🏋️‍♀️ Soul Snacks

2.5 min read

Dear Snackers,

I don’t know about everyone else, but as a perimenopausal 42 year-old woman, my Instagram Explore page is absolutely fucking littered with information about fitness, hormones and protein. I can’t swing a kettlebell without hitting some advice on how often I need to be lifting, and stepping, and how many supplements I apparently need at this point in my life if I don’t want to break a hip in 40 years, or if I want to open a jar of pickles. It’s information overload. LEAVE ME ALONE!

I caught up with my college lacrosse coach, Missy Foote, this week over the phone. Missy is legendary in the lacrosse world. She is now 72 years old, teaches fitness classes, climbs mountains, eats marathons for breakfast and half marathons for snacks, skis, bikes, hikes, you name it, and even she is having a hard time navigating all the information out there surrounding women’s health and longevity these days. We talked in depth about all the trends like dropping cardio for weight training, progressive overload weightlifting (increasing the weight when you’re no longer reaching muscle failure at 12 reps), resistance training (lifting with 10/20/30 lb. weights regularly, but not trying to increase weight), jump training, protein intake, hormone therapy, all of it. By the end of the conversation, I think what we concluded was that the most important thing you can do is listen to your body, stay active, and eat the right foods to fuel it.

I am personally a “worker outer”, which is the scientific term for someone who works out. I love exercise and crave a sweat, but what gets my panties in a bunch these days is the dire messaging around everything we need to be doing in order to save our future selves. Listen, if I were THAT concerned about my future self, I wouldn’t order martinis anymore, but I do, because I fucking love a good time. There is endless talk of reducing cortisol by following certain fitness programs, but for me, the pressure around the rigidity of it has become a major contributor to my stress. As an anxious person, this constant focus on doing this all for our “future selves” only sends me deeper into the illusion of control, when truly what I need to be doing, is what is best for me today.

For people who are not already “worker outers” I can only imagine how much the messaging around health and fitness these days is making them feel. If I were new to fitness, I would be so intimidated by all the information that I may never get started. Where is one to begin when you’re basically being asked to take on another full time job in order to be “the best versions of ourselves”. Just add more! Just do more! When the loudest voices in the room are all telling us that we should basically be able to bench press the Empire State Building if we ever want to lose that belly fat it’s kind like, well, fuck it, I guess I’ll stay thick. There is a lot of talk about preventing osteoporosis by lifting heavy, etc, but you know what is another one of the top things you can do to prevent osteoporosis? Walking. That’s it, just walk. One foot in front of the other. It’s also one of the number one things you can do for longterm fat loss, but people can’t sell you their program on walking because we all already know how to fucking walk.

I get asked a lot to talk about what I do to stay in shape which is a really nice compliment. I probably do a little more than the average bear, but much, much less than the people who are at the extremes. I simply do not have the drive, time or desire to push myself to extremes during this season of my life. I do, however, carve out some time, almost daily, to do something I truly enjoy fitness wise. Sometimes I go for a nice walk, sometimes I wear my weighted vest, sometimes I ride a bike, sometimes I lift, sometimes I do box jumps, sometimes I hang from a bar - for me, the only formula to my fitness is routinely staying active. Beyond fitness, my diet is probably the biggest reflection of how I “look” whether it’s the luteal phase and I’ve been hoovering everything in my kitchen, or whether I’m being very mindful of what goes in my mouth, my body reflects that. Because I eat cleanly in general, eating foods that are super rich or processed make me feel like shit, so that tends to keep me on track, too. To be clear, I also love a good dessert and almost always have some drinks on the weekends, which is why I will never, ever, ever have a six pack. These are concessions I am personally very willing to make, though I am becoming more mindful of my drinks because it just takes me longer to recover these days when I overdo it.

I’m not trying to shit on lifting programs or protein intake or any of it - I buy into it all to an extent, and it’s probably all great for optimal health outcomes, but I think the intensity of the messaging around health and fitness these days is a turn off for a lot of people who could benefit from simply walking more, or dancing more or just doing whatever it is that you enjoy about moving your body without the guilt that what you’re doing isn’t enough. As ever, you gotta do what works for you, fuck the noise, and also fuck the elf on the shelf. 

Caitlin

• DRINK: As much as I sometimes can't handle all the information out there around health and wellness, electrolytes make me a better person. I drink them pretty much daily, they truly make me feel better, and as I have said, I fucking love Cure’s fruit punch flavor (and the lemonade flavor) and they both come in the bulk jar, which is quicker/easier than the packets at home.