're not going to look really perky. And it's helped that I've got a good partner who's like, I love your boobs, however they are. Kitty, I love you for you. I love your natural, sexy boobs. I think it really does take that consistent, like talking to yourself in a way that you it's okay. I think you want to improve your body. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to lose some body fat, but if you do it in the right way, you can be healthy and happy. And I find that when I'm the most consistent with my nutrition and eating regularly for your body, I'm strength training. My body looks the best anyway. My skin glows. I'm healthy. So I think it's this. But it is a struggle. You look scroll through Instagram and there's just so many fitness bottles that are so lame and you think someone think, oh, they look so good. I'm like, no kidding. So I'll throw in there for me, if you looked at my Instagram feed, I don't follow a lot of fitness people, so I don't actually see that stuff in my feed. And so I feel like this whole era I was born in the so I grew up without feeds. There was no social media, therefore there was no feed. Then you similarly, because we're on the same age. So I think ultimately, a piece of advice that is unsolicited here is if your feed is full of that, like skinny, lean people or whatever, you don't have to even unfollow just like what's the word? You still like them? Yeah, remove the trigger. So you don't need to see that. If you've got stuff scrolling every day that makes you feel bad about yourself, then stop. Yes, but with that said, for the listeners who have kind of been along with us for this whole journey of this conversation, which I think was really like, I really loved this conversation and I love that we dived into this topic. And as I mentioned, it's not one that I talk about a lot on the show, like weight loss fitness. And so I'm really excited just to be able to share this with everybody. So if you think about the listeners who have kind of been with us, what, if anything, would you want them to know? And then please do share a little bit about you where people can find you, about your products and your product line and the things that are coming down the pipe. Oh God, there's so much. But I think maybe just track your food for a few days and see how much you're eating and just gradually try and like, women, I don't believe should be eating anything less than 2000 calories a day, especially if they're training. But if you've been consistently under eating, if you go from eating 200 calories to 2000, you're going to probably put on body fat. So increase your calories slowly. Don't be afraid to eat carbs. Try and eat enough protein and just start there and then focus on how you're feeling. Like we've said, track your menstrual cycle. It's such a great indicator into your actual health, your sleep, your digestion, your mood, your energy. And don't be afraid to eat and take rest days. If you're training, training intensely four to five days a week is going to be hard on your body. So if you're really doing that, you need to eat. You need to eat, you need ladies. Like, I just can't stress enough. Like just eat instead of under eating and then binge eating. Eat more consistently every day. And for those who have binge eaters, that just stopped my binge eating because I was actually giving my body what it needed. And then in terms of where to find us, I'm on Instagram as Kitty Kittyblomfild, and our website is WWE Strength. It's Nustrength.com au. We've got our supplements and skincarecoming Saturday. So it's Saturday sature.com au. Yeah, I sent Lisa some of our products. We've got the Puffer Free, which is polyunsaturated fats. Probably when you're going, what the hell is she talking about? And that would be a podcast for another time. That saturated, fully saturated skincare with no nasties. We've got some makeup coming as well, which is really cool. Yes. My business partner, Emma, she's awesome as well, actually. Follow her. She's the nutrition coach on Instagram. She's the one that really introduced me to this pro metabolic eating. And I remember when I did my first concept, she's like, you know, Kitty, you should be eating 2500 to 3000 calories a day. And I was like, what? But now that I do it, I'm like, Okay, that makes so much sense. Yeah, ladies, just, I don't know, start fueling your body. Fuel your body. You'll feel so much better. Train for enjoyment and performance instead of punishment. I love it. I feel like this approach, I think what I really love about it's kind of poor women by women kind of right. It's like a combined you know what I mean? And it's based on what actually works for our bodies. And that's what I like about it, because what works, works. That's the interesting thing about it. If it works, it just works again. And if it works, your cycle is going to be good. Thank you so much for being with us, kitty, this is great. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend. You'll find the Show Notes page for today's episode over at Fertility Friday.com 370. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode with Kitty. I mean, what an interesting conversation. I think that ultimately this conversation challenges a lot of the myths that permeate our culture about weight loss. And it's kind of refreshing to hear a different take and also a woman centered approach. I feel like it was really fascinating to listen to someone who specializes in this area, in the area of health and fitness, but works specifically with women and also works specifically with the menstrual cycle. So having those kinds of checks, so checking in with the metabolism, right, the basal body temperature, and also checking in with the cycle as a way to make sure engage whether we're actually working with this woman's body and achieving hormonal balance. So I feel like it's a really interesting approach that you don't really hear a lot you don't really hear a lot of approaches where you're looking at fitness from that women centered perspective. And you're also balancing her hormones as kind of just a regular part of it. So we're kind of looking at the cycle as a feedback tool and using that to gauge how successful this routine is going to be. And so that is ultimately what I have been saying on repeat for the better part of the last two decades, which is that the menstrual cycle is a vital sign and it responds to our bodies, our health, in a number of different ways. And ultimately, we can use it as a way to gauge how we're doing. And so if you are adding in a new exercise routine, or you currently have an exercise routine, I think it's really important to learn about your cycle and how you can use your cycle to kind of optimize what you're doing. And so more specifically, if you have a sense of what the normal cycle parameters are and you have a sense of when ovulation typically happens in your cycle and the period of time between ovulation and your next period. So the luteal phase when you are overdoing it, then those are kind of two main areas that you might see a shift. So you may see a delayed ovulation or you may more likely see kind of a short luteal phase, premenstrual spotting, increased PMS symptoms, because if you're overdoing it and not necessarily consuming enough to offset that, then it makes it really hard for your body to sustain the optimal level of progesterone that is needed to give you a healthy cycle throughout the whole time. What I really appreciate where some of the myths that we dispelled in today's episode, the myth that if you want to lose weight, you have to eat less calories. So the myth that it has to be painful. So it's kind of like the Biggest Loser example where it's like you're supposed to basically kill yourself by doing all this cardio, punish yourself and then you're supposed to eat less. And I don't know about you, but every time I start exercising, I'm more hungry. So certainly when I incorporate exercise, I need to eat more personally. That's my thing. And so even the idea of exercising a ton and being really intense with exercise and not eating, I mean, ever since I was a little girl, when I was in high school, every time I exercised, I just really needed to eat a lot more because I needed to be able to sustain the muscle building that was taking place and all that. And that wasn't something I really knew about consciously, but certainly I was able to kind of tune into those signs. And so hopefully this episode just gives some food for thought in terms of different ways to do it. And what I thought was interesting as well is even to think about exercise differently because it's not just one category. And so there is a lot of research to show that steady state exercise kind of doing the same thing at about the same level for a long period of time, certainly can help initially with weight loss, but over time it can increase your stress hormones, which can then kind of give that effective. Like you initially lose weight and then you start gaining it and it seems counterintuitive because you're exercising so much versus weight training, which is what we really focused on in today's episode. Or even the intermittent high intensity where you do a short burst of high intensity and then have more breaks. And certainly I'm not a fitness expert, but I feel like the purpose of talking about this is just to say what we've been taught about exercise, like work out, eat less, right? Like that kind of thing. As if we're a robot and this is a math equation. It doesn't work with our hormones. And so if there's one thing you take away from today's episode, it's tune into your cycle. If you're noticing those kind of changes that we talked about, short allude phase, premenstrual spotting, if you notice increased PMS symptoms, or if this is something that you've had for a long time and you just think it's normal for you and you're kind of like a moderate to heavy exerciser, this is a way for you to really gauge. And I suppose the last thing to say is that this episode shows that it is actually possible to exercise in such a way that you can optimize your weight loss and your toning. You don't need to starve yourself and restrict and you can have the results that you're looking for without having to feel like you always have to kind of restrict yourself and prevent yourself from consuming food. So I feel like if anything that you're taking away from today's episode, I really do hope that it's that. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week weekend whenever you're tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy Friday. Bye.
