Habits and Hustle - Episode 370: Dr. Mary Claire Haver: Why Every Woman Needs to Lift, Tips for Menopause, Maximizing Semaglutide, and More
Episode Date: August 9, 2024Did you know that most women reach their peak muscle mass around age 30? After that, it's a downhill slide unless we take action. In this Fitness Friday episode, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, The #1 Menopaus...e Doctor, and I discuss the critical importance of strength training for women, especially as they age. We discuss why cardio alone isn't enough (and might even be detrimental), the surprising benefits of wearing a weighted vest, how strength training can reduce cardiovascular disease risk by 20-50% in women, and the potential role of medications like semaglutide in weight management. We also dive into strength training to prevent frailty and osteoporosis and to help maintain independence well into your golden years. Dr. Mary Claire Haver, board-certified OB/GYN, has helped thousands of women going through perimenopause, menopause, and beyond actualize their health and wellness goals by creating the online course and National Bestseller, The Galveston Diet. What we discuss: Strength training for menopause The role of semaglutide in weight loss How to maximize semaglutide’s effects Thank you to our sponsor: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off To learn more about Dr. Mary Claire Haver: Website: https://maryclairewellness.com/ https://thepauselife.com/ Instagram: @drmaryclaire Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it!
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Again, head over to Therasage.com and use code BEBOLD for 15% off any of their products. I'm a big believer in strength training and lifting heavy, especially as you age.
I know you talk about that as well in your book. What can you tell
us on the research that you've done of how strength training and menopause or as you
age, the importance of those two are together?
So, most women peak at their muscle mass at about age 30 and then we have an age-related
decline in muscle mass. And in order to overcome that
natural progression, we have to work harder and harder and harder every single year,
or we're just going to have to give up that, you know. And so as we're living longer than men,
we're becoming more and more frail in those years. And so when you look at long-term care homes,
66% are female, 33% are male, and the most likely reasons a woman
is going to be admitted is for dementia and then for frailty. She can't get off the toilet,
she can't lift her legs, she can't get off the floor. If she falls, she can't pick herself
up. And so this is the end result or she's fallen and broken a bone and can't take care
of herself. All of this is pretty much avoidable. But you know, my generation, our generation, I was a corneal queen. I ran, everything was about
sitting to be thin. Like my whole focus for movement was to be skinny, okay, which I had
skinny privilege. I ran marathons. I did all this stuff, you know, super proud of that.
But God, if I could go back and talk to that girl, pick up some freaking weight, you know,
because I chipped away at my bone and muscle strength to be thin.
I never looked at nutrition outside of calories, you know, I tried to eat healthy.
I didn't know what that was until I went back to school.
They didn't teach us that in medical school.
Just, you know, donate French fries.
Okay.
So, but for movement, two to three days a week of progressive load resistance training.
That scares the hell out of women because they've never done it.
They don't know how.
But it is so important.
So when they did studies on elderly women, which is 65 plus, okay, I am eight years away
from that or nine.
How old are you?
55.
Oh, you look great though.
So almost 56.
So they were looking at vibratory training, putting them, they put them in 10% weighted vests.
They had them start lifting, they were doing deadlifts.
These women were making major gains in their 70s and 80s
for muscle mass and bone strength and osteoporosis.
And I'm like, okay,
osteoporosis prevention program, let's go.
There's great studies on collagen.
There's great studies on wearing a weighted vest.
I wear one all the time now when I'm walking the dog,
when I'm doing housework, when I'm, you know, walking on my treadmill, which I do
a lot of work on my walking desk, but I put the weighted vest on to do it because I'm
cheating the system. I'm just, you know, I'm never going to be obese. That is not in my
genetics. It would be a lot of her. I could do it. So, but you know, for me, it's avoiding
the frailty card and I want to be 90 and playing on the floor
of my grandkids.
Yeah, I agree.
For great grandkids.
What do you?
I want to be climbing a mountain.
I don't want to be on a walker like my mother
at 85 who can barely get around.
She can't get in and out of the tub.
We're trying to figure out converting her bathroom
right now.
She sits on the toilet and does a sponge bath.
That is the best she can do right now.
Wow.
You know?
And that, I know, knew. so I'm doing squats like nobody's business right now.
Yeah.
Because this is my mother. So these are the things I talk to my patients about. They're
not coming in saying I want a bikini body. Those ships have sailed and it'd be great.
I mean, who doesn't want that? But they're like, look, I'm looking at my future. I'm
looking at my ants, I'm looking at my mom's. What plan can I get on right now? What habits can I change?
What do I need to focus on so that I can be healthy and vibrant as long as possible and
not 10 years of horrible morbidity, not being everything in pain, breaking hips, breaking,
you know. So women, 50% of women will have an osteoporotic fracture before they die.
Men don't do that.
Very few men.
So, it happens, but it's rare.
And so, I want to be like a man.
I want to die like a man.
They just die.
They live and die.
We have a protracted, horrible last 10 years of our lives, completely dependent on others.
And that doesn't have to be like that.
So this is what we talk about
when we talk about menopause care.
And this we're talking for straight training
is an essential piece of it.
Do you think that cardio,
because cardio is known to break down muscle mass, right?
I think you need a walk, a brisk walk,
a brisk walk with a weighted vest.
I stopped running.
I stopped going for my knees.
You know, I might do a few sprints just to get my VO2 max going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, a few sprints here and there, a little bit of Tabata.
You don't have to go crazy.
You know, but like if you're on the couch, get up and walk, baby.
That's it.
Just walk for me.
The weighted vest is amazing.
Let's go and talk to my patients.
I love it.
If you, okay, all right, you're walking.
Good. Grab a weighted vest.
Let's get some hand weights.
Let's, you know, let's work.
You have to meet the patients where they are.
And you know, saying you need to do three days of resistance training, girl, she's
going to run out of my office screaming.
But you know, she's like, hey, I'm walking every day.
This used to work for me.
It's not working anymore.
I measure their muscle mass in clinic.
I have an in-body scanner.
So I'm doing visceral fat, muscle mass, you know, I really can look at their insides and be like, okay, here's the path you're on right now.
Here's what we can do to reverse this. Yeah, I'm a big believer in strain training for your
bone density, for the way to what the way to vest is amazing. And now the cardiovascular data,
women are much less, much more likely to decrease their risk of cardiovascular disease by 20
to 50% if they strength train.
Yeah, absolutely.
More than men, like they can do less strength training and have more benefits than a male.
They can?
They will have more cardiovascular benefits with less work.
Oh, I love that.
Okay, let's talk about semi-glutide and the, you know, semi-glutide, the GLP-1.
Is there a benefit for going on something like that, like the Ozempics of the world,
if you are gaining belly fat from menopause or for perimenopause?
So most of my patients, you know, again, I usually defer to people who have training in obesity medicine.
I don't have, unless my patients are obese, and especially patients with lifelong obesity
and they've done everything, they've done every diet, this is a whole mind, it's more
than just mindset for so many patients.
But I do think that there's a place, I have a handful of patients on it, we monitor them
very closely. Before they leave the office, they know they're coming back every six weeks.
We're monitoring their muscle mass. We talk about acceptable muscle mass loss. We talk about protein
intake. Like going to the long-term success of you being on semaglutide where you're going to end up
healthier in the long run is really dependent on the doctor who gives it to you and how they take care of you and monitor you. Weight loss at any cost is rarely sustainable
and rarely better for your health long term.
The reason why I'm even asking you this question is because we're talking so much about muscle
mass, right? And keeping lean muscle mass on your body, it breaks down your... When you
lose weight, you're mass on your body. It breaks down your, when you lose weight,
you're losing fat and muscle.
If you severely calorically restrict
half of what you lose is muscle,
which is why so many people yo-yo,
because muscle is what controls our
muscle metabolic rate.
So you've lost 10 pounds, five of its muscle,
you immediately put on another 10 pounds,
you know, you go back, but you've gained 10 pounds of fat
and you could never get that muscle back without eating all the protein and doing all the resistance
training.
So this semaglutide kit is a tool in your toolbox to be healthy.
You cannot ignore the value of nutrition, of movement in the right, you know, doing the
right movement.
You know, just getting your shots and not eating is not going to serve you long term.
But also you, when you get out, I mean, you're the doctor, I'd like to ask you, once you
get off of it, your appetite, I would imagine, rebounds.
If you don't change your habits and you go back to your old habits, you're going to gain
the weight back.
How do you change your habits?
It's not a habit for, it's not about habits, it's about making, it's turning off like
you're hungry.
I'm seeing something different.
So my patients are using that food noise going away, that time that they now have in their
day as a time to, we talk about this, you know, how they're going to, this is a multifactorial
disease and we talk about habit changing.
Is this successful for everyone?
No, but I've seen some beautiful results and when the patients come in and they've held onto their muscle mass and they see that
visceral fat going down, they're watching their cholesterol go down, you know, even
in semaglutide plus HRT, they lose 30% more weight, by the way.
Really?
More fat, yes.
Wow.
Women, menopausal women on semaglutide lose X amount.
Women on semaglutide plus HRT lose 30% more.
Wow, I'm signing up.
And they're more likely to keep it off
because you're more likely to maintain your muscle mass
if you have your hormones on board, including estrogen.