Next Level Quotes

“A 2020 study of more than 300 women whose average age was 55, published in BMC Psychiatry, reported that 55 percent had mild to severe depression and nearly 84 percent had mild to severe anxiety. Poor body image was strongly connected to both.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“most active women do not eat enough. When you put your body in a state of low energy availability, you hang on to fat and lose muscle—”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“even if you regularly exercise, if you’re otherwise sedentary, taking just 2,500 to 5,000 steps a day, you can actually develop “exercise resistance,” meaning that your fat-burning abilities are impaired by your general inactivity.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“Foods rich in nitrates convert to nitric oxide (NO) in the body, so eating more of these foods will widen your blood vessels, reducing the severity of headache during the perimenopausal shift. Nitrate-rich foods include beets, pomegranate, watermelon, and spinach.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“the ideal recommended daily protein intake is 126 to 154 grams of protein, ideally spread across four main meals (40 grams per meal with 2 to 3 grams of leucine and 15 to 20 grams with snacks) eaten every three to five hours.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“Research shows that cortisol declines six times more slowly in people who are short on sleep than in those who are properly rested. That not only messes with your moods but wrecks your recovery by impairing tissue repair and growth. It also sets the stage for insulin resistance, increased abdominal fat storage (which menopausal women do not need), injury, and overtraining.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“sports drinks that actually hydrate (instead of sitting in the stomach, causing sloshing, bloat, and discomfort) contain a small amount of sugar (glucose and sucrose) as well as sodium for optimal absorption and hydration. This is also why plain water isn’t optimal for hydration. Water contains no drivers,”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“there are sex differences in how we feel during exercise: Men use more carbohydrate, tapping into their liver and muscle stores; but women clear their blood sugar and use fat rather than fully deplete their liver and muscle glycogen.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“poor nutrient timing can blunt those benefits, mess with your hormones, disrupt your sleep, and slow your recovery.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“The more cruciferous vegetables you eat, the better your hormonal health and the lower your risk for increased abdominal fat accumulation.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“Agave syrup is highly processed and much higher in fructose than plain sugar. In fact, it’s just the same as high-fructose corn syrup, so it’s more likely to cause adverse health effects like belly fat.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“Denying your body carbohydrates during exercise is a huge stress. Research shows the keto diet has an unfavorable effect on muscle fatigue on women. Research shows markers of bone remodeling are impaired after a short-term low-carb, high-fat diet. Neither is good for menopausal women!”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“It also works okay in sedentary women. In the small amount of research that’s been done on postmenopausal women, the keto diet does reduce weight gain, improve insulin sensitivity, and reduce cravings and food moods (hangriness).”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“One very common way that women slip into a state of LEA and RED-S is by following trendy diets like intermittent fasting and ketosis.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“and increasing your fueling during and around your workouts (when your body needs the energy most).”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“Our bodies are hardwired for survival. If you’re not eating enough while you’re working hard, your body assumes that you’re in a situation where there’s not enough food—so it stores all the energy it can to help you survive.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“Some of the top foods with polyphenols are fruits (especially berries), vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, dark chocolate, coffee, tea, olive oil, and red wine.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“you want to reserve lifting heavy sh*t (LHS) for big, compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, and chest presses, which spread the load across multiple large muscles.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“So if you’ve always lifted in the 10-to-12 or 15-to-20 repetition range, it’s time to change that up. Drop those reps into the three-to-six range and lift heavier weights to improve your muscle integrity, build strength, and be healthier through menopause and beyond.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“By lifting heavy weights, you are stimulating your tendons to increase their tension, which will give you better overall stability in your joints and increase the ability of your muscles to support those joints when you’re doing hard work.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“some research suggests that, in postmenopausal women, high-intensity cycling sessions are more effective than running,”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“The sharp, strong stimulation from a SIT session triggers an increase in BDNF along with other chemical messengers in the brain to enhance your brain remodeling, keep your gray matter healthy, and improve cognition and working memory, both of which can suffer during the menopausal years.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“SIT training strengthens and increases the amount of your energy-producing mitochondria, improves insulin sensitivity, and lowers fasting blood sugar levels, all of which is good for your overall cardiovascular and metabolic health.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“SIT training increases lean muscle mass and reduces fat mass in a relatively short period of time.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“dozens more studies have solidified the conclusion that interval training is the fastest way to improve nearly all aspects of performance, including improved insulin sensitivity and ability to use oxygen, which enables you to burn more fat and get more fuel into your working muscles.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“The poor sleep was definitely doing a number on her weight. Lack of sleep, especially during menopause, really decreases insulin sensitivity and increases the body’s stimulus to store belly fat.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“hormone levels decline they can drag your mood down with them, leaving you feeling anxious, sad, or angry at levels that may be out of proportion with whatever is happening in your life at the time.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“The average weight gain is about five to eight pounds, though some women gain more. Because estrogen promotes fluid retention (while progesterone decreases it), you can end up feeling puffier too, especially when you’re in that perimenopausal phase, when estrogen is high and progesterone is low.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“some women’s lives are so disrupted they feel like they’ve been the victims of a hostile hormonal takeover that leaves them trapped inside a body and mind they barely recognize.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

“As progesterone levels decline, we lose some of those important benefits and can have mood swings, memory loss, and the fuzzy-headedness that many menopausal women describe as “brain fog.”
― Stacy T. Sims, Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond