For many women – myself included - running is more than just a form of exercise, it’s a source of empowerment, mental clarity, and physical strength. Running for me is my “me time”, my “I can do this” time, my “I might be getting older but I’m not going to let that stop me” time.  I have never been a natural runner, and I have never been fast, but my distances were getting steadily longer, and I was feeling great……until I was about 52.  Then, I started getting slower, less energetic, I couldn’t complete my interval workouts, and I felt like I was running through mud.
​At the time my periods were still regular and I had no perimenopause symptoms like hot flashes or moodiness, so I didn’t immediately put it down to hormonal changes.  But my sleep was starting to really suffer and after talking to friends also going through these issues I realised that it might be perimenopause.  In fact, with the average age of full menopause (no periods for one year) being 51, and the perimenopause period lasting up to 10 years before menopause, I was definitely in the perimenopause period of my life. 
So, I delved into understanding how these hormonal changes impact athletic performance and looked to find evidence-based strategies - including nutrition, supplementation, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) - to navigate this transition effectively.

​Wine and beer have some health benefits, but alcohol can also have detrimental effects on weight loss and muscle growth.  Other than empty calories and reduced will power, alcohol also effects your hormones, your quality of sleep, protein synthesis (needed to build muscle) and fat burning.
 
So can you drink alcohol and still lose weight?

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Or should you even do cardio at all? 

Some say the answer is simple, I say, it depends on your goals. 

When we exercise we either perform aerobic or anaerobic exercise, and often, a blend of the two.  We also either use our fast twitch muscle, slow twitch muscles, or a combination of both.   These variables will effect our results, and deciding upon performing cardio before or after lifting (or not at all) is a choice that could make a difference to help us achieve our goals.​
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If you have one single goal, to increase muscle mass, then yes, the simple answer would be to do cardio separately from lifting, or maybe not at all.  But what if your goal is not so singular; ie. gain muscle mass while losing fat?  Then you need to analyse the pros and cons for each approach. 

Chronic inflammation wreaks havoc on the body, contributing to fatigue, depression, weight gain and many diseases.  Insulin, sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone) and cortisol play big roles in how the body controls inflammation.  So how to you control these hormones?

​​You have goals and train for them, so make sure that you have the best pre, post (and perhaps peri) workout nutrition to help you achieve your goals. 

We have all taken some kind of pain reliever to help us recover from an injury, get though a grueling workout, or perhaps even prepare us to face another one; but what if doing so can actually delay healing, halt muscle growth and cause unwanted side effects? 

​Should you be taking them?  If so, what should you look for?
 
Branched Chain Amino Acids, or BCAA’s have been shown to help prevent the breakdown of muscle during intense exercise, preserve muscle while fasting or on a low carb diet, ameliorate protein synthesis to help build muscle, and may even help reduce DOMS after training.  So what exactly are they?

​Build muscle, lose fat, and improve endurance:
 
Cardio has its place, steady state, HIIT, Zone 2; I love to do them all and reap benefits from them all.  Its what people think of first when they think about loosing fat.  While cardio can definitely help, I am also a big believer in Metabolic Conditioning and make sure to schedule it into my training program every week.  I know that it will help me stay lean by burning calories and increasing my Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) (read more: Metabolism: Can You Change It?), improve my cardiovascular endurance, and build muscle at the same time.  

​Cardio used to be simple; the most complicated decision you had to make was which machine you preferred.  But it turns out that cardio is not a one-size-fits-all approach and should be tailored to each individual and their goals.   
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Learn about the different kinds of cardio and how to include them in your training regime. 

​There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about the fat burning potential of doing cardio in a fasted state.  There are a few questions that should come to mind when considering this as an option:

• What exactly is fasted (vs fed)?
• Why is fasted cardio beneficial for fat loss?
• What about fasted weight training?
• How much difference can it actually make?
• What are the potential downsides?
• Considering the pros and cons, is there a better way?