323-SYNCPodcast_AliciaJones

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Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to [00:01:00] this episode of The Sink Your Life podcast. Today I have with me my friend Alicia Jones. She helps transform the health and the lives of women over 50 through her fitness and weight loss strategies. We’re gonna dive deep into women’s health today. Uh, I love having a fellow nerd on the show, like someone who really sees, uh, wellness for women the way I do.

She’s appeared on various health and wellness television programs and produced and hosted health matters and the View Health and Wellness on Rogers tv. She has a bachelor’s in kinesiology and adds many certifications to her list of qualifications, including National Coach of Canada, advanced Sport Nutrition certified group fitness instructor, personal training specialist, can Fit Pro and many others.

So we will make sure that, of course, as always, that we link up her information in the show notes, her website, all the things which we’ll get to at the end of the show. But for now, Alicia, welcome. I would love for you to share with us. Who you are, how you got to doing what you’re doing, why are you so into fitness and nutrition?

Alicia Jones: Thanks for having me, and I am excited to be with another geek because yes, everything to do with the science and the research of fitness and [00:02:00] wellness as we age specifically for me, I just love that. So I’m really excited to meet you too. Um, so I got into this. Um, the, the real reason that I ended up working with aging populations and specifically women over 50 was because growing up I grew up with, my grandmother was the one who was taking care of me.

My, my mother was a single mother. She was working, I. A lot of hours. And so my grandmother was the one that really brought us up. But my grandmother grew up in a time where smoking was considered normal. She was a nurse and she smoked, and back then it was, you smoked in the doctor’s office, you smoked everywhere in the car, in the plane and train everything.

And it wasn’t really considered to be that unhealthy. But by the time she was taking care of me, she had COPD and cardiovascular disease, and that really affected us as a grandmother. I don’t know what your relationship is with your grandmother, but for me it was an incredibly special relationship. I loved her very much and I didn’t [00:03:00] want anybody else taking care of me but her, but because her health was suffering, we had to get in nannies at the same time, or babysitters that I was not very nice to because I didn’t want them there.

I only wanted my grandmother and then. Around 15, she passed away and it was because of those diseases that she passed. Then later on I was already into fitness and wellness, but it was a big turning point for me because I was, was working with all populations, but I had started to gravitate towards the over 50 population and there was this huge charity event to go up the sand tower.

And the sand tower is. Over a thousand stairs. It’s um, I think it’s 144 flights of stairs, something like that. It’s, it used to be the second tallest structure in the, in the world. I think it’s the second tallest now. Um, but anyways, it was this tall structure and for charity, I was asking everyone, will you do this CN Tower climb?

And the women would say to me, I’m too old to do it. [00:04:00] So I’m not gonna do it. So my mother, who was the opposite of my grandmother, she never smoked, she rarely drank, and she, she did her fitness and her wellness, uh, ate healthy. I recruited her and asked her to do it, and she said, sure, I’ll do it. And at the time, she was 72, so I used her as my marketing strategy.

The slogan was, if she’s 72, so can you. So for all of my clients. I was saying, listen, you can’t say you’re too old. My mom is 72. If she’s 72, so can you. And so they had to do this charity event. And for me that was the turning point because you could really see what happens when you understand how to take care of your health.

You have that education knowledge of the research. Um, you do take care of your health. You either have this ability to climb the CN tower. It’s never, you’re never too old that you can have that strength. Or if you’re not able to take care of your health or you don’t understand quite how to, it’s the opposite.

You could end up being bedridden and you know, I think for many, we wanna be able to take [00:05:00] care of our grandkids and our kids and not having that ability to do that. So that’s where I really started to focus in on women over 50.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I, I mean, doc Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is, you know, and she doesn’t know it, but she’s a mentor of mine.

I love her book, and she talks about muscles, the key to longevity. She talks about longevity being the goal for our health, right? And so I love that, and I agree with you. I think a lot of women, especially in my circle, you know, they hit 40 and a lot of them joke around. Like, I hit 40 and everything changed, right?

Like my, mm-hmm. My body composition changed, or my motivation changed, my relationships changed. Like. Of course that happens with perimenopause, right? Like things start to shift. Um, but at the same time, like I do see this happen where, uh, you know, I can say, I can speak to my own mother and my grandmothers, and, you know, it doesn’t, it, it’s like people think that, it’s like, well, I’m not into, I’m not a fitness girl, right?

So I’m not into fitness, so therefore I’m not gonna do this. And it’s like, but I’ve slowly watched like my own mother go from walking three miles a day in her sixties [00:06:00] to now being 70, and now we don’t wanna walk anymore. Right. Or we don’t, yeah. Any sort of mobility work or any, any form of strength training beyond like the little two pound dumbbells, right?

And so I just think, I think you’re right. Like when women know better, we do better. And when we can understand that, like these are the things that are gonna help us continue to move and to avoid sarcopenia, which is the number one reason why people go into nursing homes in the US because they literally can’t get up and down off the floor because of muscle loss.

Alicia Jones: Yeah. And

Jenny Swisher: you realize that like those are the reasons that health is failing. Um. We can take some of that control back, right? Like, and it’s Yes, absolutely. Like it is. I love the slogan of, um, 72 because I, I like the idea that. It really is a mindset shift of, no, this is something I can do. Right? This is my new challenge and maybe my 76-year-old mom isn’t gonna go run a 5K.

Right? But like, maybe she’s not gonna grow in a marathon, but what is something that we can do to kind of challenge her and get her outside, you know, thinking outside the box. So. Mm-hmm. I love that. And I also think, you know, I know a lot of my listeners are probably anywhere from thirties to fifties or [00:07:00] beyond, and we have to, I, I believe, and I, I’m curious your thoughts.

I believe we kind of have to embrace. A new mentality. Right. And I was just telling you before we recorded that I come from sort of the home fitness background. I’m a fitness enthusiast, right? Like I personally trained for years, but I also was like really into exercise. Like, I don’t wanna say obsessively ’cause I don’t think I was quite obsessive, but I, I do love it.

Like I love the endorphin rush. I, I do it every day just like I brush my teeth, I exercise every day. And what was working for me in my twenties and thirties. As far, or even really what my goals were, right? Like my goals were more about like how I was gonna look in a swimsuit or how I was gonna, you know.

Is different now. Like, and I can kind of start to see at the age of 41, where I’m like, you know what? I don’t really like, it’s no longer about the swimsuit. For me. It’s like, am I gonna be able to keep up with my grandchildren someday, right. As I mm-hmm. My parents’ age. As I watch, you know, my, my husband’s parents’ age.

Like, I, I’m starting to see like, wait, what really matters here, right? [00:08:00] Like, relationships matter, like my, my actual mobility and ability to move and function matters like. So I think we do have to have a little bit of a mindset shift, and I see women struggle around the age of 40 moving from that cardio, cardio, cardio, calorie burning.

Mm-hmm. You know, diet restriction mentality that we might’ve lived with in our twenties and thirties to embracing this new thoughts. So I’d love to hear your perspective as you work with, uh, women too. Like what do you see people holding onto and what thought processes or mindsets do you need to break when you’re working with somebody?

Alicia Jones: Yeah. And first off, when we’re in our twenties, let’s say even our teens into twenties and and thirties, it’s almost like we’re in this do phase. Go, go, go. It’s like, uh, do school, do the family, do getting married, do Maybe you’re getting a house. Do, do, do, do, do. And once you enter into your late thirties or forties, even, maybe even fifties, it’s as though that shifts a little bit.

We have been pushing so hard. I don’t know about you, but I used to do. [00:09:00] Split shifts as a personal trainer, I’d be up at like 4:00 AM working really hard. Then, um, come home for a couple of hours and then back out and finishing at 10 or 11 at night. Something along those lines. It was like pushing to become something, to do this thing to look a certain way to create a career a certain way.

And once we’re later on, it’s not necessarily because we’re slowing down, but it is because we’re in this new stage of life where. We start to realize that that push and that intensity. Maybe for some doesn’t matter to the same degree. We still want to have family, we still want to have the career, but we’re a little bit more settled in ourselves and, and we’re ready for that next step.

So first off, don’t get me wrong, I do want to look good for my age and stage of life, but it’s no longer my top priority because for me it is about strength. It is about, um, longevity. It’s about being healthy for, you know, for my niece and nephew, I don’t have kids. Uh, but for my niece and [00:10:00] nephew and for my family, uh, it’s to be able to take care of my mom if she needs it.

So the priorities change a lot, but we’re still stuck in the mentality from before where it is I need to move as much as possible. Do, do, do. And I need to eat less in order for me to feel my best. And so we need to start to get out of that mindset quite a lot. So it’s more about what is gonna give us the best quality of life?

What is gonna give us our best health? As we age, and I think that’s hard to know that we don’t just push and do we need to stop and think about what the strategy is. Strategy matters with age more than the amount we do.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Which leads in perfectly to my question, which is, so then what should the strategy be?

For what, as we age.

Alicia Jones: Yes. So definitely strength training needs to be a part of that strategy. And it’s not that you can’t do cardio, but it’s more of we need to be able to work our VO two max system, which is our [00:11:00] lung capacity system, one of the greatest predictors of quality of life. We need to be able to regulate, uh, blood sugar, uh, and our insulin levels.

That comes in with high intensity interval training, short bursts of all out intensity, followed by rest After that. And we don’t need to spend all day doing that, which is great because usually when you’re entering forties, fifties, even sixties, you are busy and you’ve got a lot going on. So you need the best bang for your buck.

What is gonna get you the best quality, and you don’t need a lot of time to do that. You need good quality, high intensity interval training. Good quality resistance training, and if you’re just starting out, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re lifting hundreds of pounds over your head. It just means that it feels hard yet doable by the time you finish your first set.

And. We, we also need to start to look at volume. So doing more than one set it when we’re looking at, over the course of a week, six to eight sets of a muscle group is really where [00:12:00] we need to, to focus in on. So getting into multiple sets and maybe even getting to the point where you’re like, oh, I can’t lift any more of this weight.

I wanna put it down.

Jenny Swisher: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So progressive overload, right? Strength training, making sure we’re getting stronger in those movements. And, um, I love that you mentioned VO O2 max. ’cause when I, when I teach women, I tell them it’s not that the cardio is no more, no longer important, but it no longer takes center stage.

Right? Like, I know for me, you could just, I could disguise cardio in a hundred ways. Like I could hold dumbbell, but at the end of the day, I’m really just working my heart rate, right? Sometimes it is about slowing down. Recovering between sets, lifting as heavy as you can and really working the muscle groups right.

And that actually is what should take center stage as we get older. So I agree with you like, but I

Alicia Jones: would never start anyone like that. And that’s something that I wanna make clear because I think there are a lot of people that are still very intimidated by weight training, worried about injury, have past injuries.

And so there’s this preconceived notion that you have to all of a sudden start to lift as heavy as you can. [00:13:00] Or as go as fast as you can and you can’t breathe and you’re, you’re absolutely exhausted. And so we need to shift that mindset. It’s first about form, understanding how movement pa patterns work.

I like to work with periodization. Periodization are times where we’re doing. Lighter reps, uh, higher repetition ranges and lighter weights. And then we can cycle ourselves into heavier weight training zones. And if you’re more advanced and you’re listening to this, you can also do undulated periodization, which means maybe one day you are lifting heavy and the next day’s a recovery day and you lift again.

But it’s lighter weights and different muscle groups. There’s a whole bunch of different strategies. You don’t just start by doing as heavy as you possibly can because that is an injury waiting to happen.

Jenny Swisher: I’m so glad you said that. Yeah, and here’s the thing, like, I mean, I see this happen so often, right?

Like people, women, especially, they, they, their first step often is, I gotta get moving. Right? Or if they wanna lose the weight, they’re feeling frustrated, they’re low on energy, they’re like, I know I need to start moving and exercising. My answer [00:14:00] to that is always yes at the same time. And they’re, my listeners are gonna say, oh, here we are.

Broken record. Living in a toxic environment. If you’re under stress, if you’re undereating, if you’re, you know, if you’re not fueling properly, like if we’re not looking at your bioindividuality, what’s going on with you? Hormonally, if we just start exercising, you might start to feel better. You might start to, you know, get stronger, those types of things.

But the, the fitness component is just the icing on the cake of so much. Mm-hmm. And so there’s so much more here. Right. But on the topic of fitness, if we wanna be getting stronger, what you know. Yes. We’ve gotta be looking at how could we, you know, increase that VO two max. I’ll be honest with you, my cardio sessions are better at 41 because I’m only doing one maybe two per week.

Like I’m not doing it every single day. I don’t feel the need to add on a bike ride like I used to do or add on something else to a strength training workout. Instead, it becomes, okay, I’m getting stronger four days a week. Strength training. I’m working on my yoga, my flexibility, my mobility, right? Those types of things.

[00:15:00] And then I’m gonna sprinkle in the cardio. And you better believe that when I have a cardio day, I push it. I push it hard. I feel really good. I. But it’s not every day. Right. And I find that, again, so many women are like, I wanna start moving. And so it’s immediately the elliptical or an orange theory class or the treadmill, or they’re gonna do a 5K and like they’re running, running, running, um, running themselves into the ground as opposed to really focusing on getting stronger.

So if we are gonna talk fitness, right? That is what I want people to take away. Now I also wanna ask you about nutrition. Like what type of nutritional traps do you find women falling into as well during the same, oh, I

Alicia Jones: love that

Jenny Swisher: question. Same time

Alicia Jones: before we get into that question, you were talking about people wanting to do things every day, and what I’m finding a lot right now that is the biggest trend all over the place, and I get a thousand questions about it, is this.

Slow, steady state of exercise where you’re on the elliptical or you’re going for that walk, and those are great things to do. Um, it’s called zone two training. People are talking about the zone two training everywhere. Uh, the thing is, is that it [00:16:00] does not really get you the most bang for your buck, especially as women.

It does not. We oxidase. Oxidize fat very well. Um, and so that is what this type of exercise is meant to do, to help us oxidize fat, use fat as our main energy source if you wanna do a walk, because it makes you feel relaxed and it’s something that you love doing great. But when we are aging and we’re trying to fit in exercise.

It’s all about quality. What is gonna get you the best bang for your buck? So if you’re retired and you have nothing else to do, which even in retirement, that’s probably not gonna be the case. But if you have nothing else to do and you wanna spend all your time working on an exact strategic exercise plan, great.

One day, do that, walk the next day, do your hit exercise the next day, you know, do something else. Um, the the issue is we don’t have that time. So in the time that you’re given. What is gonna get you the best quality and it is the hit, and that means the next day, [00:17:00] great. Take it off. Or do a yoga class or do a a, he like a different type of strength training or rehabilitation.

There are a whole bunch of different ways to do that. You don’t need to waste every single day doing something that is not going to get you the results that you’re looking for.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So before, before you go into nutrition, I just wanna add onto that and say that I see this happen every day where women are.

Like they feel like they need to get their workout in, so they do their workout, whatever that might look like. And then they’re like, but I also need to hit the 10,000 steps. And so then they’re also gonna, you know. And, and like you said, I, I go for a walk every day, but it’s more for like my mental sanity and for my dog, like my dog has walked.

Yeah. Also, it just is a nice release for me, but I’m not, I’m not pushing it. I’m not to the point where I can’t talk, like in that sort of aerobic, anaerobic threshold, like I’m literally just going on a walk more for my mental sanity. And I do believe movements key, like walking is great, right? It’s, it’s a great functional movement and a lot of us are sitting too much.

So I’m not here to say that it’s the wrong thing, but we can become, and I’ve seen it happen. [00:18:00] Where it becomes an obsessive thing, where it becomes our workout plus the walk, plus add a weighted vest. That’s the new thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know. All of a sudden we’ll burn more calories doing this, this and this.

I just shared this, um, graphic to my social today and I just have to share it because it was perfect. It says, cardio is like getting paid by the hour. You only make money while you’re working. Uh huh.

Alicia Jones: Yeah.

Jenny Swisher: Lifting is like owning a rental property. It keeps paying you even when you sleep.

Alicia Jones: I love that.

Jenny Swisher: I saved it and shared it today and I was like, this is gonna be a keeper, because I, I think that a lot of times what happens, right?

Is, um, I know this was the case for me five, seven years ago, right? Like, I wanted to know what my calorie burn was like, am I getting the most, I thought the most bang for my buck was like how hard I was working. Mm-hmm. And how sweaty I felt at the end of it, and how, you know, did I get those endorphins going?

And there is an element of that that’s pretty, a pretty awesome feeling. Um, but at the same time, you know. I realize now, especially knowing the research and knowing, you know, knowing [00:19:00] what people like Dr. Stacy Sims and others are preaching, I’m like, that’s actually not what’s so important, right? Mm-hmm.

Like in those years where I was doing a lot of that. I don’t necessarily know if I was getting stronger, right? Like I don’t, I was necessarily building muscle or maintaining muscle, which as you’ve mentioned, right? We lose so much. I, what is it, like 3%, um, of our muscle mass per year over the age of 40 for

Alicia Jones: every, yeah.

So for every decade we’ve launched another huge percentage of lean mass and onto that point as well. There there are two things. People use their Fitbit, they’re like. Guess how many calories I burned, but they’re also like, guess how many minutes I was in the fat burn zone? These are the two big things that they’re very excited about.

Right. And when you’re talking about, uh, you know, with your cardio, it means that you’re getting paid by the hour If you don’t move right, you’re not getting paid for that hour. Right. Uh, there’s a couple of reasons. Like first off, high intensity interval training. Is like the rental property as well. And the reason that it does that is it does something called epoch, which is excess post-exercise [00:20:00] oxygen consumption.

So basically we don’t have oxygen when we’re doing this thing. We’re breathing, you know, you’re out of breath, your muscles and, and your, your body. It cannot use oxygen to the same capacity, which means all of the physiological processes in your body are disrupted. And that disruption it, it is what we are looking for.

It sounds chaotic and stressful, but our body wants this process of balance homeostasis. So when we stop the exercise, our body is desperately trying to bring back our oxygen levels back to the norm. It’s trying to create balance in all of the physiological. Processes that are going on in our body. And so that metabolic rate gets really revved up.

We are burning a lot of calories, but you’re not gonna see it on your Fitbit, you’re not gonna see it on your Apple Watch. It’s, it’s this processes that, that process that is happening behind the scenes. And that’s exactly what’s happening with weight training. You lift weights. But after the weight training is done, maybe [00:21:00] your Fitbit is only saying you burned a hundred calories, or you know, you were, you weren’t doing that much.

But afterwards, because muscle is so metabolically active, it needs so much energy in order to, to be at the size or without bulking up for women, which is a whole other topic. Mm-hmm. But to be at the size and the strength that it’s at, your metabolic rate is much. Faster, you’re burning much more calories and you will not see that on your Fitbit afterwards.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so much that I wanna say here. We haven’t even, we haven’t even gotten to nutrition. We’re gonna talk nutrition. I know. I’m sorry. I missed that comment. I had a feeling we could, we could, we should have scheduled like three hours for this, but, um, no, no. I love, so I wanna touch on this too because, so we launched our stake fitness program almost a year ago.

We, um, Kelsey Linman is our trainer for that and. I had her on the podcast and she’s also spoken to my community about this. And I know I, I blew some minds right when I interviewed her in front of my community because I asked her to [00:22:00] explain hi training, like to, to the detail, right? And when she did, I think a lot of the women in my community were just like, huh.

Like, that’s not what I’ve been doing at all. And so let me give you some context. Those of us who I know a lot of my listeners are people who came from the home fitness. Thing, right? Like we’re, and I like to say we were following calendars made for male physiology for a really long time. So one of the mindsets behind home fitness is to get you the most bang for your buck, but the most bang for your buck is determined by that calorie burn and by how hard you’re working.

Are we getting those endorphins going? Are we creating a sweat? How many calories are we burning? Burning in, in what condensed amount of time? I can tell you from experience. That they take the videos that are created like in the studio with the trainers and they condense them down. So the rest between sets is probably not as long as it would be if you were working with a personal trainer.

Right. The, the, the, um, it just, it changes everything because when everything is condensed down to like, [00:23:00] well now we’re gonna make this a 20 minute program, so every day you are only gonna work out 20 minutes. All of a sudden, my question now, now knowing the research is wait, like, do I want 20 minutes? Like, what do I really want here?

So I know when we, when Kelsey was in front of my community and I said to you, Kelsey, like, what is a HIIT workout? And she shared with us that, you know, for her specifically, she never goes more than 15 minutes in a hi workout.

Alicia Jones: Mm-hmm.

Jenny Swisher: True hit workout, right? Is, is taking.

Alicia Jones: Mm-hmm.

Jenny Swisher: How high we can get the heart rate, but then how quickly we recover.

So basically if you were to look at a heart rate monitor, you know, after you did a workout, a hit workout, you would see these sort of red peaks and then these drops. It looks like mountain Peak and drops. Mountain peaks and drops because we’re looking to recover as quickly as we can to be able to push as hard as we can in the next set.

When we, those of us who are listening came from the home fitness model, hit, could have been 30 or even 40. Yes. Of work and that my friends is where women meet metabolic dysfunction. That is where we start [00:24:00] to say, or even this, we even had lifting programs that a lot of us did that were marketed as lifting programs.

They’re even titled lift programs. Lift is in the name. And yet there’s a hit component to almost every workout. Yeah. So not only are you doing the lifting, but then, oh, we, we have to add the hit on there to make sure that you really get a sweat going, that you also really get that calorie burn, right? Yes.

And so I wanna, the reason I mention it is because I’m sure, like when we talk to trainers outside of that world, like you or like Kelsey, and I say. To you, what is a HIIT workout? I’m sure you’re gonna agree. You’re gonna say it’s not an hour, it’s not an hour of cardio. It’s not an hour of sustained zone two.

Yes, it is focused high intensity with recovery and it’s very, very short.

Alicia Jones: Mm-hmm. So I would, yes, actually I did a YouTube video on this. I did a YouTube video on this because it was such a big, people were like, so many women were like, you know, I do hit and I don’t understand why I’m not getting results with that.

In fact, you know, my waistline is expanding more and you know, I’m, I’m not really getting [00:25:00] any stronger or healthier. I don’t feel any different. I just feel exhausted. The, the truth is you’re probably not doing hit at all. Yes. And that is what the big issue is. Hit the, the protocol for high intensity interval training, depending on the study that you are looking at, can vary.

So anywhere from 80 to 90% of your heart rate and above, that’s high intensity interval training. These very. High heart rate zones. Yep. And, uh, a lot of women say, well, that to me is also scary. I have women that have cardiovascular disease in their history and they’re worried about pushing their heart.

But what I try and tell ’em is if you go up a hill or you’re late for that train or subway and you had to run up the stairs to get that train, you did probably hit because you are out of breath completely when you are entering into the, the bus or subway and finally stopping. So. It doesn’t necessarily need to be scary, but my point is, is that it’s short bouts of all out [00:26:00] intensity where you really don’t want to do anymore or you’re done and then recovery and you start.

You cannot do long bouts of that. It is impossible. You have probably been in a heart rate zone that is anywhere from that fat burning heart rate zone that we talked about. Isn’t that great? Anyways. To a moderate intensity zone. You’re not pushing yourself to a level that is a true high intensity interval training zone.

And when, um, sorry, I can’t remember her name when you were saying she was talking about Hi workouts being 15 minutes, Kelsey? Yeah. Yes, Kelsey. Okay. For me, that’s a five minute good warmup. Yeah. And a five minute good Max, she says Max 15

Jenny Swisher: minutes, she says eight to 10 minutes. 15 would be the max, right?

Alicia Jones: Yes, yes.

Yeah. And that would include that for me. You, it would be very short, all out intensity. And then that’s it. And it doesn’t need to be long. Some of those studies show it can be three minutes total in length. Yeah. And you are done. And I mean. I think for a lot of women that it’s at, or men or whoever you are, that’s [00:27:00] actually amazing to think that you can get fit in three minutes.

Jenny Swisher: Yep. Yep.

Alicia Jones: Like we’re trying to do more thinking. It’s gonna get us better results, but we need to shift that mentality. I.

Jenny Swisher: More is not better. It’s, yeah. How can we, how can we work smarter and not harder? Yeah, that’s right. I mean that, and I, I just think, I think you’re absolutely right because I guarantee you that a lot of the women that are saying, I’m doing hiit, if you were to actually look at a record of their heart rate monitor, you would see a lot of zone two cardio.

You would see where, you know, and, and I’m not. And here’s the deal. Yesterday was my cardio day. I did, um. It had plyometric training in there. So anytime I’m jumping, of course my heart rate’s gonna go up, but it was like picture perfect, mountain peaks, right? For the heart rate, and that’s what I’m looking for now.

I had to modify some of the, like, there were times where I didn’t feel fully recovered, but my heart rates, you know, it’s, it’s elevating quicker, right? And so it’s like that’s the goal. People forget sometimes that the true test of fitness is like how well you recover that heart rate. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I think you’re right.

Like it, it really is [00:28:00] about how hard can I push and then how can I, I’ve shared this on the podcast before and I don’t know what episode it was, um, but I would link it up if I knew, but I don’t know. But I, I was talking about Dave Asprey, you know, he’s a biohacking guy. I’ve listened to him for a long time, and he was talking about, granted, he was talking about men in this particular setting, but.

He was talking about how when he does like sprint intervals, right? Like he will literally go out into the street in front of his house and he’s like, it’s like, it sounded to me like it was maybe five to seven minutes. Sure. And he would do, he would do, I’ll say a 50 yard sprint. I don’t know what it was, but I’ll just say that for an example.

He would do as, he would run as hard as he could, right? Like as hard as he could for that 50 yards or a hundred yards. And then he would stop and he would lie down on his back and he would do a, oh. He would do a series, I know, a series of box breathing technique to bring down the nervous system. Then he would stand up, sprint the other way and rest, right?

Mm-hmm. So I just, I thought it was interesting hearing him [00:29:00] talk about, about this because it was about how we can more, I. First, first of all, protect and take care of our nervous system. When women think that they need to be doing that high intensity, how okay, when it’s over, how are you then entering your day?

Are you taking a minute to like downregulate the nervous system, or are you just going from that breathless state to being a mom or whatever, like going into your day and you’re, you’re keeping that nervous system ramped up, right? But also I thought, I thought it was cool that like, it really was about like, this only takes like less than 10 minutes.

I’m gonna push myself as hard as I can till I’m out of breath. I’m gonna make sure I fully recover and I’m gonna do it again, and I’m gonna maybe five minutes and then I’m done. Right. So I think we really do have to get out of the conditioning, whether, whatever it is for you, maybe you’re somebody that goes to the orange theory classes or it’s all about those splat points, right?

Whether it’s splat points or calories burned or whatever. Like it’s, it’s not that at all. Like are you actually getting stronger? A lot of my women, when I start working with them, they’re not, they don’t have a worksheet. They’re not tracking their weights. They don’t know, like, I’m like, no, this is what matters.

Like, are you able to say, I’m getting stronger or [00:30:00] not? Right. So, okay. We’ve gotta, and I

Alicia Jones: think on, on that as well, um, since we’re talking about that, a lot of times what I see is people then taking little weights on their walks with them, doing them in an aerobics class. They’re holding weights or like you were talking about the weight vest.

And, um, they feel really excited that they’re doing something that, you know, they’ve incorporated weight training. But with weight training, that is also a myth that you can just take a couple of five pounds on your walk or put on a weight vest and you’re gonna get stronger. The strength comes in pushing yourself past that last little moment when you can’t go anymore.

It is pushing past. That it’s creating a new stimulus to the muscle that then your muscle has to repair to a new strength and a new level. And that is what we’re looking for, especially with age and especially as women, because we need to be able to basically wake our muscles up and say, Hey. You need to grow.

Mm-hmm. You need to become stronger. We [00:31:00] don’t have the same levels of estrogen, especially post menopause. That was that signal for our muscle to grow Estrogen. I is anabolic and it helps with, uh, lean mass growth and I. We don’t have that. We need to create that lean muscle anabolic response in other ways.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. We need the muscle contractions, I mean, right. Like, so Yeah. I, I, I think you’re, you know, Dr. Lyon talks about weighted vest. I have a weighted vest. I like to wear it on occasion when I’m walking, like it does help build skeletal muscle as far as that goes. But yeah, when we were looking at actually.

Building and maintaining muscle mass. Like we have to be doing these types of movements. Um, for sure. So I wanna make sure that we spend a little bit of time talking nutrition, because obviously the two go hand in hand, right? Because like I said before, like if you could be doing all this, you could be doing progressive overload and focusing on mobility and you know, all the things and not overdoing the cardio.

You could be listening to this saying, I’m doing all this already. Like, okay, like give me another topic. Um, but if we’re not fueling enough, right? Mm-hmm. Or if we’re falling victim to [00:32:00] what I call diet culture, which right now looks like. Maybe it looks like low carb or low fat, or maybe it looks like keto or maybe it looks like intermittent fasting.

Like there’s a lot of different things out there right now. Mm-hmm. Um, if, if that’s happening right, then again, we’re sort of working against our physiology, so I’d love for you to touch on, you know, sort of what you see women fall victim to in the nutrition mm-hmm. Side of things.

Alicia Jones: I think, I think the first thing is there’s this incredible fear that if they eat more, they’ll gain weight.

And I, I can understand that I, I like to maintain a healthy body weight as well. And it is terrifying to think that, you know, you’ve done a lot of exercise and so, hey, you need an, an extra 250 to 400 calories to do that. Um, there are so many women that I’ve worked with that I’ve said. You know what? I think your calories are too low.

Let’s bump you up to at least let’s start slow and do 250 extra calories this week. And, um, we’ll focus in on that coming from protein sources and whole grain carbohydrates [00:33:00] or, uh, um, whole, like complex carbohydrates instead. And it’s complete fear. It’s like, oh, no. Okay. Especially for those that were doing something like a ketogenic diet.

When you’re looking at ketogenic diets or you’re looking at very low carb. Now carnivore diet is a big thing. I don’t even wanna get into that, but you’re looking at getting into very high protein levels with very, very low carb rates. And carbohydrates hold water. They hold water molecules more than protein does.

So when you first reintroduce carbohydrates, you may actually gain some weight on a scale. Because you are holding more water, but that doesn’t mean you, you’ve gained more fat. It just means that your body is going back to a more hydrated state. And so what we need to look at as well is, okay, so let’s maybe not try and look at the scale for the first few weeks, but take a different measurement or approach.

If, if weight loss is a part of what you’re doing, can you just measure your waist, for example, and check your waist [00:34:00] measurement? Um, but focus in on trying to eat a little bit more and give yourself that time. To reregulate, to eating properly. And then that’s when you start to notice fat loss, more strength and more lean mass.

And not in a bulking up way, but feeling more toned and strong and energized.

Jenny Swisher: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think not to, not to mention Kelsey again, but I think, uh, when I, she asked me, you know, what are some things that I could do to help your community? And one of the things I told her, which she probably thought was odd, was I said, you could share how you eat with my community, because.

So many again are coming into this, um, restriction from this restriction mentality, right, of eating less. And so it has been interesting to see, um. Kelsey who has the physique of, she doesn’t look like a bodybuilder necessarily, but she’s very fit and toned like you. Mm-hmm. And she’s like, you know, sharing that she like the amount of food that she’s eating.

I mean, I remember seeing her breakfast when she shared her breakfast one time, and I was like, oh my gosh, that’s, that’s like three [00:35:00] times more than I eat. And I, and I’m eating 30 gram, 30 gram protein breakfast. So, um. But it’s helpful sometimes for women to see that like, yes, you can eat and fuel properly and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to bulk up and be a bodybuilder.

Trust me. Mm-hmm. Women who are trying to do that are trying real hard. Like there’s a lot of find their food the way they’re training, like it is a lot. And so, um, but if, if you think about it this way, right? Like from a hormone perspective. I wish we talked more about metabolism. I wish we talked more about just metabolic health as opposed to like the number on the scale or mm-hmm.

Or anything like that, because yes, you’re, you’re right, like as you shift and you start to maybe train, train differently or your, your body holds onto water weight, like those types of things happen. But also like if, if our blood sugar is not. Stabilized is what I’d like to say, right? Like if your blood sugar is, um, on a rollercoaster, right?

Which oftentimes is what it looks like for women who are kind of eating more of the carbohydrates and less protein than they should. Um, they are on this [00:36:00] rollercoaster throughout the day. Sometimes women will notice that it reflects their energy, right? Like, I don’t know why I get an energy crash late afternoon.

Well, most likely your blood sugar is crashing in late afternoon, right? Like they start to notice those correlations. But in other situations, it’s like they don’t realize that like, this is why they’re not getting the results in the gym because their body is not fueled enough. To stabilize that blood sugar.

So if we’re eating enough protein, which looks like one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight, which a lot of people, uh, most women are consuming 40 to 60 grams, which is nowhere near enough, then we’re not stabilizing that blood sugar rollercoaster. And then we’re asking our body to give us results when it’s really in a state of survival.

And so that’s what I like to teach is like when it comes to your hormone health, your body’s gonna prioritize survival over everything else. So maybe you’re wondering why your period went missing, or maybe you’re wondering why all of a sudden your cycles are irregular, or you’re wondering why you’re doing all this hard work in the gym and you’re not getting results.

Sometimes it’s because you’re not eating enough. Um, it’s not necessarily because you are, you know, I think we [00:37:00] sometimes think that we need to just back off more and more. I just had a girl in my inbox last week. She’s like, I don’t, you know, I’ve lost 15 pounds. I actually don’t wanna really lose anymore.

She’s like, what do I do? And so I’m like, well, tell me more about how you’re eating right now. And she’s, she’s in like, the 15 to 1600 calories. And I’m like, we gotta up that. Like, we gotta up that closer to 2000 calories. Like your body needs more food. And the, the more you rev up that metabolism.

Sometimes the more food you, you require, right? So yeah,

Alicia Jones: and we also have to remember that once you’ve hit your goal weight, you actually need to eat more in order to maintain the goal weight. Yeah. And, and I think a lot of people don’t think that because they’ve been taught how to do the diet, but they’ve never been taught how to get off of it.

Yeah. They, so then they end up not being able to sustain that, or they lose their lean mass, they lose their energy. They, they start to feel worse after a while and they’re like, I don’t understand. I’m doing exactly what I was doing before. Why aren’t, why are things starting to go awry? Why are things not working now?

Or why isn’t it working like it used to? And it’s because it’s not meant to you. When you get to a specific [00:38:00] weight, you’re supposed to eat more in order to maintain.

Jenny Swisher: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So good. So, so glad you said that. Okay. So when it comes to, and I, this is funny ’cause before we recorded you’re like, is there anything off limits?

And I said, I said, I don’t usually re I don’t usually ask questions around fasting. Yeah. Um, because it’s such a controversial topic and then we both totally jived like we were best friends and I was like, I’m gonna ask you this question now. So. I only ask the question if it’s the answer I like. Um, so let’s just be real.

So I get this question you guys all the time. Like everybody, this is the number one question I get. Is, I know there’s a book out there about fasting for women. I know it surrounds their cycle. I understand. I’ve read the book. As I was telling Alicia when we started, the book is based on research, done on men and mice.

You guys, it’s done. The research that’s mentioned in the book is done on men and mice. I like to pay attention to the research done on women, specifically the women like me, like the woman like me, an ath of an athlete, someone who likes to [00:39:00] exercise. Um, the books that I’m also referencing are also usually, you know, based on.

One doctor, the author’s clinical observation, so mm-hmm. I like to look at PubMed research things that are done in larger studies. Um, and so let’s talk about this like, let’s, we only have a few minutes, but let’s talk a little bit about what you’ve seen in the realm of fasting. I know we both agreed 12 hour overnight fasts.

Great idea for the digestive system. Beyond that, we can get a little dicey. So I’d love to kind of hear your perspective, especially ’cause you work with women over the age of 40.

Alicia Jones: And I think first off, a, a lot of these studies are all showing different types of fasting protocols and everything. All the fasting protocols are kind of getting clumped in together into one category, as in, hey, intermittent fasting and that’s it.

But you have to remember there are a whole bunch of different fasting fast warrior fasting where you’re eating like one meal a day. Um, you’ve got, uh, the 12 to 16 hour protocol that we were talking about. But my 12 hours is [00:40:00] basically a standard circadian rhythm cycle. So after dinner, you just don’t eat anymore, and the next day you wake up.

I. And you start eating again with a regular breakfast. And personally, I don’t think that that is a bad cycle, especially if you are somebody who needs parameters around your eating or structure. So I find that I have no problems. I. Telling women to do a 12 hour fasting protocol if it works for them, because they need to have this time where they’re like, that’s it.

I’m not gonna snack anymore. I don’t want to eat anymore, and the next day I’m gonna wake up and I’m going to eat again. And it gives them this parameter that feels psychologically doable. It’s like they have a break and understanding, um, of what they’re supposed to be doing, and they don’t need to think about it anymore.

So I like that my issue comes into play with these very strict fasting protocols that are like one meal a day or um, I get asked a lot as well about fasting [00:41:00] and eating on an empty stomach, which just basically gives you no fuel. To do your workout. Plus, it is catabolic. It is helping to break down lean muscle and isn’t the point of your workout to help enhance lean muscle and create strength.

Um, it also wreaks havoc on your cortisol. It’s, it’s a stress. So fasting and a lot of diet protocols and even exercise. It’s a stress on the body. Like we were just talking about that, how it is stressful, right? It is a stress on the body. So then you’re doing something that’s extra stressful, extra catabolic on the body.

Um, we, you, it’s, it’s not necessarily fueling the body the way it’s supposed to be. Mm-hmm. So 12 hour fast, great. It goes with a standard circadian rhythm. Nighttime comes, stop eating, wake up the next day and eat again. And Yeah.

Jenny Swisher: That’s fed workouts. And fed workouts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that’s, that’s my biggest thing too is, is you know, please don’t work out on an empty stomach, like mm-hmm.

It is not a good idea for any woman to do that. And when I’ve [00:42:00] explained this before, I tell women you, well again, your cortisol and blood sugar oppose each other. Right? So if your body has to, if it had now has two stressors, the exercise as a stressor, and then now you’ve added this component of no fuel to fuel.

Mm-hmm. That stressor. Mm-hmm. Um. Now you have two stressors. And so now your body is trying to perform for you in a, in a workout, you’re really just working against yourself because now you’re, you’re, you’re raising that cortisol, you’re dropping the blood sugar, you’re creating more of that survival mode for your body.

So mm-hmm. Don’t just take my word for it. Stacey Sims has a lot of information about this in her books, on her social media, in on ped, like everywhere else. But, um, it’s, you know. I have seen some women will say, well, you know, what about for the metabolically flexible one? Well, in my experience, 72% of women, according to Dr.

Sarah Gottfried, are struggling with blood sugar regularity and stabilization, especially in perimenopause over the age of 40. So if we can’t get that blood sugar stable, if we can’t get that, you know, if the metabolic [00:43:00] flexibility is not there. Then fasting shouldn’t even be a question yet. Right. But if you are someone who you’re, you’re, you’ve, where you’re working with your doctor and you’re, this is something your doctor recommends you doing because you are metabolically flexible and you’ve done the testing and you know how you’re feeling and all that’s working for you, great.

But I find that that’s a very small percentage of women, and see, and

Alicia Jones: I, I don’t personally find that your doctor should be the one giving you any sort of I agree. Nutrition or wellness advice. Yeah. They are great at what,

Jenny Swisher: yep. Oh, I lost your audio.

Alicia Jones: They’re good for, which is not preventative healthcare disease.

Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Oops. Yeah, we had a little, yeah. Are you there?

Alicia Jones: Yes.

Jenny Swisher: Okay. I dunno what happened there. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, most of the time, you know, doctors are giving the advice of like, we’ll cut back on your carbs and work out harder. And I’m like, no, it’s idea. But in some cases, just

Alicia Jones: remember that most medical professionals, they’ve had maybe three months of a nutrition.

Like little course inside of all of their years of medical experience. [00:44:00]

Jenny Swisher: Absolutely.

Alicia Jones: Doctors are there to help us with curative issues, so, or chronic conditions. Right. They’re not there for preventative healthcare. That is, you know, kinesiologists, uh, you know, dieticians, nutritionists, um, trainers, that sort of thing.

That’s what we have studied. We focus in on Exactly. You know, we don’t go out and prescribe medication. They shouldn’t be prescribing your, your nutrition protocol.

Jenny Swisher: So, yeah. So I wanna clarify. So when it comes to, you know, just like we, we have somebody for everything, like you said, right? We have a doctor, I see doctors being there for pharmaceutical needs, right?

Like, I have doctors because I need migraine medications, I need mammograms. Those types of things that, you know, obviously we do, um, preventatively and also for, uh, ailments and issues that we have. But in the case of functional medicine, which is what I teach here on the podcast, working with somebody who really is sort of a root cause doctor, somebody who can do the testing mm-hmm.

On things like blood sugar [00:45:00] stability, or cortisol, like when we can dig deeper in those regards, those are the doctors we wanna pay attention to when it comes to this. So if they, if they are looking at, at those type, that type of picture for you, if you’re working with a functional practitioner and they say this might be something to try for you because they’re looking at your bioindividuality and they’re looking at the right data.

Then yes. Like that would be a different situation, but mm-hmm. The average doctor or OB GYN, who’s telling you to just work out harder and reduce your carbs and all the things, like, you’re absolutely right. Like, no, you, we need to seek out. People that are experts in this, right? Yes. Like a trainer for your fitness, a nutritionist for your nutrition, whatever that looks like for you.

So this has been an awesome conversation. I, I knew we weren’t gonna get very far past fitness and, and a little bit of love to have you back more, to talk more, but we’ve talked a lot today just about the benefits of high intensity interval training, VO O2 max fasting, and our beliefs on that. Mm-hmm. Um, but I think at the end of the day, right, like the woman listening to this, who, who’s over 40, I wanna kind of make this full circle and say.

A shift does need [00:46:00] to happen in your mentality most likely. Right? And a shift needs to happen toward the goal being longevity, being muscular health, and really paying attention to, again, the research done on the woman most like you. What does that research say, right? That reach that research is very clear.

We’ve talked a lot about it today on, and what we need to be doing. Um, but I think until we embrace that and we let go of what’s not working, like sometimes I do have to actually say to my clients like. They’ll say to me what they’re doing. I’m like, is that working for you? And they have to verbalize, no, it’s not working for me.

Okay. That if it’s not working for you, we need to do something different. Yes. And so if that’s you listening to this, it might, this might be your sign that it’s time to listen and do something different, so. Mm-hmm. He said, thank you so much for being here. I want you to point us to you, like, where can we find you?

Um, I know I have your website. I can link up in the show notes, but tell us all the things.

Alicia Jones: Yeah, so I do have a free masterclass for anyone interested. It’s called the Three Face Food and Fitness Formula. Every Woman Over 50 needs to know, and we do talk about the science behind strength [00:47:00] training and how to, how to make that mix with your lifestyle, because that’s the other factor we haven’t even gotten into.

We have half of the population that are exercise non-responders that aren’t gonna get that runner’s high, that aren’t gonna feel really good when they exercise. They need to find other strategies and ways to get the exercise in and it has to fit their lifestyle. It is much harder if you are a non-responder to um, motivate yourself to do it.

So we kind of talk about that as well in the masterclass. So I’ll give you the link to that. Uh, alicia jones healthy living.com is my website, and of course I am on social, so YouTube is the place to go. And I should probably give you that hit link where I was talking about high intensity interval training, and you’re probably not doing it.

So I’ll give you that link and that that links to my YouTube as well.

Jenny Swisher: Excellent. Okay. So we got plenty of resources for you guys today, so just swipe up all that will be in the show notes for you. Um, thank you Alicia, for doing this. We’ll have to have you back for part two. All right guys. Thanks so much for listening in.

Until next [00:48:00] time, we’ll talk soon.

Alicia Jones: Thanks for having me.

Alicia Jones: