Dr. Stacy Sims: How Women Should Eat & Exercise for Health – Mel Robbins Podcast (Transcript)

She’s on the faculty at Stanford teaching about lifestyle medicine and at Auckland University of Technology teaching sports medicine.

She is a renowned researcher and has directed research programs at Stanford, Auckland University of Technology and the University of Waikato. And she has published—check this out—107 peer-reviewed research papers, which in normal person speak is a ton.

Her research has revolutionized how women approach fitness, especially during menopause and hormone changes. She’s the author of two groundbreaking books, “Roar” and “The Next Level.” She also has a daughter and just like me is in her mid-50s, juggling a big career, a marriage, motherhood and hormone changes.

She has so much to teach you today and we are going to go straight for the bro science. We are going to tell you the mistakes and the lies that you’ve been told. We’re going to tell you the truth based on the research about what works for women and what doesn’t.

We’re going to teach you why the things that you’ve been doing have been backfiring. It’s because you have been exercising like a dude and it is time for you to exercise like a woman.

I am so fired up for you to be here. I am fired up to learn with you. And I am fired up for all of the women and the young women in your life that you’re going to share this with. So please help me welcome Dr. Stacy Sims to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

Dr. Stacy Sims, I am so thrilled that you are here in our Boston studios. I’ve been waiting a long time to be able to sit down, meet you and learn from you. I’m just thrilled that you’re here.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Oh, thanks for having me. I’m excited. We have lots of fun.

MEL ROBBINS:

And we have a lot to dig into and so here’s where I want to start. Could you speak directly to the person that’s listening? And this is somebody who doesn’t have a lot of time, but they made the time to be here to learn from you.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Okay.

What You Can Expect to Change in Your Life

MEL ROBBINS:

What could that person expect might change about their life or feel different if they take everything to heart that you’re about to teach us and share with us today and they use it in their own life?

DR. STACY SIMS:

I find there’s two big things that often happen. One, most women become more empowered and have better body positivity. And two, they have a sense of separation from the stress in their own selves.

So they’re able to take that step back from the stress of everything that’s happening. It’s kind of like that pause moment, because when you are taking care of your body, then it feeds back into a lot of positive metrics.

So the big thing that I love is watching women go through an evolution to go from being not so confident in themselves to having such empowerment to be able to stand up and say, “I own this space and I’m taking it.”

MEL ROBBINS:

You know, one thing that strikes me about you already is that you actually exude that.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Oh, thanks.

MEL ROBBINS:

You have a level of presence and power in your body, and it’s not just because you are in incredibly great shape in terms of muscle definition, but it’s actually something that’s noticeable.

And so I think this goes beyond sort of that sense of separation of stress. What I experience in just sitting here with you is that you’re actually embodied in the present and in your body. And a lot of times when we’re stressed out, especially as caregivers, and the amount of stuff that we do, we’re up in our heads and disconnected from our body.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS:

And so I’m excited to really learn from you because I want to feel more like the centered confidence and calmness that you just seem to move through a space with.

DR. STACY SIMS:

I’m good with the facade. No, just kidding. Thanks. Yeah. It does come from a lot of pushback I’ve had in my life. So it’s like being put into a pretty male dominant situation. You have to find your feet, and how do you move through that space? And I found it through exercise, strength. All the stuff that we’re going to talk about.

MEL ROBBINS:

Amazing. So you have such an incredible background, and I’m actually going to read it because it’s quite a bit. You know, I’ve talked about this when I was introducing you, but you have a PhD in exercise physiology. You’re a researcher. You’re a former professional athlete. You now train professional athletes.

You’re an expert in exercise physiology. You have a long list of other specialties like cardiovascular disease prevention, thermoregulation, women’s health. You are a pioneering researcher that participates in her own studies. And you have this incredible mantra. Dr. Sims, “Women are not small men.”

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah.

Women Are Not Small Men: What This Really Means

MEL ROBBINS:

What does that mean?

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah, I laugh when people say women are not small men, because when we hear it, we’re like, oh, yeah, that’s right. But it started from when I was teaching at Stanford and wanted to wake some of the undergrads up after lunch and afternoon sleepies come in.

And I was teaching about sex differences in training or high performance. So I would start it with “women are not small men.” And people are like, well, of course not. That’s, you know, women aren’t small men.

But what I mean by that is everything from what happens in utero until we die is different for women than men. So when we talk about women are not small men and we see all the guidelines that are out there for exercise, all the guidelines out there for mental health, for the connections, the socio-cultural pressures, we experience things differently as women than men do. But that’s not ever really explained.

So when we say women are not small men, it makes people take that pause and ask, well, what do you mean by that? What topic? So today what I mean by women are not small men is we’re going to dive into exercise, especially how what we do should change as we move through our lives.

MEL ROBBINS:

What does that motto, “women are not small men,” mean in practice?

DR. STACY SIMS:

I think when we look right now at what’s being portrayed in social media, fitness trends, the medical trends, all of that data is really drawn from men and just generalized to women, which is a huge disservice.

So I want women, especially you as a listener on this podcast, to take a pause whenever you see a new trend come up or someone pushing something to just go, well, where did this originate? How does that appropriate for me as a woman in my phase of life?

And when you take that pause, you begin to have an objection to some of the things that are being pushed on you and an objective view of how you should approach things to make it beneficial for you.

The Problem with Male-Centric Fitness Advice

MEL ROBBINS:

I am so glad that we’re starting here because I am constantly shocked at the things that I think I should be doing. And the things that I hear a lot of male health experts talking about are a lot of the bro science or a lot of the kind of bro experts and the fitness trends that are very dude oriented.

No offense to the guys. I’m just saying that it often has felt like to me, as I’ve learned more and more, like, oh my God, wait a minute, we’ve just kind of treated women and our health almost like if you’re golfing, there’s the tee that’s further back for the guys and there’s the tee that’s a little bit closer for the women, and we’re just going to treat everybody the same, but shrink it a little bit.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yep, “shrink and pink” is what we called it in the industry.

MEL ROBBINS:

Shrink and pink.

DR. STACY SIMS:

So we’ll take running shoes or a bicycle. All they do is they make it a little bit smaller, maybe put some pink on it and say it’s a woman’s product.

MEL ROBBINS:

It’s so true.

DR. STACY SIMS:

I know. And it’s like, wait, that’s not really appropriate. You’ll see in my book, there’s some pink, and that’s an homage to shrink and pink. Because that’s what people think is honoring women by making it a little bit smaller and let’s bling it up with some color. And we’re going to call it a woman’s product. And that is not appropriate.

MEL ROBBINS:

Well, the other thing that I think has been really fascinating—we’re going to get into this—is just that a lot of the research has only been done on men and there hasn’t been research on how certain things have an impact on women and our hormones and our body structure and our composition, which is, as you’ve already said, fundamentally different than that of somebody who’s male.

And so I’m excited for you to take a step by step by step and help us kind of tee up all the assumptions that we’ve all just kind of come to assume that work for men but don’t work for women. And what we need to know and need to be doing to actually work with our bodies and take better care of ourselves.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Perfect.

The Most Common Mistake Women Make

MEL ROBBINS:

So what’s the most common mistake that women make by following male-centric fitness advice?

DR. STACY SIMS:

They don’t get any results and they end up what we call “tired but wired.” I mean, if you look at most women who make a point to get up, do some training, go exercise, and it happens so often.

After four weeks of following the same kind of training program as their male partner, their male partner has gotten leaner, fitter, better cognition, focus, all of the things that you want out of fitness. And the woman’s like, how come I’m fatter and tired and I don’t have any increase in my fitness like my partner does?

And I see it all the time. And I’m always explaining, well, one, your partner might get up and go fasted training. Women’s bodies don’t respond well to fasted training.

MEL ROBBINS:

What’s fasted training? I don’t even know what the heck this is.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Fasted training means you’re not having any food before you go do exercise.

MEL ROBBINS:

Oh, so—well, that’s what I would always do. I would always literally, I’m going to eat after. Because my husband would eat after and then we would—my mouth is on the floor. You can see this on YouTube. But as you’re listening, I’m processing this because I’m thinking how often I’ve been pissed off at Chris, my husband.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS:

Because we will take on some challenge together. And I’m like, this is not fair. How is it that this is actually making you lose weight? And I feel like I’m puffier and fluffier and tired and pissed off.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yep.

MEL ROBBINS:

And I’m following the same steps. I’m doing the intermittent fasting. I’m not eating beforehand. I’m slamming the thing after. I’m doing that. And I’m like, what the hell is going on? And this is because he’s male and I’m female.

The Importance of Eating Before Morning Exercise

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yep, exactly. And it comes really to the brain. Right. So when we start looking just at first thing, you get up, and our responses are different. Where women’s brains will start going, okay, where’s the food to come in to help bring my stress hormones down and get me started for the day? Okay.

And men, by the nature of being XY, their brain’s like, eh, okay, I’m going to supply some amino acids and some blood sugar and let’s get on with the day. Then we’ll find some food. That’s fine.

But women’s brain, specifically what we call the hypothalamus, that is really sensitive to blood sugar and food coming in. So if you get up and you start your exercise without any food, the hypothalamus is like, wait a second. This is a stress to the body that I need to really try to figure out.

But if I don’t have food to counter the fuel that the muscles are needing from a contraction, I need to find a way to supply that fuel. So it goes into a little bit of a tizzy. And one of the first things that starts to get broken down is your muscle mass, because the muscle is a pretty active tissue.

And the hypothalamus is like, well, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to supply the food that this muscle needs if I don’t have any food coming in. So it’s a very small amount of food that a woman needs first thing in the morning to then go be successful in her training. And it’s even if you’re going for a walk, a lot of women will get up and go for a walk on the auspice.

MEL ROBBINS:

Are you with me? Are you in my house with me?

DR. STACY SIMS:

Maybe.

MEL ROBBINS:

Stacy. I’m sitting here thinking to myself, I think a lifetime of messaging about, like, thin is preferable.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS:

And that I want to maximize calories burned. So I’m going to get up and I’m going to have a cup of coffee because I’m tired. And now I’m going to wire myself. And then I, you know, back in the day would be going for a run or going to some sort of, like, fitness class. You know, I’m old enough to have been doing step aerobics and everything.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Right there with you.

MEL ROBBINS:

Let’s go. And I’ve just carried that over. And I also then tell myself a story that I’m going to get a cramp or I’m going to, like, want to throw up in my mouth if I’m doing something too much and I’ve had too much to eat. And so this is a completely different change for me.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah. And it’s one that’s going to be really super beneficial.

MEL ROBBINS:

So every woman listening and every woman in your life, if you’re listening and you’re male, needs to know that one of the biggest mistakes that we’re making by following male-centric fitness advice is we need as women, biologically and physiologically speaking, to actually have something to eat first thing when we get up.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yes. Yes. And when we start looking at it, I did a competition a couple of weekends ago just for fun, and I had so many women come up and go, “The first thing that you did to change my life was to tell me to eat beforehand. And now my training is better, my outcomes are better, I have more energy.”

And I’m like, well, of course. Because your brain is like, I can handle this stress. So if you are supplying fuel to the empty tank, of course you’re going to go far. If you think about trying to drive a car and rev it up and get it on the highway to at speed with it on empty, it’s not going to get very far.

So I tried to explain to women, if you’re going to get up and even if you’re going for a walk, like, you want to maximize what you’re doing. You want your metabolism to fire on all cylinders. You want to get some aerobic fitness through that. You need to supply just a little bit of fuel.

And it doesn’t mean a full meal. It could be the protein coffee, it could be a couple of tablespoons of yogurt, half a banana. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to bring your blood sugar up and tell your brain, yeah, I’ve got this, I’ve got this.

MEL ROBBINS:

So the first change already, small change, but critical one for our biology and physiology, is you need to eat something before you move or exercise in the morning.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS:

And to also, I think, like, the bigger thing here for me is that I’m starting to realize I have been so brainwashed about the fact that you need to be thin.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yes.

Shifting the Paradigm: From Thin to Strong

MEL ROBBINS:

That it’s a paradigm shift to actually think, well, wait a minute, I need to learn how to work with my body and my natural wiring to make it work for me and to actually optimize the way that my body’s designed as a woman.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Right. And one of the things that has come up recently in conversations where some women who’ve just started into strength training realm or have dropped all of their big cardio walking, because we all come from the 80s and 90s of do 90 minutes of aerobics and that’s not appropriate. So they’ve gotten out of that mentality.

But they’ll see other women at the gym who are on the elliptical or treadmill or out running and they look really lean and they’re like, well, I don’t understand. I kind of want to look like that, but I know that I need to be doing strength training. So I’m confused.

The women that are 40 plus who are doing the cardio, because for the most part, they’re going to be what we call “skinny fat.” So that means that they’re not going to have a lot of quality muscle. There’s going to be a lot of fatty tissue within the muscle and their bones are going to be like chalk.

Because if we are doing all that cardio work and we’re not looking at how our bodies are aging and what we need, we need the food before the training, we need to put in some strength training. Then we’re going to continuously be breaking down the tissue that we want to keep to age well.

So when we’re talking about that mentality of, well, what do I do? It’s like these small steps of, yeah, let’s have some food before. Let’s look at how we are dosing our exercise, what kinds of intensities. Let’s bring in some strength training because all of those are going to feed forward to having our lean mass, having really strong bones, having really good neural plasticity.

So that means how your brain changes in a positive way so as we age, we don’t get dementia. So these are all the things that I would rather women focus on then the drive from the 90s to be Kate Moss thin. Because on the outside, that drive to be super thin is killing us on the inside.

MEL ROBBINS:

Wow. You mentioned protein coffee.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS:

Can you explain what that is and how that might satisfy the first takeaway, which is eat before you move in the morning?

The Protein Coffee Solution

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yeah. So a lot of women don’t have an appetite first thing in the morning. I’m one of those. But I know that I need fuel, so I’m very much an espresso addict. I love it.

And one of the simple things that I do is I make a double espresso at night, and I mix some protein powder into my almond milk or whatever milk you want, and then I put the hot coffee in there and put it in the fridge overnight. And then it’s my go-to first thing in the morning, where then I’m getting my 30 grams of protein, I’m getting my caffeine. It tastes like a latte. I’m good to go.

And so that’s a first hit. It’s a first eating opportunity to bring in some of that protein that we need. And if you’re going to go do any kind of exercise, knowing that exercise mutes your appetite, then it also helps with that recovery part because you’re going to have those amino acids circulating.

Your brain is going to say, hey, yeah, okay, I’ve got stuff to rebuild tissue. So it’s a really good way of being able to have what you need without feeling overfull and still enjoying some of the good things of life, like coffee.

MEL ROBBINS:

Well, you’ve changed my life already.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yay.

MEL ROBBINS:

Because I’ve got two takeaways. The first one is, and I still want to stay on it. So I actually understand why eating first thing before I move my body and having fuel first thing in the morning is actually super important. And I want to unpack that a little bit more.

But I want to hover on the protein coffee because I’m drinking it right now. You made me one in our studios here in Boston. This is going to change my life, and here’s why.

I have struggled forever since I’ve learned, and a lot of us are learning as women, that focusing on more protein and especially getting protein first thing in the morning is super important. And I’m always struggling with how the hell am I going to get 30 grams of protein first thing in the morning without choking down 10 egg whites?

And what do I do if I’m on the go? And what do I do if I’m tired of eggs? And what do I do if I don’t have a blender near me and my stuff? What do I like?

And so you literally took a scoop of protein, shoved it in milk, put in espresso, stirred it up and put on ice. It tastes like a f*ing milkshake. And what I love about this is that A, I can make it the night before, B, it’s 30 grams of protein in a cup, which C means I could even take this on the walk with me.

I could take this in the car if I’m dropping my kids off somewhere. I could make this on the road. Like, this is such an incredible tip. So thank you for that.

DR. STACY SIMS:

You’re welcome.

Understanding Circadian Rhythms and Eating Windows

MEL ROBBINS:

What I want to do though, Dr. Sims, is you mentioned that when women wake up, our brains are different than the guys and our stress levels are higher. And it is important to understand that and to give yourself a little bit of fuel.

What happens in your body if you do start eating breakfast in the morning or use, because a lot of women skip it. A lot of women are now intermittent fasting. A lot of people are waiting until noon. A lot of people don’t want to eat before they exercise because they don’t want cramps or they actually want to maximize calorie burn.

But what is the benefit to a woman in particular first thing in the morning if you give yourself fuel?

DR. STACY SIMS:

There’s a few things to unpack there. So first we look at eating opportunities because there’s so many women who are one, trying to lose weight or two, already in the fitness space and following some of the trends that don’t eat enough. So if you aren’t eating enough, you’re not going to actually change your body composition.

So we look at eating opportunities first thing in the morning. 30 grams of protein, boom. That’s an eating opportunity that you’re not really feeling overly full, but it’s such a great benefit to the body and you’re ahead of the game by having 30 grams of protein.

We also look at some of the newer research that’s coming out about our circadian rhythms or how our body goes through 24-hour cycle. And for people who break their fast by around 8 a.m. and then they don’t eat after 6 p.m. have all these great metabolic outcomes that you would expect from, quote, “intermittent fasting.” But we see that people who hold a fast till noon or after don’t get any of that benefit.

MEL ROBBINS:

So if we look.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Well, why, why is that? We have to understand that half an hour after a woman wakes up, we have a spike in cortisol that’s our stress hormone. If we don’t have food to tell the brain to drop that, then we stay in this heightened stress state.

And what cortisol is responsible for is that fight or flight, but also providing fuel for being able to fight or flight. So the first thing that goes is we start chewing into our lean mass, which is bone and muscle, and a signal to keep our body fat, especially as we start to get older.

MEL ROBBINS:

Wait a minute. So not eating and not eating because you think it’s going to help you lose weight? Actually counterproductive is counterproductive because it’s signaling your body to stay in fight or flight, which makes your body hold on to fat.

DR. STACY SIMS:

Yes.

MEL ROBBINS:

Are you kidding me?

The Truth About Fasted Training for Women

DR. STACY SIMS: No. I mean, when we look at the trends of the fasted training, don’t eat before, it’s all on male data. And the difference between men and women in the situation is again, it comes down to the brain.

So a man can get by with the fasted training. Because when we’re looking at getting up and holding a fast or going training without food for a man’s body, it stimulates the little molecular structures in the muscles to use more fat because their muscle structure and the types of fibers that they have are different than women’s.

So men have what we call more glycolytic or fibers that use glucose and not as many oxidative or the fibers that use fat as a fuel. Women, we’re born with more of those oxidative fat burning fibers. So when we go and we don’t provide fuel, the body’s like, I’m going to store fat because I’m going to need it, because that’s the preferred fuel for your muscles.

So men’s bodies will start to adapt to be able to use more fat, which is why you see fasting and holding a fast working so well in men. But for women, it doesn’t do the same because we have different feedback mechanisms from the brain. We have different muscle requirements because of different morphology we call or different muscle fiber types.

So this is where, you know, we start looking at all the stuff that we’ve been trained to do over the decades and how counterproductive and harmful it can be for women who are trying to improve body composition and bone.

MEL ROBBINS: Wow. Now, does eating first thing in the morning, because you mentioned the circadian rhythm for a woman also help you sleep better at night?

How Morning Eating Improves Sleep Quality

DR. STACY SIMS: Absolutely.

MEL ROBBINS: How come?

DR. STACY SIMS: Because if we’re looking at decreasing our overall stress response so that cortisol, bringing the cortisol down over the course of time, you’re going to have a lower baseline of that cortisol. If you have a lower baseline of cortisol, then your body can get into what we call parasympathetic. So that’s what you need to sleep if you have this high elevation of cortisol all the time. We’re always sympathetically wired, so we can’t get into deep reparative sleep. So you see a lot of awakenings.

The other thing that happens when women front load their food, so we have a lot of our calories in the day, which we should. Then when we go to sleep, we aren’t waking up with hypoglycemia. That means we’re not waking up with low blood sugar because a lot of women who under eat or hold a fast and they aren’t eating enough, their awakenings at night is due to low blood sugar.

MEL ROBBINS: I thought it was because I had to pee. It’s also because of the low blood sugar. Doctor Sims, where the hell have you been? Like, I needed you in my life, like decades ago.

DR. STACY SIMS: I needed me then too. It’s taken me this long to be able to acquire all the knowledge and the research. So now I’m hoping that we can hit all of the listeners so that they will learn what we should have known decades ago.

MEL ROBBINS: This is so eye opening. Like already you have highlighted so many differences between men and women just in the morning, just in the stress levels, just in the fuel that we need in the morning, in the muscle composition, like all of it. And it also is very illuminating because it makes a lot of sense then as to why the programs that work for Chris and seem to work like magic actually leave me frustrated and tired.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

The Ideal Breakfast for Women

MEL ROBBINS: So what would be the ideal breakfast for anyone? Whether like, and let’s just talk about the person who just wants to move more. They want to take better care of their body. They want to understand how their body works so that you’re getting better results and you’re feeling better in your life. So what would breakfast look like just on an average morning, if you know, for anybody.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah, that I will say that it’s a hard one because people have different food preferences.

MEL ROBBINS: How about an avatar?

DR. STACY SIMS: What’s an avatar?

MEL ROBBINS: A makeup person.

DR. STACY SIMS: Okay.

MEL ROBBINS: A makeup person.

DR. STACY SIMS: Makeup person. So we’ll say there’s a woman who is plant based but not vegetarian. So she has a preference for plants. Three kids, super busy. Wakes up, has been waking up tired, but wired, didn’t sleep well. Was like, okay, I need to make this change. Never hungry in the morning.

So we can split her breakfast. It could be overnight oats, which is chia seeds, oatmeal, some milk, or oat milk to soak it. Then when she gets up, she’s like, I’m going to split that in half. The first half, I’m going to add some berries and maybe another tablespoon of Greek yogurt. Because then I’m going to get some protein, some carbohydrates, some fiber, and it’s going to calm me down, it’s going to tell my brain, yep, ready to go.

Okay, then you either are going out for your walk, maybe you’re going to do some home strength training, maybe you’re meeting a friend for a session, maybe you’re taking 15 minutes of just breath work to bring yourself down. Especially if you’re the avatar of three kids and a busy life, just taking that moment to put yourself first.

And then when you get back, maybe it’s an hour, hour and a half later, you have the second half, the second half of those overnight oats with a few more tablespoons of Greek yogurt and some nuts and berries. Because then you’re getting the protein carbohydrate. So you’ve actually split your breakfast. But you’ve given your body the benefit of food and different eating opportunities without being overfull.

But at the end, you end up with 30 grams of protein over the course of a couple of hours. So it’s easy. You can mix it up, do it the night before. You know that I’m not that hungry, but if I have a little bit, and then over the course of a couple of weeks, you’re going to find that you’re going to wake up going, yeah, I need some food.

And this is kind of a reset of your circadian rhythm. Your body is starting to fall in line. Your hypothalamus is understanding, your appetite hormones are starting to work properly. And when all of that feeds forward, then you’re going to start to see changes in body composition because you’re having better sleep. So we can’t change anything if our sleep is perturbed.

So the more we focus on how are we going to work with our body’s natural rhythms and the way that our hormones work, the more it feeds into better parasympathetic drive for better sleep.

The Consequences of Skipping Breakfast

MEL ROBBINS: I have just so screwed this up. Like, I literally wake up, I delay the coffee, I exercise on an empty stomach, I then have my coffee, which I’m then drinking on an empty stomach, which means I’ve now maximized stressing myself out. And then I’m slamming something that has 30, 45 grams of protein after I work out.

And so what have you done? If you are the kind of person like I am that you’ve bought into all the BS and you’ve basically been starving yourself in the morning, and even if you get out for a walk, how are you kind of actually not only not getting the benefit, but you’re making it worse. What’s happening in, like, the person’s body when you do not feed yourself first thing in the morning as a woman?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah. I always bring it down to what are we doing when we want to exercise? Right. We’re looking for better blood glucose control, we’re looking for better bone, we’re looking for better muscle. If you’re not eating, then you are not going to get better at any of that stuff because the body, again, is like, I need fuel for the stress that’s occurring and I need fuel for the exercise.

MEL ROBBINS: So if you’ve been brainwashed like I am and you’re exercising because you are trying to, like, lose weight or you’re trying to look thin, what is happening? If I continue to go down that route where I don’t eat before I exercise, and I’m basically starving myself and I’m going for my walk and I’m delaying food?

DR. STACY SIMS: You lose muscle. And then the other thing, when we look at women who are late 30s, early 40s onwards, we get a signal to put on more visceral fat. So that’s that deep belly fat that’s metabolically active, that can be dangerous.

So I’ll see women who are doing the same pursuit and really proud of the fact that they’re intermittent fasting. They’re not breaking their fast till noon. They’ve had their coffee to hold them through. And you do a DEXA.

MEL ROBBINS: What’s a DEXA?

Understanding DEXA Scans and Body Composition

DR. STACY SIMS: A DEXA is when you go and you get a complete body scan. So it looks at your muscle, it looks at fat where fat’s put, it looks at how dense your bones are.

So we see their DEXA results and on the outside, they look healthy. Right. But on the inside, it’s a bit of a scary story where we see low bone density, we see an increase of fat accumulating in the belly area, which means that it’s more what we call metabolically active. So you see a change in your cholesterol, so you have more of the, quote, bad cholesterol that’s elevated. You have more inflammatory markers, which is a predisposition for diabetes. We see insulin resistance.

So I know that the listeners, and maybe you’re thinking about, well, I’ve been doing this forever and I don’t have any bad blood markers. What’s going on? I didn’t say that it necessarily comes out. That’s the worst case scenario. But when we look at what’s happening on the inside, I don’t want your bones to be like chalk. And I don’t want you not to have muscle to be able to get up and run after your grandkids or carry your groceries into your house.

So if we just make that small change by having some food first thing and then carrying on with your day, you’re going to get the impetus to build muscle, you’re going to get the impetus to keep your bone and you’re going to be able to reduce the signaling for that deep belly fat.

And it’s all those health, like, I understand it because I’ve been there. I grew up in that same 1980s, 1990s, and I still get it in my head sometimes, like, well, is this the right thing? And I’ve done the research, I’ve been in the lab, I’ve implemented it. So it is really difficult to get your head around. But you have to look at the long term. It’s like, where do you want to be in 5 years, 10 years, 15 years from now?

Breaking the Diet Culture Mindset

MEL ROBBINS: Well, and I also think it’s just like, if you actually are working out not only to take care of yourself, but because you do want to change the composition of your body, you do want to be a little leaner, you do want to be stronger, that. But focusing on the actual science, and this is like a complete turnaround for me, that you need to actually eat more.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes.

MEL ROBBINS: In order to lose.

DR. STACY SIMS: Exactly.

MEL ROBBINS: Which is the exact opposite of the brainwashing that all women and girls have received for their entire life. And so it’s so helpful to hear you talk about the science and it makes so much sense because I think we’ve all had that experience in our life. We’re like, I am trying and this isn’t working.

And the first mistake that I’ve been making for now, 56 years, I’m understanding, is literally not eating before I exercise. And one thing I wanted to ask is, does this work for everyone? I got this listener question because when people found out that you were coming, oh my God, it was like our website crashed. Ruby wrote in, “Why do some people have natural muscle tone and some of us can eat right, work out, and we are still flabby and not toned?”

Understanding Body Types and Muscle Building

DR. STACY SIMS: There are lots of things on this. And I wish that Ruby was in this room because then I could say, well, let’s look at your morphology so your body type. So there are some women who have a better predisposition for building muscle. We call those mesomorphic. And then we have other women who struggle really hard to put muscle mass on and they tend to be a little bit flabbier. And that is more of our endomorphic. And then we have in the middle the ectomorphic that are the super skinny Kate Moss. And most of the time people are a mix of that.

MEL ROBBINS: Okay.

DR. STACY SIMS: So when you look at those different muscle types and you’re looking at doing all the work and not getting any benefit, I want to see what kind of training you’re doing. Because if we are looking at when you’re eating and how you’re complementing your exercise, then we can make gains. And every woman’s a little bit different.

Like my sister, she isn’t so into athletics and stuff that I am. We grew up in the same household, but I was always out building tree forts and she was in reading books. But over the past year, she’s really put herself into getting stronger and strength training. Body composition is changing. Her grip strength is stronger.

And she’s like, “I never really thought that lifting weights would help me change my body composition.” I was like, “Why have you not thought of that? Like, if you’re lifting under load, you build muscle.” She’s like, “But then that’s weight on the scale. And I was always afraid of the weight on the scale, not the outcome of looking better.” Right.

MEL ROBBINS: And then we also, because we’ve been so gaslit to think that it’s about being so thin.

DR. STACY SIMS: Right.

MEL ROBBINS: And that’s what’s desirable that you hear from build muscle. And you’re like, but I don’t want to bulk up. I’m actually trying to lean down. And what you’re saying is.

DR. STACY SIMS: No, no, no.

MEL ROBBINS: This is actually like putting on your own Spanx with your muscles.

DR. STACY SIMS: Right.

MEL ROBBINS: It tightens you up.

DR. STACY SIMS: Right. And I will say, I sit here and I know people always comment about my arms.

MEL ROBBINS: It takes a lot of work to get arms like that, I would think.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: But the other thing is, I mean, they’re amazing arms.

DR. STACY SIMS: Thanks.

MEL ROBBINS: I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt for a reason. If I had your arms, I’d be wearing a tank top too.

DR. STACY SIMS: I would love it if all of this would go lower body. Like, I have tried for years to get really strong hamstrings and really strong glutes. They’re strong, but they’re not bulky. It’s just mesomorphic up here, ectomorphic down. So it’s the difference in the combination.

But I went through a time where I was really upset with the fact that I had more muscle. Like when I was bike racing, I tried really hard to lose it, but I couldn’t because my body’s like, no, this is how you are born.

So women who are like, “I’m really trying to build muscle,” it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get bulky. If you don’t have a genetic predisposition for putting muscle on really easily, it’s really hard to get bulky. And for most women who are trying to put muscle on, not eating or doing lots of cardio work, you’re not going to put muscle on. It’s really hard to get bulky.

MEL ROBBINS: So what do you want everyone to know about exercise as opposed to diet?

Exercise Provides the Health Outcomes Diets Promise

DR. STACY SIMS: So when we look at all the diet trends that are out there, right, we see the plant based, the carnivorous, the keto, the intermittent fasting, all of the things. They are born out of a want for better health, body composition, better gut, all of those things. But if you exercise, then you get all of those things.

MEL ROBBINS: Wait a minute, say that again.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: Okay, so hold on a second. So all of those diets are designed to try to create a health outcome through eating?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes.

MEL ROBBINS: But if you exercise, the exercise provides the health outcome.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes, because we look at exercises as a stress. We have gotten into a societal idea that we all live in the same kind of temperature. We have automatic garage door openers, we have the Internet, we have our computers, even driverless cars. So we have created this environment where we don’t move.

The outcome of having an environment where we don’t move and we don’t have a lot of green space or opportunities to even walk places, is now we have this obesity epidemic. And even if you’re not facing obesity, you’re facing some overweightness and you’re being bombarded by all these diet styles.

If we were just to put a pause on the diet style and just take a step back and say, “You know what, if I go back to eating normally,” which means that I’m eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I’m not eating snacks after dinner, and I’m kind of paying attention to kind of food that I’m eating, so it’s nutrient dense. It’s not all these ultra processed things. There’s no protein Pop Tarts because it says protein on it.

MEL ROBBINS: You know what I call this, Dr. Sims? The grandparent diet.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes. Okay.

MEL ROBBINS: Basically how your grandparents lived.

DR. STACY SIMS: Right, exactly. And then you put in some exercise, because exercise is a stress. The body’s very adaptable to stress. So if we’re looking at doing a…

MEL ROBBINS: Longer, harder walk up a hill.

DR. STACY SIMS: After a couple of weeks of doing that, it’s going to be easy because your body’s adapted to that stress. We call it getting fitter, but actually your body has adapted all of its mechanisms to that stress. So if we’re looking at how do I get a better…

MEL ROBBINS: Okay, hold on a second. So I just had this epiphany.

DR. STACY SIMS: Okay.

Exercise Is About Building Stress Resilience

MEL ROBBINS: I can’t believe how many bombs you’re dropping today. I’ve never thought about exercise that way because I’ve focused on, you have to exercise to get in better shape. What you’re saying is exercise is intentionally moving and stressing your body in a way that it needs and is designed to do. And in response to the stress, your body gets stronger at being able to manage stress.

DR. STACY SIMS: Exactly.

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, my God.

DR. STACY SIMS: It’s stress resilience.

MEL ROBBINS: And the reason why we’re so flabby and everything else is because we’re sitting around and not moving and not stressing our bodies in the way that we need to. And that only makes us more stressed out.

DR. STACY SIMS: Right. Because we look at stress, mental health, all of the things that are really plaguing everyone. And the part of it is lack of community, lack of empathy, all of these things that breed depression, mental health, and the fact that we aren’t moving our bodies.

There’s so much research out there that says if you go for a walk, you are reducing stress. If you go for a walk and you actually go to a green space, so that’s to a park, and you’re in nature, it induces an incredible parasympathetic response, which means that you reduce stress.

But because we are so ingrained to doing all the things all the time, inside, sitting and not actually getting outside, having the fresh air, having that connection with being outside and moving our bodies, we are, by design now a global of very stressed out, unempathetic, depressed people.

And if we’re talking about how do we just make one small change to improve our mental health, that’s exercise. I’m not necessarily here as an exercise physiologist to tell you, the listener, to go out and go for a long, hard walk because you want better body composition.

I’m here as an exercise physiologist to explain what exercise is. It is an incredible positive stress on the body that creates changes from central nervous system down to the smallest little thing in your cell to improve your overall stress resilience and metabolism. Meaning how your body handles food, how your brain reacts to stress, how your brain perceives an environment.

And just the moving part really does help bring center and bring yourself back to you. I believe it.

MEL ROBBINS: And I want to see if I can just use an example to try to really paint the picture of what you’re teaching us right now, which is an entirely different way to think about the importance of movement and exercise, strength training, whatever it is that you’re going to do when you go for a walk.

And let’s say you go for a walk and you were mentioning you go for a walk and there’s a hill in your neighborhood and when you have to go up the hill, we’ve all experienced this. You get shortness of breath, you gotta be using your legs a little bit more to go up the incline, make it a little winded, a little sweaty. Even if you got a dog on a leash pulling you up the hill like you’re going. And that is you, by exercising your body, putting yourself in a stressful situation.

DR. STACY SIMS: Right.

MEL ROBBINS: Because it’s requiring your body to exert effort and to move against that incline. And it’s designed to do that.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: And if you keep doing that over time, what you’re actually doing, in addition to all the positive things that happen is you’re training your body on how to be strong in situations that are stressful.

DR. STACY SIMS: Right.

MEL ROBBINS: So the more that you walk and the more that you build muscle and the more that you take the advice that you’re about to give us about what we should specifically be doing as women, fast forward six months from now, if you keep doing that and you’re sitting in a stressful meeting at work, the impact of that outside stress on you is going to be way less. Because you and your life have been strengthening your body by going to the gym and going for a walk. So that your body can actually be in stressful situations and not get hijacked.

DR. STACY SIMS: Exactly. So the whole flight or fight response that people talk about with cortisol, we’re flighting. We’re teaching our body that flight by exercising. And your body’s like, “This is a stress. I need to understand it, overcome it, get stronger.”

Could also think about it as the fight response too. Because if you’re in the gym and you’re building the muscle and you’re ready to go, coiled up, ready to go, your body’s learning that stress. Because we’re not an algorithm, we adapt to so many different things.

So if we put our body into an uncomfortable or challenged situation, doesn’t like it. So it learns how to overcome that and get stronger in the process. So when, as you’re explaining, it’s like, yes, it’s all about stress resilience.

If we’re resilient to stress in a meeting, our immune system is also really resilient to stuff that’s going around. And we’re also resilient enough to maintain a focus. If we’re getting ready to lose it and our kid goes off, we’re not going to break down and start yelling at our partner or our kid because we have this stress resilience. We’re able to take that pause.

MEL ROBBINS: It makes so much sense. And, you know, you’ve talked a lot about strength training. Why is strength training so important for women in particular?

Why Strength Training Is Critical for Women

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah, I wish I had known about strength training way back when. I was introduced to it when I was 16 because my friend’s brother was a bodybuilder. And I was like, “Oh, okay, I’ll go, because, Michelle, you’re going, I’ll go with you.” But I didn’t really realize what that meant.

So when we talk about the science of strength training right now, we know that with age, we lose muscle really quickly. Start to lose it when we hit 30. And it’s really important because, one, it’s an active tissue, so it helps maintain so many different systems in our body.

Not only that, but we think about strength training and how it puts leverage on the bone to improve bone. But the big thing really is when we think about cognitive decline. So we see that there’s a sex difference as we get older in Alzheimer’s, dementia, cognitive decline. And it has to do with brain metabolism. So that’s the fuel that your brain uses and what we call neuroplasticity, or how your brain adapts and creates neural pathways.

If we’re strength training, then, yeah, we’re taking care of our bone and our muscle. But it’s creating signals to the brain to increase its ability to be really plastic. So it’s like, “Yeah, okay, I need to have a new pathway. Let’s develop that pathway.” And so it’s always changing. It’s like Sudoku, right? You’re mentally working on that.

But strength training does the same thing, but it also improves overall metabolism. So now your brain is very flexible. And it’s like, “Okay, well, I need glucose. But then I can use lactate.”

So when you start doing all of these things, it reduces your chances of developing cognitive issues. So for women, I’m always like, yes, strength training is great because we’re building all these things. We’re changing our body composition, but for the long term, we want to have a good body and a good mind.

So if we’re doing these things and creating more pathways and developing existing pathways and making the brain very responsive and able to be flexible, then we’re going to have a really good sound mind when we’re all doing Zimmer frame races when we’re 100.

MEL ROBBINS: What are Zimmer frame races?

DR. STACY SIMS: You know, those frames that old women have to use or old men?

MEL ROBBINS: I’ve never seen those. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

DR. STACY SIMS: In the nursing homes. You haven’t seen the Silver Walkers?

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, yes. I thought there was a game you were talking about.

DR. STACY SIMS: No, no.

MEL ROBBINS: I have a feeling you’re not going to be using a walker. I have a feeling you’re going to be the one teaching us all how to lift weights when we’re 90 years old in the nursing home together.

DR. STACY SIMS: Well, no, I’ll be using a Zimmer frame. I’ll be doing the races with everyone else, because I can’t say that my joints are all that great.

MEL ROBBINS: So what is the biology behind building muscle and how is it different for men versus women? Like, what do women need to know?

Understanding Women’s Fatigue Resistance and Recovery

DR. STACY SIMS: Women are what we call more fatigue resistant. So as I was describing earlier, the differences in the muscle fiber types, right? So women have more of those fat burning we call endurant fibers. So that means that you can do lots of work and then you recover relatively quickly.

So when we’re looking at sets and reps and things like that, women don’t need as much recovery time between your sets and reps to be able to have the same kind of training stress. Now break that down, please, because I—

MEL ROBBINS: Don’t know anything that you just talked about.

DR. STACY SIMS: I was good.

MEL ROBBINS: Sets, reps. Okay, what are we doing?

DR. STACY SIMS: So say you have a man and a woman that go to the gym and they’re like, okay, I’m supposed to do five sets.

MEL ROBBINS: So that’s five sets.

DR. STACY SIMS: So, yeah, this is—

MEL ROBBINS: This is a lot.

DR. STACY SIMS: I know. It’s an avatar here.

MEL ROBBINS: Okay, well, let’s just use an avatar of somebody who is just starting. Okay, so, like, we’re going to, like, what’s the bare minimum, Doctor? I’m looking for something I can succeed at. Five sets sounds like a lot to me.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah, I’ll get to there. But I want to explain the biology.

MEL ROBBINS: Okay, you tell me the biology, I’ll—

DR. STACY SIMS: Give you the biology, and then I’ll—

MEL ROBBINS: Give you the actionable.

DR. STACY SIMS: Where to start?

MEL ROBBINS: Thank you, Dr. Sims.

The Science Behind Sets and Reps

DR. STACY SIMS: All right, so if we take a man and a woman, they go to the gym, and they have this similar program where they’re supposed to do five sets of five reps on the three minutes. So what does that mean? You do five reps of a squat in three minutes. So however long it takes you to do those, and then you rest the rest of the time for three minutes.

So maybe it takes you 30 seconds to do your five squats, and then you have two minutes and 30 seconds to recover.

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, okay.

DR. STACY SIMS: And you do that five times. So that’s five by five. So if a man and a woman both do that, and we look over time, the strength, the relative strength gain, so that means relative to sex and body weight, man will acquire better strength gains than a woman.

But if we were to change that recovery for the woman to go five sets on five by five on the two minute. So she does it in 30 seconds and has a minute 30 recovery, then over a course of time, she’ll have the same outcomes because her body is like, “I don’t need as much rest.” So it starts to kind of downturn with so much rest. So you can put more training stress on in less time as a woman. Wow.

So this is one of the things that we’re starting to really discover in the strength training research. Because it’s relatively new, we’re like, okay, we know that there’s a sex difference in the muscle fiber types where women have more of these endurant type fibers, men have more of the fast twitch glycolytic fibers.

So if we really want to maximize the outcome of our strength training, we need to work to women’s physiology where they don’t need as much rest to get the same kind of stress and outcome. And you know what I like about that time?

MEL ROBBINS: It doesn’t take as much time.

DR. STACY SIMS: Exactly.

MEL ROBBINS: I don’t think a lot of time. So that’s very good news, Dr. Sims. You know, I’m about to ask you a bunch of questions about the specifics of what we should be doing, but I had one question. You know, whenever I’m complaining about my body or, you know, feeling out of shape or whatever it is that I want to change, my husband always turns to me and says, “Well, don’t forget, abs are built in the kitchen, not in the gym.”

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: Is this like a man’s—is that what works for men?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah, it works for men, definitely. Yep.

Why “Abs Are Built in the Kitchen” Doesn’t Work for Women

MEL ROBBINS: Because when I hear that abs are built in the kitchen, not in the gym, I’m like, am I supposed to starve myself? What are you talking about?

DR. STACY SIMS: Right. So this comes back to the fasting, and I get really frustrated. More men will drop alcohol, they’ll drop sugar, and then all of a sudden their abs are ripped. Right. They’re like belly fat gone. Yes, but for women, we tend to store belly fat.

MEL ROBBINS: Correct. And if I’m not drinking, I want results.

DR. STACY SIMS: I know, but it doesn’t necessarily happen.

MEL ROBBINS: No, it doesn’t, Dr. Sims.

DR. STACY SIMS: It doesn’t.

MEL ROBBINS: This is not fair.

DR. STACY SIMS: No.

MEL ROBBINS: Because I don’t understand my own body.

DR. STACY SIMS: I know it’s very frustrating.

MEL ROBBINS: And I’ve been listening to the bro science of my stupid husband telling me the advice that works for him, and he’s only trying to help. So why does it not work that way for women?

DR. STACY SIMS: We have a higher percent body fat, for one. And again, it comes down to food intake and hypothalamus. So if we start taking out food and not replacing those calories with something else, then we end up in a lower energy state. So that could be a whole other podcast.

But basically, we’re not eating enough to support body composition change and health outcomes. So if we talk about abs in the kitchen, if we’re eating the same kind of grandparent diet, then we’re going to have the same outcomes. Right. But if we have the extra 20% of life where we’re having chocolate and whiskey and all those fun things, man could take it out and get super ripped. Woman takes it out, there’s no change.

MEL ROBBINS: Why?

DR. STACY SIMS: Because the hypothalamus, like, “Where are those calories? I need those calories.” So if we want to eat a little bit cleaner, we have to make sure that we’re actually providing enough calories. So if we’re providing enough calories and our body’s like, “Yep, sweet. We got enough for all the things that we need to do in a day, overcome the stress, and we have enough to fuel the training and the changes we want with the exercise we’re doing.” You’re going to get this apple. Wow.

And then the compound movements, like working abs in a functional way. Not doing sit ups, but like doing deadlifts or squats, where you have to use your abs as a support mechanism. Builds them faster than you see. You know, guys on the floor doing lots of sit ups or Russian twists. Yeah. They’re going to get those strong abs but for women, it’s better to do this compound for that torsion to be able to use it as support because then that allows us to stand upright and have better posture.

Because our center of gravity is down in our hips, men’s center of gravity is up in their chest. So if we’re working to control our posture and develop the strength through our core and we’re standing up taller, our abs show.

MEL ROBBINS: Wow. Because I would be a happy woman if I never had to do a crunch again. And so if I’m actually lifting, that could be true. So let’s talk about the specific things we should be doing.

DR. STACY SIMS: Okay.

The Minimum Amount of Exercise Women Need

MEL ROBBINS: What is the minimum amount of exercise that a woman needs to maintain her health and to be strong?

DR. STACY SIMS: If we are looking from an age standpoint. Okay. Okay.

MEL ROBBINS: Let’s start with our 20s.

DR. STACY SIMS: In our 20s you can get away with a lot, right? What does that mean? So that means that you could do bare minimum couple of days a week of mixed aerobic and strength training. So you don’t have to do that much.

MEL ROBBINS: Okay.

DR. STACY SIMS: So it could be a total body circuit set twice a week.

MEL ROBBINS: That means like going to the gym and doing the machines.

DR. STACY SIMS: You do that. Or you could do an at home circuit where you can do what I say every, every minute on the minute. So you warm up with stretches and mobility for five or so minutes. And then you have five minutes where one minute is jumping lunges. The next minute might be some push ups. The third minute might be some overhead thrust or you know, you’re pushing something overhead. The fourth minute might be some air squats. And then the fifth minute is completely—

MEL ROBBINS: Off where you’re recovering.

DR. STACY SIMS: You do that circuit two or three times. That’s all you need.

MEL ROBBINS: Wow. And you don’t even need equipment.

DR. STACY SIMS: No. That’s your bare minimum. Right?

MEL ROBBINS: Okay.

DR. STACY SIMS: Because we’re talking bare minimums.

Understanding Cardio for Women

MEL ROBBINS: And talk to me about cardio because we’ve all been so obsessed with cardio. So is cardio a good thing, is it a bad thing?

DR. STACY SIMS: So cardio is interesting because it’s about intensity. So if we’re talking about going for a walk, that’s really good. Like you’re walking with a friend.

MEL ROBBINS: Perfect.

DR. STACY SIMS: Because that’s going to allow you to have some metabolic change. It’s going to improve your blood glucose, it’s going to improve your body’s stress resilience and hey, you get to hang out with a friend. So that’s great. It’s community, it’s connection, it’s all of the great things. So that’s one kind of cardio.

If we’re looking at improving our blood pressure, you can do some walking. But what we find is true high intensity work that’s really directed. We call it sprint interval training, where it’s 30 seconds or less as hard as you can go. And it doesn’t have to be running. It could be kettlebell swings, be air squats, jumping lunges, could be running, could be cycling. Anything that’s going to make you go as hard as you can for 30 seconds or less and recover for two minutes.

You might do two or three of those. And that is such a strong stress that it creates this whole cascade of change that improves your entire cardiovascular system.

Sprint Training Explained

MEL ROBBINS: Okay, so let me make sure I’m tracking. So one thing that you would tell us to do is to do sprint training, which sounds horrible, but it actually, as you broke it down, was like—

DR. STACY SIMS: Oh, I could do that. Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: 30 seconds or less of something that’s high intensity, whether you’re sprinting on a treadmill or you’re doing kettlebell swings, or you’re doing push ups, or you’re doing jumping jacks or just something, right? And then you rest for a minute and a half.

DR. STACY SIMS: Minute and a half to two minutes. Because we want a full recovery from—it’s more of a central nervous system recovery because we want to be able to go just as hard, if not harder, for the next interval.

MEL ROBBINS: And then how many of those am I doing?

DR. STACY SIMS: So you don’t want to do any more than five? Oh, I love the minimum.

MEL ROBBINS: That’s it. Yeah, I can do that.

DR. STACY SIMS: That’s the maximum. Five is the maximum.

MEL ROBBINS: Now we’re talking. Dr. Sims, some people will go, I—

DR. STACY SIMS: Can do all five. And then they start. And if they’re doing it properly after two, they’re like, “I can’t do anymore.” Anymore. That’s fine. You’ve gotten that impetus of stress, and it creates this whole cascade where all of a sudden your muscles are releasing signals called myokines. That now is telling your liver, “Let’s not store that visceral fat. We need that fat for other things.”

It’s also telling your body we don’t want to store under the skin, subcutaneous fat. We need that fat for other things. It’s also telling your muscles to open up and bring carbohydrate in. So our insulin become—or we become more sensitive to insulin. So there’s so many great things about that high, high intensity.

And by the way, your blood vessels are going to respond really well. So you get better blood vessel compliance, vasodilation constriction. So better blood pressure control because again, your body responds to stress and it’s such a strong stress. Your body’s like, “There’s this whole myriad of things that I need to be able to do to do that stress again.”

So it’s a really effective means of getting heart health, better metabolic health, and—

MEL ROBBINS: Better body composition and burning fat in 30 seconds of effort. I mean, I am actually going to do that. Good, that sounds like something because when you were growing the box, I’m like, I can absolutely do that. And again, I also love that it doesn’t take a lot of time.

Power-Based Training for Women Over 30

DR. STACY SIMS: No, I mean, I come from a huge endurance background, but now I’m traveling. Like I live in New Zealand, I’m traveling the world. I have a daughter, I have a business, super busy and I still want to exercise because one, it helps with stress resilience. Two, yeah, I’m like, you know, there’s a little aesthetics and vanity in there, of course.

And sprint interval, it’s so between lifting three days a week and some sprint training, that’s pretty much what I do because that’s all I have time for.

MEL ROBBINS: Lifting three days a week. And that sprint training, we just heard of 30 second bursts, full recovery for a minute and a half to two minutes and try to do it five times maximum.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yep. And sometimes I put that on the end of my strength training because if I’m already at the gym, I might finish with some aerodyne bike, you know, 30 seconds as hard as I can go. So I’m maximizing time so I don’t spend any more than 45 minutes to an hour in the gym.

MEL ROBBINS: So if you had to, bottom line, what a woman should be doing in her 20s versus her 30s versus her 40s versus 50s and up, what would it be?

Age-Specific Strength Training Recommendations

DR. STACY SIMS: So strength training across the board, the type of strength training you do is different. So when we’re in our 20s and our early 30s, we can do some of the protocol stuff that is out there for men. Like you’re doing your 10 to 12 reps or you’re going to failure or you’re going in and you’re doing a full body workout, you’re going to get results.

As we start to get into our mid-30s and onward, we start to have changes in our estrogen progesterone and it doesn’t quite work for us because now we need to find an external stress that’s going to create the same responses that those hormones used to support. Okay, so now we want to look at more of a power based type training.

MEL ROBBINS: What does that mean?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: So 30 and up, your hormones change. And now the 10 to 12 reps that we’ve all been socialized to do does not work. Which is why we all start bitching about the fact that our bodies are not responding to what we always used to do. This makes a lot of sense, Dr. Sims.

DR. STACY SIMS: So when you’re doing the higher reps, it’s more of what we call metabolic stress. So that’s more like muscle contraction using fuel, but it’s not an impetus to build lean mass or to become stronger. So this is where I say the power based.

So when we’re talking about the spectrum of weights and the reps and sets and stuff, power based is 0 to 6 to 8 reps.

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, I love that. I can do less.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes. But it has to be heavy. Has to be heavy load. Okay. Yep. So that means that you go and you pick up. Say we pick up this 20, right? And you’re like, oh, yeah, I can do 10 overhead, no problem. Maybe I could do two more. Great. So we call that 10 with two reps in reserve. Okay.

We want you to be at a six with two reps in reserve. So that means I would have you put the 20 down and pick up those 30s and see can you do six really good, not failing form? And then could you eke out two more? Great. That’s the weight that we want you to use. Gotcha.

MEL ROBBINS: So I’m definitely lifting way too light and I am lifting far too much of it. Like the little tiny 2 pound weights with the…

DR. STACY SIMS: Oh, put those down, put those down.

MEL ROBBINS: Like, those aren’t doing anything for my chicken wing arms.

DR. STACY SIMS: No, not at all.

MEL ROBBINS: Okay.

DR. STACY SIMS: Not at all.

MEL ROBBINS: Well, that explains it. Because I’m like, why does this hurt so much? And I’m getting zero result here.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: Because my daughters literally look like they’re cutting.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah. Wow. Because they respond well to metabolic stress. As our bodies get older, we need more of a central nervous system. Gotcha.

MEL ROBBINS: So the general takeaway here is that when we hit that sort of late 30s to 40s mark and our estrogen is dropping and our bodies are changing and we’re not getting the same results, you got to really focus on these sprint trainings and also doing weight training where the load is heavier but the reps are shorter.

Building a Sustainable Strength Training Practice

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah. But I don’t want women who are listening to go, oh, I heard Mel’s podcast and I have to go lift these heavy weights and do sprint training. It takes time to learn how to do things well without getting injured because I mean, we get older, we’re more susceptible to soft tissue injury, joint injuries.

So I always want women to learn how to move first. So if you’ve never done any kind of strength training, don’t be put off by, oh, I heard I have to lift heavy weights, I better not do it at all. No, any kind of resistance is good. Maybe it’s just body weight at the start. Maybe you’re doing a body weight circuit and then maybe you’re putting a backpack with some stuff in there to make it a little bit heavier.

Maybe you’re following somebody online that’s teaching you how to move properly first. And over the course of time you can add load because your body is learning how to move and it’s becoming stress resilient. So you add load to increase that stress and then over the course of six to eight months, you’re going to be in lifting heavy weights and doing the sprints without injury.

So it’s not a training block like we’ve all been conditioned to. What do I do every day? In and out, in and out so I can get X results. We want to think about what am I doing to improve my overall health, my strength, my bones, my brain so that when I’m 80, I’m self sufficient, when I’m 90, I’m self sufficient. It’s not a training block, it’s a lifestyle that we want in. So it takes time to build into that lifestyle.

Machines vs. Free Weights

MEL ROBBINS: So I have another question from a listener named Erin. Is it better to use machines or…

DR. STACY SIMS: Free weights with machines? I want people to realize that it’s hard for a woman to actually get the machines to fit well because they are designed for a 5’8″ to 6 foot guy who’s 160 to 190 pounds. So if you are outside of that norm, it’s really hard to get the right fit which can predispose you to injury.

If you are just getting started, it can be a way because you’re not going to put a lot of load on, you’re not going to get as injured. For me personally, I’m not a huge fan of something like Planet Fitness, but I do appreciate the fact that they’ve opened the doors to so many people to make lifting accessible. So a woman can go in and use their machine circuit and get some resistance and some load to start to get them self resilient so then they can move away from those machines and get into dumbbells.

I like more of the free weights where you have a barbell or a dumbbell because you have to use more of your stabilizing muscles, which is how we move anyway. Because you’re not going to go pick up a bag of groceries just with your arm. Right. So if you’re looking at bicep curls or tricep dips on a machine that’s not functional per se, yes, you’re adding load.

But I like it when people are, okay, I’ve got to lift the groceries or I’ve got to lift this overhead. So I’m going to do a full squat using my abs. And when it go from ground to overhead, it could be with a plate, it could be with the dumbbell. It could just be that motion at start. Because we have to think about how we move in the day.

Overcoming Gym Intimidation

MEL ROBBINS: I would love to have you talk directly to the person listening who has never stepped foot in a gym. Because I do think even though I’m in shape and I know a little bit about what I should be doing, I always feel intimidated when I go to a gym because there’s always guys. It’s filled with guys, and there’s more and more women, which is great.

But if I walk into a gym, even at a hotel, and I’m seeing all the machines and then I see the free weight space and then I see the little space and I don’t know exactly what I should be doing, I don’t stay long and I leave. And I would love to have you, since you’ve been in this industry for so long, talk to the person who wants to do something and wants to learn about this. But the idea of actually walking into the local gym is just daunting.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: So what do you want them to know, though, about the people at the front desk and the way that people at a gym think about somebody new walking in?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah. So gyms are super gendered. I sometimes get intimidated.

MEL ROBBINS: You do?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah. So I’ll say, like, if I go to a typical bro gym, like a Gold’s gym, I’ll walk in and I’ll see the lifting platforms and there’s some big dudes, and I’m like, maybe I’ll come back. I’ll go do something else first. So it’s still there because the gyms are so gendered.

And it’s a fault of that industry where you walk in as a woman, the front desk person looks at you and goes, oh, okay. How much weight do you want to lose? Here’s the cardio machines. Here are our classes. If a guy walks in, they’re like, yo, bro, how much weight do you want to put on how much muscle the lifting platforms are back there and we have bumper plates and our dumbbells go up to 80 pounds. So, you know, it’s all back there.

But it’s so gendered. Even if you feel like I’m going to go to the free weights because you have to walk through all the treadmills and the ellipticals and cardio and then you like the free weights are here and then lifting platforms are at the back. Yes. So it’s not surprising that someone who’s not ever been in a gym situation doesn’t want to go into a gym situation.

And the way that we can get started in this is put the gym out of your head at the moment. Right. So we can look at. There are two main things that allow women to thrive in strength training. One is knowing what to do and two is community. Right. We see that working out with someone else is fun, for one thing, and two, it allows you to push yourself a little bit harder. It’s just intrinsically you want to keep up or you don’t want to look like the weak link. It’s just a psychological thing.

So community working, working out with someone is super important. So if you’re someone who’s like, I don’t want to go to the gym, I don’t know what to do. Well, we can look at some of the online things that are out there. So, like, if you’re really super, super basic and you want someone to work with, maybe one on one or maybe a small group, you can look to someone like Loretta Hogg, who does Loretta Loves Lifting.

MEL ROBBINS: She’s very like…

Cold Plunging for Women

DR. STACY SIMS: She trains her mom, she trains other people who are just trying to really understand how to do stuff in their house. So it’s a very basic way of starting and you can move forward from there.

If you’re someone who’s like, I got that part, but I want to work out with a friend and we want a set program, then maybe you look at someone like the Betty Rocker, where she has specific programs where you can work out with her in her community, or you and a friend can work out together. And that’s a way to do more stuff with dumbbells in the house.

Then we can move forward and go to something like Haley Happens Fitness that I’ve partnered with, where it’s from the gym where you actually have an app that shows you what to do. You can go into the gym, you know exactly what machines or barbell or dumbbells to use. You bring in a friend, you can both do it together. So you’re like, here’s my app. This is what I do. You can record everything, keeps progress and you know exactly what to do. And it’s guided for 12 weeks. And it’s progressive overload, so you get benefit. There’s lots of conversations, there’s lots of community around it.

Or you can even look, if you’re really confident and you’re like, yep, I got that too. I want to go straight to barbell with some dumbbell. Then you can look at something like Annie Torres Daughters in Power, which has a page from CrossFit. So there’s all sorts of levels that you can find.

And the big thing is grab a friend, have a friend and have that ownership to say for 20 minutes, let’s meet, have our conversation and do this together. Because we’re going to get strong together and it’s fun.

I’ve been trying to get my daughter engaged in some strength training stuff. And she’s 12. We have a project coming up where she needs to know how to move properly. And I have her working with one of my friends in a high performance gym. But it’s not lifting, it’s moving and having fun. So she has another little friend in there who’s a surfer and a soccer player just like she is, and they go there and they have fun.

She came back the first day fizzing, going, “I didn’t know how fun it could be at the gym, especially when you have a friend.” I’m like, exactly. It’s the adult playground, but little kids are being exposed to it. It’s like, come into my playground.

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, I love to get a playground.

DR. STACY SIMS: It is absolutely a playground. Where else can you jump up and down on things and then there’s a rope and you can pull the rope or there’s a sled you can push and pretend you’re a bear or whatever it is. It doesn’t matter. Everyone’s there sweating, everyone’s there doing stuff. It’s like, make it time to play. Don’t make it something that you’re like, I don’t want to go. This is too hard.

MEL ROBBINS: And I appreciate the list of resources and we’ll make sure to link to those in the show notes. So I have a bunch of burning questions that listeners submitted.

DR. STACY SIMS: Okay, yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: And we may have covered some of this, but I’m just going to hit these so that I make sure to cover the things that people kept writing in about that they wanted you to answer, Dr. Sims. Okay, can you talk about cold plunging?

DR. STACY SIMS: Sure.

MEL ROBBINS: Should women be doing it? What are the mistakes that we’re making? What’s the difference between men and women and cold plunging?

DR. STACY SIMS: So inherently, women don’t need as cold.

MEL ROBBINS: We don’t?

DR. STACY SIMS: No. When we’re looking at stress response, because that’s how I view all the environmental and exercise things, is what kind of stress it puts on the body. When a woman gets into ice cold or cold water and gets in there, it invokes such a severe, strong stress response, much stronger than a male’s response, that her body goes into more of a shutdown phase, where it invokes a sympathetic drive, and it doesn’t create the metabolic changes that we see with men.

If you were to take a woman and put her in 15 or 16 degrees Celsius, which is around that 55 degree mark, she’ll end up with the same responses that a man has, because it’s not as severe shock to a woman’s body as it is for a man’s.

Why is that? Because we have more body fat, so we tend to vasodilate and vasoconstrict first for controlling our temperature. Where men will vasoconstrict and sweat when they’re cold. No, we’re talking about just in general.

So if we’re taking a woman and putting her in ice, the body’s first response to environmental change is severe vasoconstriction. And with women with Raynaud’s, we have a stronger constriction response because it’s a protective mechanism. For men, they’ll constrict and then start shivering to induce heat. Women will just constrict.

If we put ourselves into that 55 to 60 degree water, or 15 to 16 degrees Celsius, we’ll constrict and then start shivering. So we’ll get the same benefit. It’s just the ice is too cold for us to start that shivering, so we need the shivering for thermogenesis to get some of those responses. So we don’t need ice. We need cool water.

MEL ROBBINS: I have been doing this all wrong.

DR. STACY SIMS: And do you feel uncomfortable when you get into ice?

MEL ROBBINS: Well, I mean, I live in Southern Vermont, so there’s always an ice slick on the thing, and you’re having to take an ax and cut up the top of the barrel or keep an agricultural bubbler in it to keep it from freezing. It’s got to be at least 32 degrees.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah. Too cold.

MEL ROBBINS: And my husband gets in it, and he’s a freaking meditation Zen, he just gets in, sits down, he starts shivering. I climb in that sucker and I’m like. And then I can barely breathe. I never shiver. Right, and the shivering is what you’re supposed to be doing in there.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes, because shivering is an automatic response for survival. Because when we’re shivering, we’re increasing metabolic heat so we’re able to keep our core temperature elevated so we don’t die. And it’s a strong response that the body has to cold.

For women, when we’re vasoconstricting and we’re trying to hold heat in, we don’t have the capacity because water on the cold skin is pulling out the heat so fast that the body is just getting colder and colder and colder. And we won’t really start shivering when it’s that cold.

So when we’re looking at, if you get in the ice, it’s way colder than if you get into a plunge pool that’s cold. So if we have 4 degrees plunge pool, 4 degrees Celsius, so that’s about 38 degrees Fahrenheit. And you sit there in a little microclimate and you don’t move at all. You’ll create a warm bubble around you, and then you might start to shiver. So that’s what we say. If you fall through the ice and you’re trying to swim, it’s like, no, just try to bob there to keep this warm microclimate around you.

So if you get in cool water and you don’t move, then you might start shivering, but for the most part, that doesn’t happen. So for women, let’s look at a little bit warmer so we get the same kind of responses and adaptations that men have.

MEL ROBBINS: And if you do this in 55 degree water, so it’s more cool, it’s not ice cold. What is the benefit to a woman’s body by doing a cold plunge and how long should you be in it?

DR. STACY SIMS: So when we look at a cold plunge, the whole idea again, is environmental stress. So we start to see an improvement in our parasympathetic sympathetic drive. So now we’re able to get into that calming because again, body becoming resilient to stress.

We have an increase in our body’s capacity for using glucose, so we have better insulin sensitivity, better blood glucose control. We have some signals to lose some of that deep body fat, and we start to see better cardiovascular responses. But women do better in the heat.

The Benefits of Sauna for Women

MEL ROBBINS: Okay, talk to me about this.

DR. STACY SIMS: Okay, so when we look at sauna exposure, women can tolerate heat a lot more than men. So if we get into a sauna that is 80 degrees or 60 degrees Celsius, so that’s on the upwards of, metric math, hold on.

MEL ROBBINS: I keep forgetting you live in New Zealand. I’m like, why are you talking Celsius? I’m like, okay, that’s why.

DR. STACY SIMS: And science.

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, that’s true science.

DR. STACY SIMS: Science is Celsius.

MEL ROBBINS: 130 degrees.

DR. STACY SIMS: Is that okay? We’ll go with that. A woman can sit in there, sit up high, 20 minutes or so, not sweating yet. Right. Absorbing heat, vasodilate. It’s great. So we’re heating ourselves. Our body’s responding to it by what we call heat shock protein responses. So these little proteins that will uncouple and then recouple and be better for it.

So it’s creating a whole cellular change that then is like, okay, now we have better responses within the muscle. The muscle can use glucose a lot better. Can use fat a lot better. We’re also increasing blood flow to the brain. We’re also improving our blood vessels so they respond to hot or to constriction and dilation a lot faster, which is important.

As we get older and start hit perimenopause, we start having blood pressure problems. And it also allows us to hit higher temperatures on the outside. So like summertimes and things without having an undue stress. Because women, by the nature of being women, struggle more in the heat. So if we, environmental heat on the outside.

But when you’re in the sauna sitting there, it takes time for the body to heat up because of our thermoregulatory differences between what men do when they get in and they start sweating profusely and then they get dehydrated and they don’t have time to adapt as well to the heat as women do, because we vasodilate first and then we start sweating.

MEL ROBBINS: So if you have access to a sauna, do you recommend that women sit in a sauna for the health benefit?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah, I do.

MEL ROBBINS: How long? What would you recommend? Because I see a lot of the bro scientists out there talking about the magical benefits of a sauna. But now I’m starting to go, okay, for dudes, but what about for me?

DR. STACY SIMS: Yeah.

MEL ROBBINS: And so what is the benefit or the protocol for women to get the maximum benefit for us?

DR. STACY SIMS: So when we’re looking at for health benefits and not performance benefits, because there’s two different things. So for health benefits, if we are doing 10 to 15 minutes twice a week, at bare minimum, you get health benefits.

MEL ROBBINS: And what are they?

DR. STACY SIMS: So this is better cardiovascular health. So better blood flow, better blood pressure, we have metabolic responses, so we have better blood glucose control, better fatty acid metabolism. So your body’s like, I’m going to use fat as a fuel.

MEL ROBBINS: Meaning you’re going to burn more fat. If you sit in a sauna, you will use the circulating fat as a fuel instead of storing it.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes.

MEL ROBBINS: Yeah, this is my kind of exercise, by the way.

DR. STACY SIMS: That’s great.

MEL ROBBINS: Sit in a sauna.

DR. STACY SIMS: And it improves your exercise tolerance because when you exercise, you produce heat. And one of the limiting factors for women who first start exercising is the uncomfortableness of being hot.

MEL ROBBINS: Oh, and then my face still turns like a tomato, bright red.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes, yes.

MEL ROBBINS: I just am. There is something about me that I can lift one weight and it’s like bing.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yep. And that’s that vasodilation first. That’s how women offload heat first. And some women say, “I don’t ever sweat.” It’s like, well, because your body is offloading the heat so much through vasodilation and you’re not in a hot enough environment to absorb more heat. So your body can thermoregulate and be fine even when you turn bright red and you hate it.

Eating Before or After a Workout

MEL ROBBINS: Another question that a listener had is, should you eat before or after a workout?

The Importance of Timing Your Meals Around Exercise

DR. STACY SIMS: This depends on what you’re doing. So we know first thing in the morning, we’ve already talked about it, that you need to eat before you go. If you are exercising in the afternoon and you had lunch maybe two hours before, then you don’t necessarily have to eat right before, but you do have to eat afterwards.

If you are doing what we call metabolically taxing, so high intensity exercise, cardiovascular session, having a little snack before and then having real food afterwards is really beneficial.

If you’re just doing strength training, we see, especially from the research of Abby Smith Ryan at UNC, he had around 15 grams of protein before any kind of strength training session. It improves the post exercise epoch or what we say your metabolism stays elevated after exercise for a longer period of time and it improves your body’s responses to strength training.

So I guess the short answer is, ideally, yes, you’d have some protein before, but if you’re really pressed for time and it’s in the afternoon and if you had a meal within two hours, not necessarily.

Why Women Need Creatine and Caffeine

MEL ROBBINS: You in your work talk about supplements like creatine and caffeine. Could you talk about why women in particular need to pay attention to these two?

DR. STACY SIMS: Creatine is something that’s always thought of in the bodybuilding set, where you see big muscly guys and they’re using creatine because it’s a metabolite or it’s an essential thing in muscle contraction, which allows our muscles to contract really quickly and then recover and contract quickly.

But what we also see is it’s beneficial for all the fast energetics in our body. So we think about brain, we think about gut, heart, all of the things that use energy quickly because it has to. Creatine is involved.

Women, by the nature of being XX, have about 70 to 80% of the stores that men do, primarily because men have more muscle, but also women tend to eat less. So we don’t have as much coming in. And our liver only makes about 2 to 3 grams a day.

If we supplement with it, then we see everything improves. Our brain health improves, our gut health improves, cardiovascular problems start to dissipate and we have better muscle function. So there’s an incredible body of research that’s being done for creatine for health for women.

We see it’s beneficial in pregnancy, it’s safe to take in pregnancy, and it’s really beneficial. We see it’s really important for mood and cognitive function in women who are peri and postmenopausal. And then for skeletal muscle health and bone health, we see that it’s beneficial just a small dose.

So we’re thinking 3 to 5 grams. So that’s a half a teaspoon that you might put in your water or something once a day. Doesn’t have to worry about timing. Takes about three weeks for it to actually saturate the body. So you want to be patient. And after that you’re like, wow, why have I not been taking this? It’s so important.

MEL ROBBINS: Well, now I’m like, wow, I need to be taking this because it’s so important. Here we go. What is your advice for women who are struggling to balance nutrition and a busy lifestyle?

Balancing Nutrition with a Busy Lifestyle

DR. STACY SIMS: Part of it is being prepared. I know it’s hard when we talk about that consistency and preparation, but then part of it’s reality. So it’s like, okay, I know from being on the road it’s hard to eat how I want to eat. And I go to a restaurant and there’s a salad and there’s lots of stuff in it, and I’m going to be one of those people. It’s high maintenance. I’m like, I don’t want dressing. Can you put some extra veggies in there? Great. So I have to make it work for me.

If you are super busy and you’re running out the door to get the kids to school and then going straight to work and you’re coming home and you’re starving and you got to make dinner and then you have to do all the things that we all have to do, we have to be a little bit prepared.

So I’m not saying take all of Sunday and prepare the week’s meals because that’s just not appropriate. If we do our protein coffee or overnight oats and we know what we’re going to have and then we might have snacks in our bag. I have snacks in my car that don’t perish. I have nuts, I have a couple of protein bars, I have some tetra packs of almond milk, I have single sachets of protein powder. Just things that I might, shoot, I forgot. Oh, I have it in the car or I have it in my bag. And it’s just something that’s not ideal, but it is things that my body needs to get through.

And I always make the precedence to have as much fresh fruit, veg and whole grains at every meal that I have so that I’m taking care of my gut microbiome. Because if we take care of our gut microbiome, then it feeds forward in so many positive ways for mood and health and immunity.

And I think that’s one of the things that’s missing from looking at. I come from New Zealand here and I go into a grocery store and I’m like, whoa. There are rows and rows and rows of supposed food but nothing to eat because of all the ultra processed sugar stuff that’s on there with all the marketing.

So again we go back to the grandparent idea, shop the perimeter, get as many fresh fruits and veggies and then, you know, there are some canned things that you can get and some frozen things you can get. But really think, what am I eating that’s going to protect my gut?

The One Thing to Take Away

MEL ROBBINS: If the person that’s listening takes just one thing from this conversation, which is going to be hard to do because you taught us so much today, what would the one thing that you want that person to walk away with and focus on to be?

DR. STACY SIMS: It’s hard to make change. And I want women to feel ownership of their own body. And it starts with consistency and making time for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time. It could be 10 minutes first thing when you get up and you might do some mobility, you might do stretches, you might do every minute on the minute of squats and push ups for five minutes.

But something that is you and you own it and it helps you become more centered and you’re consistent with that. It doesn’t mean you have to get up and make time to go to the gym. It doesn’t mean you have to take time out of family. I mean, if you go to the playground with your kids in the afternoon, move around, have fun, make the kid playground the adult playground. It’s consistency. And what are you doing 10 minutes a day just for yourself?

Changing Lives Through Sharing

MEL ROBBINS: You know, one of the things that I’m excited about is that there will be millions and millions of people that listen to this.

DR. STACY SIMS: Yes.

MEL ROBBINS: And if every person that listens shares this with one or two women in their life or young women in their life, the number of lives that will change simply because of the things that you’ve just flipped on our head about the way that we think about strength, about why you need to exercise in terms of intentional stress and stress resilience, protein coffee has just changed my life, doctors. I mean, just everything.

I had it all wrong for a long time because I didn’t know and because I’ve been listening to the advice by men for men. And I am so grateful that you’re here and I’m grateful that you have chosen to listen to this and that you’re going to share this with women in your life, because I think what you’re asking us to do feels like it’s accessible and it makes sense and I’m excited to try it all.

And I’m just wondering if there was a mantra that you would love every woman to turn to another woman after they hear this or turn to their daughter and say, or something like truth that we need to be telling each other and reminding each other that we’ve all gotten wrong. What do you want us to tell the women in our life?

Creating Body Positivity and Empowerment

DR. STACY SIMS: I could joke around and say women are not small men, because that’s easy to say. But in all reality, my big focus and push is creating body positivity. And the body positivity is how we feel in ourselves and how we allow our friends to talk and to feel about themselves.

Because we could have all the body positivity that we want and feel really fantastic. But if we’re surrounded by friends who don’t have that same empowerment and same body positivity, it’s heartbreaking. So being able to share that and say, you know what? Take up space.

I want to be empowered and I want you the listener to be empowered to say, I deserve that lifting platform in the back of the gym and I’m going to go there and if there’s a bro there who’s looking at me funny, I’m just going to take the barbell and say, I own this space.

Because I want every woman to know that they have a right in every place, in every gym, every situation, to be strong, empowered, and feel positive about the space that they’re in.

So if we can turn to each other and say it’s about being empowered and having body positivity, then that feeds forward to so many different things. It’s a good role model for our kids. It allows us to have more connection with our workmates, our partners. It improves empathy because as an expat, I look and I travel so much and there’s a huge lack of empathy everywhere. I land here in the States and I feel it.

So if we can just share the positivity and empowerment despite what’s going on in the world, then that just improves all the things that we have in our lives. And if every person that hears us shares us with someone else and everyone starts to move maybe 10 minutes a day, I just think about the positive effect it has on mental health and the rolling forward that will have on so many different things.

A Paradigm Shift

MEL ROBBINS: Well, Dr. Stacy Sims, you just made a huge difference in my life. You have completely shifted the paradigm in terms of how I think about exercise and what it is and why it matters. And you’ve also explained why so many of the things that I’ve been doing just don’t work and why.

And now that it makes sense, I feel more motivated to do exactly what you’re telling me to do. And I am so excited to also change the narrative in my family, with my daughters about getting strong and becoming stress resilient and actually operating in a way where we’re not acting like little men, we’re acting like powerful women. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

DR. STACY SIMS: Thank you, thank you.

MEL ROBBINS: And I want to thank you for truly taking the time to listen to something that will change your life. And that is teaching you how to work with the design of your body. And that is also empowering you to make a huge difference in the young women and the women in your life by sharing this.

And in case someone else tells you, I want to tell you that I love you. I love you for the fact that you do want to do better. I love you for the fact that you love science based information. I love you for the fact that you’re willing to say, you know what? Screw it. I am going to go into that gym and I am going to do something uncomfortable because I deserve to feel good in my body. And that means I need to start prioritizing doing it.

And now what I really love for all of us is that Dr. Stacy Sims gave us a matter of fact science backed, simple, step by step guide to exactly what to do to work with the design of your body as a woman. Now all you need to do is go do it.

DR. STACY SIMS: Alrighty.

MEL ROBBINS: I will be waiting for you in the very next episode. I’m going to welcome you in the moment you hit play. I’ll see you there.

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