Exercise Timing Improves Exercise Benefits in Menopause

The timing of your exercise hurts or improves exercise benefits in menopause. If this is new stay with me! If this is like a review or you’re a trainer and you’re unsure of how to relate these things to your clients, you stay with me too! This is a great refresher and for some trainers the first time they’re ever hearing it!

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Questions I Answer in This Episode:

• Why type and timing of exercise matters more in menopause? [00:07:56]
• The normal curve of hormones during the day (and night) [00:08:48]
• How exercise affects hormones [00:10:06]
• Some examples of how exercise timing change has supported symptoms of menopause [00:15:38]
• First steps to try if you’re a little “addicted” to your exercise [00:38:49]

Let’s review hormones related to exercise (in menopause or any stage):

• Cortisol is at its highest level at 8am and lowest at 2am when you’re functioning optimally. During times of stress, whether chronic or acute cortisol levels spike (also increasing blood sugar).
• Insulin levels will increase if blood sugar rises, in order to lower blood sugar levels.
• By late afternoon, cortisol levels are low and not providing the energy we’ve enjoyed during the morning. So if we exercise, your body will convert another hormone into cortisol.
• In the evening, progesterone levels rise to help facilitate the chill and relaxation that helps provide a sound night sleep.
• During deep cycles of sleep, we release testosterone and growth hormones which improve muscle growth and repair.

Why Doing Intense Exercise Early Improves Exercise Benefits in Menopause

So you don’t misinterpret, this isn’t a suggestion for intense exercise every day. Doing intense exercise early improves exercise benefits in menopause. Also true, intense exercise late might interfere with exercise benefits in menopause.

The two keys in the conversation on High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) are:

1. cortisol during exercise
2. cortisol after exercise

What does cortisol do?

Cortisol is responsible for physiological changes, such as the quick breakdown of fats and carbohydrates and a rise in blood sugar for immediate energy, and repressing the immune system to focus your energy on whatever you’re doing at the moment.

The blood sugar elevation you see on your Continuous Blood Glucose Monitor is normal and not a bad thing (provided you’re recovering quickly from that spike that is caused by a legitimate need). The glucose has been released so it can be used:

It’s when you see your CGM continue to be elevated after your HIIT session, or crash, that you want to be concerned about.

The quality of your recovery is important. In menopause, particularly perimenopause, recovery can be slowed or insufficient simply because of the changes in hormones. The same stressors in your life can potentially have a greater negative impact on your cortisol.

Additionally, some of the keys to recovery are hard to get in midlife:

• Sleep
• Down time for Meditation and breath-slowing exercises
• Foam rolling or massage

Decades of conditioning work against us getting adequate nutrition and hydration. If we still operate with “eat less, exercise more,” we generally don’t have enough fuel to recover, and hydration could be impeded by low sodium intake. So many of us grew up with messaging about low salt, low sodium being the goal and have taken it so far that we’re not actually hydrating by drinking water only, or worse, water with sugary substances.

Exercise Early Improves Exercise Benefits in Menopause But Not If…

One big mistake women make with HIIT is doing it too much or doing it after a workout that was lower intensity, assuming it’s short and feeling you didn’t work hard enough.

We often assume feeling good after exercise is wrong. We’ve been conditioned by the media that it should be hard or hurt to be effective and should be under that threshold of cortisol elevation.

There is a psychological effect from HIIT that differs from cardio activities. Studies on HIIT and high intensity weight training show these are safe and create positive feelings. The brain gets bathed in neurotransmitters after HIIT sessions that give a boost of creativity or problem solving.

While you CAN do HIIT and strength training on the same day, it is not recommended daily. Hard exercise is more beneficial at your capacity.

When you’re in a period of extremely high stress (emotional and or physical) because of that overall load, the allostatic load interferes with recovery.

During Perimenopause, the roller coaster of hormones can mean HIIT is not even ideal for you at all. If you do it and respond positively, 1-3 short sessions a week of not more than 45 minutes of HIIT is ideal. Beyond that point, injury rates go up significantly. Tendons can become more rigid and connective tissue is reduced thanks to lower estrogen. Awareness about this sweet spot of enough - not too much - is really important. I call it the MVP, MINIMUM VIABLE PHYSICAL activity to get results. Doing more gives you less ROI, it might tip your bucket so much that you are headed to breakdown instead of a more resilient body.

During post menopause, the hormone roller coaster has generally calmed down and you can potentially include HIIT. You may be able to increase it up to 4 short sessions a week.

First Steps to Improve Exercise Benefits in Menopause

Skeptical or a creature of habit that it’s hard to change even if you’re not getting the results you want? If you say, your belly fat is not budging, in fact seems to get worse, here’s my suggestion.

Let's use the analogy of science by the Glucose Goddess (we’ll link to that episode). If you have a plate of food and change nothing but the order you eat that food, you can change the impact of your blood glucose by up to 75%. Let’s say you find it hard to give up your exercise habits. Change to exercise intensely only in the morning and light exercise or movement late in the day.

Two things to keep in mind:

• Intensity comes from duration too. So hiking 2 or more hours may also spike your blood sugar.
• Lack of fuel before, during or after exercise (for recovery) will also increase the negative impact on your cortisol.

There you have it, keys to improve the exercise benefits in menopause:

• Time intense exercise early in the day
• Even low to moderate intensity exercise can become intense if the cardiac drift is prolonged enough to elevate cortisol and it remain elevated, or if
• The habits before, during or after don’t facilitate quick recover with the right fuel and rest to avoid muscle breakdown

References:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25560699/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1728869X22000338

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9990535/

Resources:

My Favorite CGM:

https://www.flippingfifty.com/myglucose

Flipping 50 Membership:

https://www.flippingfifty.com/cafe

Flipping 50 STRONGER 12-week program:

https://www.flippingfifty.com/getstronger

Other Episodes You Might Like:

Cortisol Hormone: Don’t let it derail your fat loss efforts:

https://www.flippingfifty.com/cortisol-hormone/

Best HIIT Workouts for Women Over 50 | Fat Burning:

https://www.flippingfifty.com/best-hiit-workouts/

The Blood Sugar Belly Fat Loss Connection for Women Over 40:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qnjwjT5-nc