One thing I hear women athletes over 40 complaining about a lot is their metabolism. I promise you that your metabolism is not broken; it may just be adapting in a downward direction based on the inputs you are putting in. While metabolism is complex, there are some simple and practical things you can start to implement today that will help you improve your metabolism as an athletic woman over 40.

If You Want to Increase Your Metabolism as an Athlete, You Should:

1. Start with eating more energy, specifically protein intake
2. Make muscle building a top priority by focusing on strength training
3. Look for opportunities and strategies to build more non-exercise activity into your day

The Success Trifecta

The amount of energy going into your system versus what is going out, or your energy flux, is something we have discussed a lot on this podcast. Maintaining a higher energy flux is a key factor in the successful trifecta of training hard, having enough energy, and providing your body with what it needs to succeed.

Understanding how to get more adaptations out of your training by increasing your energy flux is the best way to see the positive impacts of your training that you are looking for. It doesn't take anything complicated or extreme, just a simple set of behaviors and habits that you can actually implement.

Three Simple Habits for an Imposter Metabolism

If you are tired from your training, bunking your workouts, or don't feel like training for weeks and weeks at a time, it is going to be hard to have the consistency that you need to have positive outcomes in your training. Increasing your energy flux over time will help you spend more energy through movement, exercise better, and improve your digestion, all while simultaneously building muscle.

I wish that I knew these three positive habits that can have a huge benefit on your metabolism and so much more. The positive impacts you will see from eating more protein energy, prioritizing muscle building, and incorporating more non-exercise activity into your day, will get you back into good standing with your metabolism.

How has your metabolism changed over time? Share your thoughts on my easy-to-implement metabolism habits with me in the comments on the episode page.

In This Episode

• Weaving together the threads of the last few episodes and painting a full picture of energy (2:51)
• Understanding energy flux and why slashing your energy intake is not going to give you the results you may think (5:54)
• How to minimize compensations while trying to nourish your body, maintain your energy levels, and train hard (10:22)
• Three practical things that you can focus on as an athletic woman in her 40s and beyond (17:01)
• Why you need to build more non-exercise activity into your daily routine (22:18)

Quotes

"I hear so often from athletic women over 40 who are very concerned about metabolism." (3:20)

"We never want to lose muscle mass. Muscle mass is so incredibly important, and we know that muscle is an organ of longevity." (9:21)

"What are the benefits of increasing your energy flux? What that really means is slowly over time increasing the amount that you are eating, and of course, being able to expend then slightly more energy through your training." (16:02)

"These are really filed under the idea of lifestyle, nutrition and training, and things that we can do to improve our health and wellbeing and focusing on the behaviors themselves. That's what we are really trying to move the needle on here." (18:04)

"Think about how to actually put some metabolism friendly into play in your life so that you are not stressing about the metabolism, but rather you are thinking about the positive, health-promoting changes that you can make." (25:48)

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