Midlife Women: The Caretakers, the Givers, and the Keepers of the Universe

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.  ~ Maya Angelou

There’s something undeniably powerful about midlife women. We often hold things together, whether it’s family, community, or the spirit of those around us. We take care of those we love, give our time and energy freely, and quietly carry the world's weight on our shoulders. But in the midst of this, there’s a beautiful, untapped opportunity: a chance for us to step into a new vision of what life can be—one that brings us growth, reflection, and a renewed sense of purpose.

This chapter isn’t just about what we do for others; it’s also about what we’re ready to do for ourselves.

Shaping a New Vision for Ourselves—and for the World

As midlife women, we’re in a unique position. With experience, wisdom, and a clear understanding of what matters most, we have the power to help shape the world around us. But shaping a better world isn’t only about grand gestures. It can be as simple as taking small, intentional steps that reflect our values and the wisdom we’ve gathered. It’s also about recognizing that we are influencing the world each time we create something meaningful—whether it’s a community, a family tradition, or a personal project.

But in order to give our best, we need to nurture ourselves. This time of life offers us the chance to rediscover who we are, what brings us joy, and where we want to go. In doing so, we find ourselves renewed and capable of being the grounded, unstoppable force that others look to for strength and inspiration.

Tips for Rediscovering Your Essence and Embracing Your Goals

• Take Intentional Pauses
  Being unstoppable doesn’t mean pushing through exhaustion. It means knowing when to stop, breathe, and regroup. Give yourself permission to pause—without guilt. Use these pauses to listen to your inner voice, to reflect, and to re-align with your purpose.

• Reflect on Your Journey
  Look back on what you’ve done, both the achievements and the lessons learned. Reflecting on your journey helps you see the threads of strength, resilience, and courage woven through your life. This self-awareness is key to understanding your unique gifts and the impact you want to make.

• Reframe Your Goals
  Midlife offers the chance to reshape your goals. What do you want to create, pursue, or let go of? Redefine what success means to you now. Whether exploring a new career, diving into a creative project, or finding more time for loved ones, remember that this is your time to design a vision that excites and fulfills you.

• Be Gentle with Yourself
  Strength doesn’t mean you have to be a Superwoman. It means standing back up after being knocked down, assessing your needs, and patiently moving forward. Allow yourself the grace to feel, rest, and find joy in simple and grand moments.

• Connect and Collaborate
  Embrace your community of other strong, inspiring women. Sharing experiences, wisdom, and support creates a powerful network. These connections can provide insight, encouragement, and a reminder that we’re not alone in our journeys.

• Celebrate Your Evolution
  Embrace the journey of becoming. This stage is a time to honor the fullness of who you are—strong and tender, wise and still curious, giving yet ready to receive. Celebrate your evolution, newfound wisdom, and the opportunities waiting to be discovered.

Carrying On, Not as Superwoman, But as Unstoppable

Being unstoppable doesn’t mean doing it all or doing it perfectly. It means carrying on, even when tired or discouraged. It means knowing that the journey itself—filled with ups and downs—is what shapes us and makes us who we are. Being unstoppable is about resilience, but it’s also about honoring our humanity. It’s about standing back up when we’re deflated, finding a new way to move forward, and realizing that each step matters. 

So, let’s take this moment in midlife to honor our role as the caretakers, givers, and keepers of the universe. Let’s also seize the opportunity to shape a new vision for ourselves and the world—one that allows us to thrive, grow, and rediscover the beautiful strength within.

We are not here to be Superwoman; we’re here to carry on, rise, create, and live a life that is deeply our own.

Healthy Plates for Midlife Women: Protein-Powered Eating

Why Protein Matters in Midlife

Muscle mass naturally declines as women age, making maintaining strength and a healthy metabolism harder. Eating enough protein becomes essential for preserving muscle, supporting bone health, and providing enough energy to be physically active. For midlife women, eating enough protein can also help manage weight, reduce cravings, and sustain energy levels throughout the day.

The current Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, which equals about 0.36 grams per pound. However, research suggests that midlife women need more than this to preserve muscle and prevent age-related muscle loss. If you’re moderately active, a good target is 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight to support optimal health as you age. For example, if your ideal body weight is 140 pounds, aim for 140 grams of protein daily.

To help you meet this goal, follow these simple strategies for assembling balanced, protein-rich meals throughout the day:

1. Start with Protein: The Building Block

• Lean Meats: Chicken breast, turkey, lean cuts of beef, pork tenderloin.

• Serving Tip: Aim for 4–6 oz per meal (~25–35g protein).

• Fish & Seafood: Salmon, cod, shrimp, tuna.

• Serving Tip: A 4 oz fillet provides ~25g protein.

• Eggs & Dairy: Eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese.

• Serving Tip: 2 eggs = 12g protein, 1 cup Greek yogurt = ~20g protein.

• Plant-Based Options: Tofu, tempeh, edamame, lentils, chickpeas.

• Serving Tip: ½ cup cooked lentils or tofu = ~8–10g protein.

2. Add Veggies: Nutrient Density with Few Calories

• Non-Starchy Vegetables: Broccoli, spinach, kale, zucchini, bell peppers, cauliflower.

• Serving Tip:

• Broccoli: ~3g protein per cup (cooked)

• Spinach: ~5g protein per cup (cooked)

• Kale: ~2.5g protein per cup (cooked)

• Zucchini: ~1.5g protein per cup (cooked)

• Bell Peppers: ~1g protein per cup (raw)

• Cauliflower: ~2g protein per cup (cooked)

• Portion Guide: Fill half your plate with colorful veggies for fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

• Tip: Sauté, roast, or enjoy raw in salads for variety.

3. Incorporate Carbohydrates: Energy for the Day

• Whole Grains: Quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat pasta.

• Serving Tip: ½ cup cooked = ~3–5g protein.

• Starchy Vegetables: Sweet potatoes, butternut squash, peas.

• Serving Tip: ½ cup = ~2–4g protein.

• Fruit: Include a variety of fruits like berries, apples, oranges, and pears.

  • Serving Tip: While fruits are naturally lower in protein, they provide essential vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants. Pair them with a protein source like Greek yogurt or nuts to balance your plate.

4. Healthy Fats: Balance for Flavor and Satiety

• Sources: Avocados, olive oil, nuts, seeds.

• Serving Tip:

• Almonds: ~6g protein per ounce (about 23 almonds)

• Walnuts: ~4g protein per ounce (about 14 halves)

• Chia seeds: ~5g protein per ounce (about 2 tablespoons)

• Flaxseeds: ~3g protein per ounce (about 2 tablespoons)

• Pumpkin seeds: ~7g protein per ounce (about 85 seeds)

• Hemp seeds: ~10g protein per 3 tablespoons

• Portion Guide: Use a small amount (~1–2 tbsp) to enhance flavor without overdoing calories.

5. Example Plate Breakdown: Balanced Meal

• Protein: 4 oz grilled chicken breast (~30g protein).

• Veggies: 1 cup steamed broccoli + 1 cup mixed greens with olive oil dressing.

• Carbs: ½ cup quinoa (~4g protein).

• Fats: ¼ avocado.

6. Snacking Smart for Extra Protein

• Greek Yogurt Parfait: 1 cup Greek yogurt + berries + nuts = ~25g protein.

• Hard-Boiled Eggs & Veggies: 2 eggs + raw carrot sticks = ~12g protein.

• Protein Shakes: Blend whey or plant-based protein powder with almond milk and spinach for a protein-packed snack.

7. Tracking for Success

• Track Your Meals: Use a food journal or app to monitor your protein intake and ensure you hit your goal. For an easy way to track your intake, use the Rumblings’ 90-Day Protein Journal to stay on top of your protein goals and monitor your progress over time.

• Be Consistent: Eat protein at every meal and snack to meet your daily target effortlessly.

Putting It All Together

Focusing on protein at every meal and a balanced mix of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats will help you meet your nutrition goals and support your health as you age. Aim for 25–30 grams of protein at each meal and 10–15 grams at snacks to optimize muscle maintenance and overall well-being. If you need an easy-to-use reference to help calculate the protein in foods, check out The Food Counter’s Pocket Companion Sixth Edition. 

Prioritizing high-quality protein sources gives your body the fuel to maintain muscle, stay energized, and promote overall well-being. Remember that consistency is critical as you work towards 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. 

By assembling balanced, protein-rich plates and tracking your progress, you’ll achieve lasting health and vitality in midlife and beyond. 

Embracing Joy and Sorrow: A New Year's Resolution to Open Your Heart

As we approach the holidays and the end of the year, many of us reflect on the past and contemplate resolutions for the New Year. It's a time to assess unachieved goals, revise previous aspirations, or set new ones. At this mid-stage of life, the holiday season takes on a unique significance – for some, it's a bustling time filled with family and festivities, while for others, it may become quieter and more introspective.

In my (Karyn) reflections this year, I've been pondering one of my meaningful traditions – choosing a guiding word for the upcoming year. With its mix of excitement and poignant memories, Christmas catalyzes contemplating the ebb and flow of joy and sorrow in our lives. 

This year, I am embarking on a new tradition: embracing joy and sorrow and carrying this duality into the New Year with an open heart. My chosen word for the upcoming year is "openhearted," a conscious decision to live a life of joy, zest, and full experiences.

The journey began with a practice inspired by the ancestral altars I encountered during a trip to Vietnam, a tangible reminder of the love, wisdom, and the inevitable grief that comes with loss. Creating an altar for my ancestors becomes a way to honor their legacy and acknowledge the void left by their absence, providing a bridge between past and present. If this interests you, reading more about deepening your connection with your ancestors may be helpful. 

In addition to honoring my ancestors and facing the grief of missing them during the holiday season, I’m working to cultivate joy and openness. I've introduced a daily practice I call the "Remembrance of the Beloved." Like a gratitude journal, this practice involves reflecting on cherished memories, people, places, or items that evoke joy. The deliberate use of the term "beloved" adds weight and texture to the things I hold dear, making this practice a powerful exercise in mindfulness. I’ve written down my beloved item or memory and its significance each day in my Rumblings ‘beloved journal.’ 

Often viewed as a solitary and private experience, grief has the transformative potential to deepen your capacity to hold both sorrow and suffering. Rather than attempting to transcend or escape grief, I advocate for facing it head-on, creating a spaciousness within ourselves to accommodate the weight of sorrow. Our culture's tendency to stifle grief can lead to a narrow aperture for empathy and compassion, preventing us from fully engaging with the suffering in the world.

By befriending grief and acknowledging its continuous presence, you open yourself to healing. Grief is not something to overcome but a companion to walk alongside, shaping an ongoing relationship with your soul and the world around you. This companionship with grief becomes a source of warmth, kindness, care, and compassion, enriching your internal life.

In avoiding or minimizing grief, your heart risks closure, limiting your ability to address both personal and global suffering. Recognizing that you also keep your heart open to joy by welcoming grief is crucial. The vulnerability inherent in facing grief allows you to connect with others more deeply, fostering meaningful relationships and a sense of shared humanity.

As I age, I have realized that strength alone does not sustain me, as it fails to address the emptiness within. In embracing my vulnerabilities, I’ve rediscovered my connection to the common threads of humanity. The actual work is not merely to seek happiness but to fully embrace the richness of being alive.

 My 2024 word — openheartedness—will be my guide, and the work is my daily practice of honoring my ancestors and celebrating the beloved treasures that bring me joy. 

When you find the spaciousness in your heart to accommodate joy and sorrow, you can create harmony and authenticity this holiday season and carry this openness into the New Year. 

Join me in the journey towards a more openhearted and fulfilling life.

I’ll leave you with a few lines from Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, about the meaning of life that accommodates this duality. ‘As deeply as man sees into life, he also sees into suffering.’ ‘Was that life? Well then! Once more!’

Pick your word(s) for the upcoming year with our guide. By setting words, you become more intentional about how you want to live your life, which helps you be more successful in living well and reaching your goals.

The Profound Dual Purpose of Travel: Lost and Found

Rumblings trip to Vietnam: Phot is Dong Xuan market in Hanoi

Traveling goes far beyond exploring new landscapes and experiencing different cultures; it’s a journey of self-discovery and transformation. In the words of George Santayana, travel is both a means to lose and find ourselves. Beyond the familiar narrative presented in newspapers and media, travel offers a unique perspective that sharpens our awareness, challenges our assumptions, and enriches our understanding of the world. 

Travel offers the opportunity, joy, and deep, heartfelt interactions that create a connection between people that isn’t bound by politics, culture, or language barriers. It deepens our understanding of the world around us by creating an awareness that our most profound humanity is linked to the humanity of others. It allows us to see the friendliness, hospitality, generosity, gentleness, caring, and compassion in others and ourselves. Travel creates a powerful understanding of our interconnectedness with one another. It enables us to see past differences intended to separate and alienate us and develops an understanding of belonging. We can acknowledge that we differ precisely because of our need for one another. 

The profound impact of travel can open our hearts and minds and help us understand its role in fostering empathy and cultural exchange. As travelers, we bridge the gap between our identity and the world’s diverse cultures, offering a fresh perspective in an increasingly interconnected world society. 

These are the reasons why we look forward to traveling with other women, to share these experiences, and deepen our connection to other women across the globe as well as create lasting friendships with each other. Especially during midlife, it’s an integral part of the journey of self-discovery that leaves an indelible mark on our lives when many women are searching for their vision, purpose, and identity for the re-igniting of this next critical phase of their lives. 

Travel serves a dual purpose: it allows us to lose and find ourselves. It opens our hearts and minds to the world beyond what our newspapers convey. We travel to discover and share the riches of different cultures, to become young fools again, and to embrace the moral holiday of taking risks. Travel compels us to work desperately for a moment, to confront hardships, and to sharpen the edge of life, as George Santayana suggested in "The Philosophy of Travel."

Travel not only shows us different realities but also reveals our complexities. It encourages us to reexamine our beliefs and certainties, to see the world with new eyes, and to challenge our assumptions. Even familiar things, like a fast-food restaurant or a movie theater in a foreign land, can be a source of novelty and revelation.

Travelers understand that the world is full of wonder and hardship, and they embrace both. They bear witness to the moral and political urgencies of the places they visit, ensuring that these locations are not reduced to abstract ideas or ideologies. Travel becomes a way to rescue the humanity of places from abstraction and to save them from being mere curiosities.

Moreover, travelers are like human bridges, transporting values, beliefs, and news to the places they visit. In some parts of the world, they serve as the only contact with the outside world, offering a glimpse into other cultures and societies. Travel is about fostering understanding and empathy, importing and exporting dreams with tenderness.

As the world becomes more interconnected, people are increasingly transnational and multicultural. Travelers find themselves at the intersection of different cultures, languages, and customs, and they adapt quickly to new environments. This adaptability allows them to see the world with a fresh perspective.

Travel is also a journey into one's imagination, a quest to uncover the unknown, and a way to be carried out of one's comfort zone. It challenges our notions of home and identity and gives us a unique opportunity to bring new eyes to the places we visit and learn about ourselves.

Ultimately, travel is a heightened state of awareness, a wakefulness that keeps our minds nimble prejudices at bay and fosters humor. Like love, the best trips are never truly over because they leave a lasting impact on our minds and hearts, forever transforming our perception of the world. 

You can read more about some of our travel experiences in our blogs about our trip to Vietnam and how to navigate multigenerational travel. To learn more about traveling with a group of women, join our list to get notified of upcoming trips.  We also keep a journal documenting our travel experiences, and you can find one we created here. 

Lasting Change Unleashed: Discover Essential Techniques to Overcome Challenges and Create a Supportive Environment

Are you ready to shake things up and live midlife to the fullest but feel stuck and confused about where to start? 

We understand that feeling. It can be frustrating, especially when you may not recognize your midlife body, feel your career needs an overhaul, desire to live more vibrantly than your current friend group or feel like you’re living day-to-day without a plan. 

But here’s the good news: you’re different from many other women because you’re ready to make lasting changes.                     

And guess what? It’s possible to change your behaviors and sustain those changes. 

Renewed Vision: Setting the Foundation for Behavior Change

Let’s talk about the key to long-term change—shifting your identity. In case you missed it, we’ve shared the importance of creating a renewed vision for yourself in midlife. Now, that might sound daunting, but before you jump into action—new diets, exercise programs, wellness routines, or sleep protocols—only to slip back into old patterns again, here’s the secret: you need to see yourself as the person who eats well, moves daily, makes healthier choices, and prioritizes sleep BEFORE you take any action. Establishing a renewed vision for yourself is crucial because that’s where many women fail to sustain their desired behaviors for the long term. 

Reduce Friction: Assess and Modify Your Surroundings

Next, you must alleviate the friction to change before you take action. This involves assessing your work, home, school, social, and community environments and asking yourself if they support the desired changes. 

The goal is to make healthier choices easier choices. Too often, we face obstacles like tempting television programs, social media distractions, processed foods that are readily available, and a lack of time that hinders us from making choices that make us feel better, boost our energy, and help us flourish. 

To assess your surroundings, focus on the following:

1. People you spend the most time with

2. The places you frequent, such as work, home, school, church, and community

3. Your systems, like your routines and time management

4. The policies at work or in other organizations you’re involved with

Now, take a moment to reflect: do these people, places, systems, and policies support your values and goals? Do they create friction or resistance when you try to change? For example, does your workspace encourage standing instead of sitting all day? Do your workplace policies allow walking meetings and working out during lunch? Are your friends cheering you on or scoffing at the changes you want to make? Do your routines and habits align with your renewed vision?

Our environment often doesn’t naturally support how we want to live as we age. To ensure success, we must address the potential friction and resistance before taking action toward our goals. 

Observing Successful Example: Prioritizing Health and Well-being

By observing our surroundings, we can get a glimpse of what’s prioritized. Take our recent trip to Vietnam, for instance. During our visit, we noticed that health and well-being were community priorities: 

1. Parks were equipped with adult exercise equipment.

2. People were doing tai chi and stretching in green space.

3. Fruit was served after every meal instead of dessert. 

4. Restaurants served fresh, local food in a family-style manner. 

We found it easier to make healthier choices while traveling in Vietnam than it can be when traveling in the United States.

Modifying Your Surroundings: Making Healthier Choices Easier

Now consider some questions to help you modify your surroundings and better support your goals: 

1. What are one or two things you change in your environment that will help make healthier choices more available and easier to access? For example, can you keep healthier food choices more accessible at home so you can grab them on the go? 

2. What adjustments can you make to your routines to align them with your goals? For example, can you keep sneakers in the car so that you can walk while waiting during pick-up times or in between errands?

3. Can you spend more time with people who support your desire to change rather than resist it? For example, instead of connecting with friends over drinks and a meal, can you meet them for a walk or a yoga class?

4. Can you advocate for changes in work, school, or church policies to make healthier choices easier for you and those around you? For example, can you advocate ending meetings a few minutes early to allow for time to take a walking break or grab a healthy snack?

Embracing Sustainable Behavior Change: The Journey to Midlife Transformation

Starting a new behavior is often easier than sustaining it over time. Why? Our surroundings create resistance that pulls us back into old habits. Before taking action toward your goals, start by assessing your environment.

It’s time to get off the roller coaster and finally live your midlife vision! Creating a supportive environment will make your goals easier to achieve and sustain! 

Looking for more ways to build skills to help you successfully change behaviors? Read our suggestions for building resiliency in midlife.

Midlife Transitions and Challenges: A Call for a Renewed Vision

You feel a “rumbling” inside yourself that your life should be different from what it is right now. 

You’re not alone. 

One thing many midlife women have in common is the experience of an internal rumbling—a feeling something should be different or something needs to change. It may be hard to pinpoint where the discomfort comes from, but you feel an unsettling rising internally. 

This feeling could be the need for a change in your career, where you’re spending your time, how you’re taking care of yourself, who you socialize alongside, or how you experience fun. 

Whatever the cause…it is time to listen. 

Midlife is a time of transitions—kids are leaving home, friendships are evolving, careers are changing, parents are aging and need help, disease risks are rising, and bodies are aging. You’re not alone in feeling like you’re going through the motions, taking care of others, and postponing self-care during this time. As a result, you may feel tired, distracted, sleep-deprived, and lacking energy. 

The excellent news is…you’ve got this! You can reignite and flourish with a little focus, intention, and consistency. 

Here’s the thing, your old identity may be holding you back and sabotaging the future YOU. You may be stuck in old behaviors that are not aligned with who you are in midlife or who you want to be. You may be comparing your 20-, 30 -or 40-year-old self to your current self and unintentionally holding yourself back from living well now. 

“True behavior change is identity change.” – James Clear, author of Atomic Habits.

To create change, you must change your underlying beliefs about yourself and how you want to live. 

Your current beliefs and actions are a reflection of your current identity. Internal stories and limiting beliefs may be holding you back from living the life you envision. The rumbling you’re experiencing is most likely a reflection of an inner identity conflict—you want one thing, but your actions aren’t aligned. 

The best way to start feeling differently is to start living differently is to stop and reflect on your current beliefs, worldview, self-image, how you see others, and your biases. This is often referred to as your identity. 

Next, it’s time to reimagine a vision for your future self. 

You can do this by moving through the following steps: 

1. Close your eyes

2. Take a few deep breaths

3. Ask yourself:

• What is your vision for your life five years from now?

• What do you want to be doing and experiencing?

• Who do you want to be experiencing your life with?

• What brings you joy?

• What memories do you want to be making?

• How do you want your loved ones to remember you?

• How do you want your body to feel? Don’t focus on your appearance, but how do you want your body to FEEL?

• What energy do you want to be radiating? What energy and vitality do you want to put into the world?

• How do you want people to feel when they’re around you?

• How will you show up for yourself and your loved ones?

• Now think about ten, twenty, and thirty years from now. Does your vision change?

• What do you want your life to look like, and how do you want your body to feel and be capable of doing?

4. When you’re ready, write your thoughts, feelings, and vision down.

5. Repeat this exercise several times over the next few weeks to help you reframe and revise your midlife vision.

You are the architect of your life. To live your new vision, you must first let go of your old behaviors that are out of alignment. 

It’s time to start living your vision. 

1. Every day review your vision. Envision yourself living your dream. Immerse yourself in how you feel when your daily life aligns with your vision. Your brain will respond when you regularly visualize how you want to live. 

2. Next, take actions that are aligned with your vision. When making a choice ask yourself, “Is this decision or action aligned with my envisioned identity?”

Repeat every day, and soon you will reignite! If you need more help setting and living your vision, you may enjoy our 90-Day Vision Journal.

If you need help addressing your inner rumbling(s), check out our FREE downloadable worksheet to get started.

As you reflect on a midlife vision, you may enjoy reading two popular blog posts—Take Steps to Reignite Yourself After 50 and Five Ways to Reinvent Your Career— to get you thinking about the changes you want to make.

The Health Condition Almost Everyone Has But No One is Talking About

There is great interest in enhancing healthspan - improving the quality of life to be free from the disability and disease that occurs during most people's last 16 years of life. For most of us, our vision for the future includes living vibrantly, independently, and joyfully until the end of our lives. 

The good news is you can achieve optimal health and flourish as you age, but you must understand the reality of health in our country and take action today!

Some research about achieving optimal health during aging is undeniable, such as the link between exercise and all-cause mortality. In other areas, the research is still in the early stage, with the results seen only in mice, and the enthusiasm is ahead of the science. 

What we do know is Americans are getting sicker. The healthcare system focuses on treating disease rather than keeping us healthy because it is structured to provide greater incentives for treatment rather than preventing or slowing the progression of the disease. 

What You Need to Know 

For non-smokers, 80 percent of the deaths are from four diseases: 

1. Heart and Vascular Disease: Examples are stroke, heart attacks, atherosclerosis, and Transischemic Attacks

2. Cancer - obesity and metabolic syndrome are the leading cause of cancer, second only to smoking 

3. Neurodegeneration: Diseases where the cells of the central nervous system stop working properly or die. Examples are Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s, and ALS

4. Metabolic Dysfunction: Examples are Type 2 Diabetes, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome/pre-diabetes, and mitochondrial dysfunctions (how the cells regenerate). Recent research indicates that Alzheimer’s Disease should be considered to be Type 3 Diabetes that affects brain function.

The foundation of all these diseases is metabolic health, which, if not optimized, increases the risk of metabolic dysfunction diseases and other primary conditions. 

There are many ways to define metabolic health, but a simple explanation relates to how well the body can generate and process energy from food. Glucose is the precursor to energy creation throughout the body, and when the body can’t use glucose properly, it leads to metabolic dysfunction. 

Good metabolic health is defined as having optimal levels for five biomarkers (without the assistance of medicine).

You have metabolic syndrome (also known as pre-Diabetes) if you are high in three or more of the following markers: 

• Abdominal or Truncal obesity - a waist measurement of 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men

• High blood pressure - Systolic >130 OR Diastolic >85

• High fasting glucose  - > 100 mg/dL

• High fasting triglycerides - >150 mg/dL

• Low HDL cholesterol - <50 mg/dL for women,

Unfortunately, 52% of Americans have been diagnosed with metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes) or Type 2 Diabetes. And new research showed that only 6.8 percent of Americans had optimal metabolic health, and that percentage is declining. That means 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, and the rest are at risk for developing almost every chronic condition. More importantly, most people don’t even know they’re at risk. 

These diseases slowly progress and are responsible for much of the disability and deteriorating health Americans see in the last decade of life. The impact is also felt way before the actual diagnosis of the disease. 

Up to 10 years before developing metabolic syndrome, a person starts to experience a disruption in metabolic health.  This disruption causes a change in the chain reactions of how different body parts signal to each other about how to do their job. When that happens, the body cannot function correctly in getting glucose out of the bloodstream to use it as fuel. 

The disruption affects the cellular functioning of the liver, brain, heart, kidneys, muscles, and even fat. This disruption over time is what leads to metabolic syndrome. 

The conversation about early prevention is missing from the mainstream discussion and is frequently not part of the discussion with primary care providers. 

It’s time to start managing biomarkers for optimal health long before we get metabolic syndrome.

What You Can Do To Manage Your Metabolic Health

You can do many things to improve this outlook, prevent chronic diseases, or push them closer to the end of life. The goal is to live without debilitating disabilities and poor health that may shorten your lifespan but may also shorten your healthspan and diminish your quality of life. 

Many years before you have elevated levels of key metabolic syndrome markers, your body is experiencing unhealthy metabolic function, and you don’t even know it. 

For unknown reasons, testing for hormone insulin levels in the blood is not part of a standard fasting testing panel ordered by health providers. Increasing blood insulin levels can be a very early indicator of metabolic health long before the potential impacts of metabolic dysfunction leading to metabolic syndrome and those other primary diseases causing 80% of deaths. 

A high insulin level indicates a lot of blood sugar or glucose floating around the system and not being used. Knowing your insulin level allows you to take action to stop the progression toward metabolic syndrome. Requesting a fasting insulin test in addition to the glucose and lipid panel tests your provider orders can help you take early action. 

However, you don’t need lab tests to take action now to maintain good metabolic health. While you can manage metabolic syndrome with pharmacological treatments, medication will not improve overall metabolic dysfunction, so maintaining good function is essential. You can do many things related to lifestyle to maintain good metabolic health. 

• Eat whole, unprocessed foods, mostly plants. Avoid fad diets and caloric restrictions as they may provide a downward spiral for your metabolic health. 

• Move more, sit less. Physical activity and exercise can have the most dramatic impact on being metabolically healthy. Improving lean body mass and muscular strength is key to improving metabolic health. 

Unfortunately, years of chronic caloric restriction diets combined with insufficient exercise focused on improving muscular strength may have put you in peril for metabolic dysfunction. 

Resistance training and strength training to gain muscle strength and lean body mass is the best exercise for healthy metabolic function. Yet, even something as simple as taking a brisk walk after meals can reduce your blood sugar elevation. 

Move more throughout the day rather than having one workout at the end of the day. It’s not enough to sit all day and do one small chunk of physical activity. Read more on how to get more physical activity in your day. 

• Get appropriate amounts of sleep. It’s good for your body and your brain. Read more on getting better sleep. 

• Manage stress in healthy ways. Chronic exposure to physical or psychological stress is linked to metabolic diseases, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, and Type 2 diabetes. Look for ways to help you manage stress and be calmer. 

• Manage light. Getting bright sunlight early in the day while limiting bright light and screen time later in the evening can alter your metabolism. Scientists found bright light exposure increased insulin uptake compared to dim light exposure in the morning. In the evening, bright light caused higher peak glucose (blood sugar) levels.

Metabolic dysfunction is the root cause of many chronic diseases experienced today. Most people aren’t even aware it exists. It should be part of the mainstream conversation when talking about health. 

The good news is most of your metabolic health is within your control with simple dietary, exercise, and lifestyle changes.

It’s never too late to start. Even the smallest step towards better health, such as going from being sedentary to being more physically active throughout the day, can considerably improve your metabolic health and overall well-being! 

Don’t wait. Start today. If you need support, join us at an upcoming Reignite virtual course. You’ll learn how to take action today and leave with your personalized plan for living well and flourishing. 

Is intermittent fasting the key to aging well for midlife women?

You may have heard the buzz that intermittent fasting can help you lose weight easily and live longer. At the same time, you may also be questioning the validity of fasting for aging well and whether to try fasting yourself. 

To help you decide whether intermittent fasting is for you, we did a deep dive into the literature (and there’s a lot). More research will be published on this hot topic, so our views may evolve as we learn more. 

Why the interest in intermittent fasting? Healthcare has extended length of lives, but not necessarily health and quality of years. The decline in health experienced with aging is influenced by biological and metabolic changes (such as blood sugar, insulin, waist circumference, lean body mass, blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides) that occur during aging. The scientific interest in exploring whether intermittent fasting can improve how we age is increasing. And, if you’re like us, your interest is piqued because you want to age well while living longer. 

Some studies have shown that calorie restriction and increased exercise improved healthspan and delayed the onset of aging-associated declines. Intermittent fasting has been shown to stimulate similar biological pathways at a cellular level as caloric restriction and has emerged as a potential regimen for preventing or reducing the risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and obesity, as well as for improving brain function and mental clarity.

Types of Intermittent Fasting

Let’s start by defining the types of fasting being studied and discussed in the literature and online. 

• Alternate day fasting is eating a normal diet one day and fasting completely or moderately (consuming ~25% of daily calories or approximately 500-800 calories, called moderate alternate day fasting) the next.

• Fasting on some days of the week. The most popular application is called a 5:2 approach—where a normal diet is consumed for five days, and a fast is done for two days each week. The fasting days tend to be limited to approximately 25% of energy needs (500-800 calories).

• Time-restricted eating limits eating time to 4 to 12 hours during the day. 

• A fasting-mimicking diet is a period of a water-only or very low-calorie diet for two or more days separated from the next cycle by one week or longer. It was developed to be used in periodic cycles.

Research To Date 

It’s important to acknowledge that relatively few studies have explored the different intermittent fasting routines in middle-aged and older adults, and many of these studies were less than one year in length. More long-term research is needed to confirm the promoted health benefits for midlife adults. 

With that said, when reviewing studies conducted with broader populations, some have suggested that fasting regimens can aid in mild to moderate weight loss through consistent reductions in energy intake. However, recent literature reviews have not seen a significant difference over simply reducing calories throughout the day to control weight loss, glucose, and blood lipids. Reducing calories throughout the day or trying intermittent fasting can be viable options for reducing intake. Choose the approach that is easier to adhere to long-term, some people have found intermittent fasting easier than daily monitoring of caloric intake. With either approach, losing weight can improve health, especially in individuals who are overweight or obese.

Time-restricted eating has emerged as an eating approach that may support circadian rhythms. Most studies to date have been done in mice and supported by largely observational studies in humans, but they have shown benefits such as a reduction in fat mass, increased lean mass, reduction of inflammation, improved heart function, and improved natural body repair processes. 

Research done with rodents has also suggested that the health benefits of restricting eating windows without restricting calories were similar to the benefits of calorie restriction.  A few studies have shown that eating the same number of calories earlier in the day compared to late at night aids in weight loss without differences in caloric intake, macronutrient distribution, or energy expenditure furthering the interest in whether intermittent fasting, especially time-restricted eating, could be a practical approach for weight loss. It also has been proposed that time-restricted eating may increase metabolic flexibility enabling the body to fluctuate between burning carbohydrates and fat more easily. 

Metabolism may function more optimally in the morning, which suggests that eating earlier in the day may produce better weight outcomes.  Eating at night (between 5 pm and midnight) can often lead to eating too many calories, which can increase markers of inflammation. More research is needed to understand eating times, fasting periods, and health outcomes. Shorter eating windows (e.g., 12 hours) or consistent first and last meal times may be practical approaches for midlife women to use to control calorie intake without negatively impacting eating in social settings. 

Although some people find fasting difficult to adhere to long-term, others find intermittent fasting approaches easier to follow, making adoption and adherence to these approaches easier. Most people don’t have to overhaul their eating, avoid certain food groups, or monitor calories to follow a fasting approach, especially when doing time-restrictive eating. However, more research is needed to understand hunger, satiety, and long-term success with any fasting regimen. 

While intermittent fasting regimens appear to be safe for short periods, more research on humans is needed to assess safety for long-term use,  Most research has been done on people who are overweight or obese. More research needs to be conducted to determine whether fasting is safe for people at a healthy weight. 

In our experience, with any type of restrictive rule-based eating plan, women may miss out on important nutrients in their diets when they restrict food to a small eating window or fast on alternate days. As we age, getting the nutrients needed to maintain muscle mass and stay nourished can be more difficult, and adding a fasting regimen may make that even more challenging. 

When energy and nutrients are restricted, women may experience symptoms such as hunger, temperature changes, fatigue, headache, low energy, irritability, and gastrointestinal issues. Eating healthfully during any restricted eating plan is important to maintain energy, support mental health, and optimize healthspan. 

We’d love to say intermittent fasting is a key to aging well. Some studies done with lab animals show promising results, but the studies with humans are sparse, short-term, and therefore not yet conclusive. Plus, there’s a lack of consistency regarding an ideal regimen. 

Bottom Line

If you’re interested in trying intermittent fasting,  a shorter eating window (~12 hours) or consistent first and last meal times may be practical places to start for most healthy midlife women as we all wait for more evidence.

Small calorie reductions can be fine, but it’s important to get the nutrients, especially protein, you need to feel great, have the energy to participate in the activities you enjoy, and eat from all food groups. Being too restrictive can prove detrimental to aging well, especially if you lose lean body mass or you fall into an overly  “restrictive” eating pattern that impacts your joy of eating or your ability to eat with family or friends. 

Lastly, work with your healthcare provider if you have a chronic disease or are on any medications to ensure your chosen approach will work for you and not be counterproductive to your current medical regimen. 

Eleven Reasons Strength Training in Midlife Improves Health

Your body is a gift. Every fiber of your body — each of the eleven elements that comprise your body — has carried you through your life. Your body held hands, loved others, gave hugs, perhaps birthed babies, and cared for others. 

Indeed, it has sometimes betrayed us, become ill, suffered broken bones, endured surgeries, and as we age, has begun to creak and groan. For some, it may not move at all or how we want it to. But, your body is a gift, and moving it can be a reminder that we do so because we can.

For all but a few, our body doesn’t look the same in midlife as it did two to three decades ago. Yes, it’s ok to reminisce about that 30-year-old body, but rather than compare the current body to its younger version, be grateful for how far it has brought you in this life and for the journey still ahead. 

Movement helps a body adapt, grow, heal, and stay healthy. Just watch a baby, toddler, or young child, and you know this is true. Movement helps prevent and repair injuries. 

Your body is also the thing that can prevent you from having the quality of life you desire in your older years. With few exceptions, the better you treat your body - the more movement you give it - the better it will treat you. 

It is never too late to start. Be good to your body, and it will be good to you.

Focus now on how to move your body to stay strong and enable you to do the things you want. Think about the events or experiences our parents or grandparents didn’t get to enjoy at our age. 

How do you know what movement your body needs? Try this reflection exercise. Close your eyes for five minutes and imagine what you want to be doing in your 90s. Yes, your 90s; if you have great genes or can life hack your way towards being a centenarian, what do you want to have the capability of doing? Next, think about what you need to do in your 60s, 70s, and 80s to live out that dream? 

Chances are high that everyone imagined a life full of movement and strength rather than one where they’re sitting in an armchair watching tv or in a rocking chair on the porch watching the world pass by. Consider whatever visualization you had of your future fit and healthy self to be your version of winning the gold medal at the centenarian Olympics. And, everyone knows if you want to make it to the Olympics, you have to train for it. 

The only way to have a high quality of life is to maintain a strong and active body. If you don’t feel that is your body today, then it’s time to train to get the strong body you deserve and to have the one you need. What do you physically need to do now to have the physical life you want later?

How do you do that? You move. You train your muscles. Your muscles will adapt and grow stronger. Yes, cardiovascular fitness (aerobic) and physical activity are essential, but most women focus too much on those exercises and neglect strength training. If you love your cardio workouts, you can always combine more muscle strengthening exercises into your cardio routine. 

Strength training is one of the cornerstone things women can do to improve their health span to live vibrantly and energetically for as long as possible. As we age, the body declines first, then disease begins. The best way to offset illness is to prevent the body from deteriorating. And the best way to do that is to maintain muscle mass. 

Many things happen when you start doing resistance training, weight lifting, or even bodyweight exercises to strengthen your muscles. 

You will:

• Increase stability and balance, which helps you better control your body in space.

• Experience better bone health. After age 65, the risk of death within one year of breaking a hip or femur during a fall is 30-40 percent.

• Change your metabolism, helping to prevent metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes).

• Manage weight because you’ll burn more calories as your body composition changes. 

• Move throughout your day more easily. Lifting heavier items, climbing stairs, bending over, and getting up from the floor will all go more smoothly.

• Stave off the frailty that comes with age. Falls due to a lack of muscle mass are almost entirely the cause of accidents and death after the age of 75

• Increase joint mobility and decrease non-arthritic joint pain, which prevents injuries,

• Have greater independence, so you tire less quickly and can do more physical things.

• Improve appearance. Most women appreciate their appearance more after starting a strength training program. Improved muscle tone smoothes skin.

• Have the energy you desire to move through your day doing the things you dream of doing. 

• Improve your mood, and overall just feel better! 

Now is the time to be your best kick-ass self and flourish after 50. 

As you strength train, it’s also important to ensure you eat enough protein. Check out our 90-Day Protein Journal for a guided tool to help you build a new daily habit that sticks!

Check out other blog posts from Rumblings Media on becoming fitter and physically active in midlife. 

Together we Rumble!

Ditch Fad Diets: Become a Conscious and Intentional Eater in Midlife

Have you ever finished a meal so quickly that you don’t remember the taste or consumed popcorn while watching a movie, and suddenly the bowl is empty? Most midlife women can relate to mindless eating at some point. 

Your emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and environment influence what and how much you eat.   Add to the fact that the extreme diet culture penetrating society today (positively or negatively) influences your food beliefs, and how you comply with those beliefs may impact how you feel about yourself.

Whether it’s vegan, paleo, keto, Whole 30, flexitarian, or even “nondiet” diet beliefs, the ideology of ONE WAY of eating versus another can leave you feeling in control one day and frustrated the next, or on the “team” today and kicked out of the club tomorrow. Diet culture promotes the idea that there is one right way to eat, and you must follow strict food rules to be a part of the team. 

It’s time to be done with diets and restrictive thinking! Over our 50-plus years, we have not seen friends or family sustain weight loss or positive health outcomes by complying with one particular fad diet over another. Plus, diets foster a loss of joy in eating and rigid black-and-white thinking around food. We wrote about it here. Yet, we continue to witness new fad diets hit the landscape every year, and the divisive culture followers promote is not helping anyone improve their health and flourish. 

You’ve told us midlife weight gain is one of your biggest challenges, yet you don’t want to jump on another fad plan only to be disappointed again. So what do you do? 

Start with conscious, intentional eating to develop an awareness of the relationship between what and how much you eat and your body, feelings, mind, and interconnectedness. 

It’s assumed we only eat in response to hunger, which we all know isn’t accurate. Our social (who we surround ourselves with) and physical environment (food accessibility, price, and portion size) influence our behaviors including what and how much we eat. 

That’s why developing mindful or intuitive eating principles can help you ditch diets, control how much you eat, and find joy in food, traditions, and culture again.  

Mindful eating refers to being fully present and paying attention to the food you eat, the experience, and your environment with minimal distractions. Jon Kabat- Zinn is considered the founder of mindfulness, which includes mindful eating. Mindful eating (i.e., paying attention to our food on purpose, moment by moment, without judgment) is an approach to food where you focus on the taste, smell, sound, and feelings of what you’re eating when you’re eating it. 

It sounds like common sense, but our lives are full of distractions (television, computers, phones, etc.), which we often use when we’re eating and these distractions can cause us to eat too fast, too much, and without pleasure. 

Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is a philosophy and lifestyle behavior, not a trademarked diet program or strictly defined principles. Common practices include:

• Eliminate eating distractions, such as the TV, phone, or computer.

• Eat while sitting down versus standing in the kitchen.

• Be curious about where your food comes from, who made it, and how it was prepared.

• Be grateful and offer thanks before meals. 

• Take small bites, chew intentionally, and slow down when you eat.

• Savor the food's smell, taste, and texture. Engage all your senses.

• Pay close attention to how hungry or full your body feels. What cues is it giving you to start, slow down, or stop eating?

• Eat without judgment such as thinking about a particular food being good or bad. When black and white thinking persists, acknowledge your feelings.

• Notice internal and external cues that affect how much you eat. 

• Acknowledge how you feel after a meal or snack.

Mindfulness is intended to cultivate a nonreactive attitude to your feelings towards food and eating, which can help break cycles of over and under-eating. Our eating culture doesn’t promote these principles, so being conscious, intentional, and mindful can help you slow down, eat less, appreciate healthful foods that nourish your body, and find joy in food again. 

Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating, on the other hand, is a specific philosophy aiming to free people from the confines of damaging beliefs around food (and often themselves), with the goal of establishing judgment-free eating.  Developed by registered dietitians Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, intuitive eating involves ten core principles which include:

• Reject the diet mentality

• Honor your hunger

• Make peace with food

• Challenge the food police

• Discover the satiation factor

• Feel your fullness

• Cope with your emotions with kindness

• Respect your body

• Movement—feel the difference

• Honor your health—gentle nutrition

Intuitive eating is a pattern of eating that focuses on positive psychological and physical well-being first. The focus is to reconnect with your inner hunger and fullness cues, understand external influences such as mood, social, and food availability, disconnect from strict dieting food rules and unrealistic expectations, and love your body regardless of size or shape. There are no good or bad foods, just food. 

You’ll notice neither of these approaches focuses on the health of the food first. They both promote paying attention to physiological signs of hunger and fullness to control eating, how your body feels, enjoying your food, and eating without judgment. It is easier said than done, so we strongly recommend checking out the resources below if you’re struggling with eating mindfully or intuitively.  We believe it’s hard to focus on what to eat to live well and flourish unless you can first eat in a way that brings you joy, fills you up, and frees you from the black-and-white diet culture. 

Midlife Zest

However, we do believe in choosing foods and beverages that optimize your health and eating them in a way that maximizes your well-being. What eating pattern do we recommend?

Our recommendations vary based on you, your history, and your goals. Eating to maximize your health when you’re in a state of good health is different than eating when you’re in a state of sickness or dis-ease, and your goal is to restore health; therefore, our recommendations change accordingly.

Recommended Resources:

Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S, and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S, FAND

The Intuitive Eating Workbook by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S, and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S, FAND

Mindful Eating: A Guide For Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food by Jan Chozen Bays, MD

The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor

Our Tip to Banish the Midlife Blues

I (Rebecca) am writing this post while sitting in the emergency room at our local hospital. Sometimes it feels like the fog of the COVID pandemic is lifting, and life is slowly getting back to normal. Then there are times, like today, I am reminded that suffering and pandemic challenges continue for many people.  

Karyn and I often speak about the heaviness we sense when we spend too much time watching the news, scrolling through social media, or focusing on the lost moments of the last two years. It can all feel too divisive, overwhelming, and confrontational versus conversational. 

The world has changed in ways that we haven’t experienced before and will likely never return to the same ‘normal’ we lived before March 2020. We’ve changed too. And all of the uncertainty and change has left many of us languishing (living in a state of decreased vitality or blah) or feeling blue. 

Getting out of feeling this way will not happen by flipping a switch or willing ourselves to be joyful, happy, hopeful, and vibrant. There isn’t a perfect timeline for resilience. None of our experiences are the same. Some of us will need to sit with our feelings and emotions and process them longer than others. 

What has helped us feel better when we’re feeling this way—is turning off the news, filtering our social media accounts, assessing who we’re spending time with, and connecting with other midlife women to have honest conversations about what we’re feeling. 

Looking back over the last two years and creating a list of things that have changed our lives for the better has also helped us see the beauty in the season we’ve been through. The process has helped us see we’ve created changes in our lives that we’re proud of and bring us joy and are ones we will continue. It is a list we reflect on when we feel ourselves languishing. 

Here’s part of our list:

We edited our homes to support our health and well-being. Our family added an infra-red sauna in an unused section of our furnace room. Initially, we were worried it would be another household fad; however, we’ve found that the entire family is still reaping the benefits two years later. Karyn outfitted a fantastic outdoor space into an oasis to soak up the sun, relax, and entertain. 

We reconfirmed our need and enjoyment of daily gentle movement outdoors. We looked for quick ways to exercise due to our busy schedules during our intense executive careers. The pandemic helped us slow down, get outdoors on long walks, and appreciate the benefits of nature again. 

We reviewed how we want to live our lives. Yes, we launched Rumblings during the pandemic. It wasn’t easy, but the ‘extra’ time helped us dig deep into our personal ‘why,’ our talents, and who we wanted to serve as we age. We want to help midlife women feel valued, seen, heard, and vibrant. 

We reconnected with friends and family on a deeper level. We had deep, meaningful, and sometimes challenging conversations with those we care about without the chaos of sports schedules, work engagements, and life events. We relaxed. We listened. We grew.

We realized that facing adversity and missing out on meaningful moments such as graduations, weddings, and funerals, made us refocus, reflect, and reframe how we celebrate. We uncovered creativity we hadn’t used in a while and celebrated loved ones in new ways that created new memories. 

We rediscovered our love for growing and nurturing plants! My 16-year-old son recently asked me how many plants I had pre-pandemic (2) and how many I have now (28). I’ve realized that growing (and eating) plants bring me joy. Both Karyn and I also started growing veggies in pots and raised garden beds, a hobby that we put aside while we were both busy working and raising kids. Each year we’ve expanded our harvest! 

We learned. Karyn and I both are learners. We feel inspired, more energetic, and excited when we’re learning, whether through online webinars, events, conversations, or classes (most recently, Pickleball!). Learning doesn’t have to stop at a certain age. As our kids have grown, we have more time to learn new things and experience life in different ways! 

We’ve also learned we want to continue to support this fantastic community through tips, tools, and techniques that can help ourselves and others in midlife. One of these tools is resetting our mindsets to focus on gratitude, as we did with this list. Although some people can reset their mindset and take action to change how they feel quickly, for others, it takes more time. There is no ‘right’ timeline. We are each on our own journey. 

As organizational psychologist and best-selling author Adam Grant, Ph.D., wrote recently— “Strength is not the speed of your recovery. It’s the intensity of your resolve.”

Creating this list and reflecting on the last two years helped us feel grateful, content, and ok. Our inventory is not meant to be a comparison list for your evolution over the previous few years. It is intended to serve as an example to show and remind ourselves we have experienced joy, fulfillment, and positive change in our lives to carry into the future. Making this list, reflecting on it, celebrating change, and being grateful, helped us feel better. It served as a reminder that even when things happening in the world around us seems bleak, it’s possible to experience the full range of human emotion. 

The process has helped me feel better as I process the many medical challenges my family has faced over the last couple of months. 

We encourage you to make your own list, find joy and feel gratitude for the experiences, growth, and changes you have been through.

If you’re looking for more inspiration to reset your mindset in midlife check out earlier blog posts on finding a mindset reset and cultivating a reset mindset. 

Together we RUMBLE!

What Women Can Do to Care for Heart Health After 50

Turning 50 is a wake-up call for many of us.

During our 30s and 40s, we may not have prioritized our health while raising kids and building careers. The good news is it’s not too late.  

It’s our mission at Rumblings to ensure you have the science-based facts and education you need to understand your health risks and be your own best health advocate while also providing you with tools to put knowledge into action.  

This month, we’re focusing on heart health—the number one killer of women.

After menopause, heart disease risk in women increases, yet, only 56 percent of women identify cardiovascular disease as the most significant health problem facing them today.

Preventive cardiologist Dr. Courtney Jordan Baechler*, spoke to a group of Rumblings women about heart health, prevention, treatment, and what midlife women can do to improve overall health.

Not all of you could attend the in-person event, so we took what we learned and provided additional information to ensure you have the facts, resources, and tools to live well, flourish, and take great care of your heart as you age. The information below summarizes our 60-minute discussion. It is not a comprehensive list of everything you can do as it only covers the conversation and questions asked during the evening.

No matter where you’re at in your health journey, there is never a more critical time to take care of yourself.

Understand that current heart health recommendations for prevention and treatment are based primarily on men's research. 

It wasn’t until 1993 that women were mandated to be included in medical research reversing a restriction since 1977 that prevented women of childbearing potential from participating in clinical research. It created a two-decade gap in new medical knowledge on women. Women, as a result, may be misdiagnosed and mistreated more often than men, partly because scientists know far less about the female body.

Today women still only represent about 25 to 35 percent of subjects in clinical trials. We have a long way to go to ensure women are equally represented in research and that the knowledge used to create prevention and treatment recommendations represent us. This is critical to understand so you can have conversations with your medical providers and advocate for your health.

Today's underlying assumption in medical research is that not every trial will have 50 percent women subjects. We need to expect that women are 50 percent of all National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded trials. If not, we need to understand why participating doesn’t work for women and work to solve this systemic issue. Health care has been traditionally designed for families with a stay-at-home spouse with well-covered insurance, and that doesn’t work for most US families today.  

We need all women to advocate for greater inclusivity of women in medical research, as research informs the care women receive.

What can you do?

• Arm yourself with knowledge. Watch Ms. Diagnosed — an award-winning film following the stories of real women whose lives and families have been disastrously affected by this basic inequity in medical care that women receive.

• Stay up-to-date on women’s research. Read patient stories and sign-up for electronic communications from trusted research institutions like the Penny Anderson’s Cardiovascular Center at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, where Dr. Jordan Baechler works.    

•  Support research with women through financial contributions as you’re able.

Know your heart disease risk.

After menopause women’s risk for developing heart disease is similar to men's risk. The most significant risk factor for developing heart disease is age.

As we age, several risk factors to monitor and discuss regularly with your care provider include:

• High blood pressure which has no symptoms, and many people don’t know they have it, can lead to heart disease and stroke. 

• Being overweight or having obesity raises your risk of heart disease. Women often complain about weight gain during and after menopause.

• Arrhythmias, like atrial fibrillation, are fluttering feelings in your chest (palpitations).

• High cholesterol increases with age. Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance made by the liver or found in certain foods. Your liver makes enough cholesterol to meet your body’s needs, but we may eat foods that increase cholesterol in our blood.

• High LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol is considered the “bad” cholesterol because it can cause plaque buildup in your arteries, reducing blood flow to the heart.

• Having diabetes causes sugar to build up in the blood. The risk for heart disease for adults with diabetes is higher than for adults without diabetes.

• Eating a poor diet.

• Physical inactivity.

• Drinking too much alcohol.

• Using tobacco. No amount is considered healthy. 

It’s imperative you know your risk and what to do about it.

What can you do?

• Know your blood pressure. Have it checked regularly. Ask for your numbers and understand the levels healthy for you.  Keep track of them or get a blood pressure monitor to check it yourself between visits to your doctor.  

• Calculate your BMI ( body mass index), which is a measure of fat based on height and weight. It’s a measurement used to calculate risk. However, it’s not a perfect measurement because it does not consider muscle mass, bone density, overall body composition, and racial and sex differences. If your BMI is outside the normal weight range, talk to your health care provider to determine if you should be concerned.  

• Use a risk calculator to determine your risk and talk to your medical provider or other health professionals about managing your risk.

Be aware of signs and symptoms of a heart attack that may differ from the symptoms men experience.  

A heart attack may not feel the same in women as in men. Dr. Jordan Baechler stated women might experience an overwhelming sense of depression, nausea, shoulder pain, teeth pain, anxiety, or jaw pain. However, the most common symptoms are similar to what men experience: chest pressure, tight chest, neck or jaw pain, feeling like an elephant sitting on the chest, or numbness, usually on the left side. The critical thing to realize is that whatever you’re experiencing if it is significantly disproportionate to anything you’ve ever experienced before, you need to get evaluated.

What can you do?

• Familiarize yourself with the common symptoms of a heart attack.

Talk to your primary care physician to ensure close attention is paid to your heart health as you get older.

You are an equal partner with your primary care providers. Make sure you know everything they are doing to manage your overall health and health risks.  Ask questions about tests and procedures to ensure you understand what they’re for, what you’ll learn from them, and how the outcomes will inform future recommendations and care.

What can you do?

• Restate! If you feel you are not getting the answers you deserve or feel dismissed, the best thing you can do is restate what your providers are saying back to them. Doing so may stop bias or dismissiveness from happening. For example, say, ”So you’re confident I am not having a heart attack or blood clot or (insert any symptom).”

Discuss the following lab tests with your primary care providers to better understand your heart health and disease risk.

The lipid panel includes total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides. The goal is to have total cholesterol of less than 200, but it does not automatically mean you need treatment. Today providers are looking at LDL cholesterol (most associated with coronary artery disease and blockages in your arteries), with less than 130 considered healthy. However, lower is better, and if you have disease most providers want it below 70. Having an LDL less than 70 is difficult to do without medication, no matter how clean you’re eating. HDL is the good cholesterol, and a desirable level is greater than 50. Triglycerides are an indicator of how well you eat and your genetics. If your triglycerides are high, it could indicate your simple or processed carbohydrate intake is too high. A triglyceride level less than 150 is considered healthy.

Know your fasting blood sugar. A healthy level of fasting blood sugar is 99 mg/dL or lower. Anything between 100 to 125 mg/dL indicates you have pre-diabetes and could benefit from lifestyle changes starting with eating and physical activity.

Hemoglobin A1c is a simple blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past three months. It’s one of the most commonly used tests to diagnose prediabetes and diabetes and manage diabetes if you have it.

You can consider advanced testing such as a calcium score which is an x-ray of your coronary arteries that tells you if you have plaque or not. A calcium score does not tell us whether there is a narrowing of the arteries; that is what an angiogram does. More doctors are recommending a calcium score test to quantify risk as a way to determine if a medication like a statin may be beneficial. If you’re healthy and post-menopausal, should you get a calcium score? It’s a personal decision on how informed you like to be and whether or not you would take action, such as taking a statin if one is recommended. It’s an earlier way to detect plaque and disease and a new tool in the toolbox. For some people, it’s helpful. The results compare you to other people of the same gender and age. You get a percentage on how you rank 0-100.

If you have palpitations, you want to mention this to your doctor to potentially get a monitor to assess the cause and any underlying concerns.

Consider a stress test if you have symptoms. No data indicates you need to have one without symptoms. 

What can you do?

• Have a conversation with your primary care provider to determine what tests are right for you.

• When contemplating a test like a calcium score, good questions to ask yourself are:

  •  Do you want to know your risk? 

  • Will the results change your personal decision?

  • Do you want that information or not? Knowledge is power, but if knowing the facts will keep you up at night, it may not be worth it. It may be better for you to focus on lifestyle behaviors to reduce your risk. 

  • If you have no symptoms, a calcium score may be unnecessary as it most like won’t change the recommendations from your provider other than medication recommendations. If you are someone who may feel stressed or anxious from knowing your score or has no desire to take a statin, you may not want to know your calcium score.

• Talk to your provider about your numbers.

Understand how inflammation impacts heart health.

Inflammation is not a good thing. Understanding the impact of inflammation on disease is changing the future of how we think about and treat diseases like cardiovascular disease.  Cholesterol is one inflammatory marker. It will be interesting to see how much emphasis is put on cholesterol in the future. Dr. Jordan Baechler predicts that more emphasis will be placed on inflammation and less on cholesterol levels over the next 20 years. 

The best way to detect and measure inflammation is with a high sensitivity C-reactive protein blood test (hs-CRP).  This test is becoming more common, and Dr. Jordan Baechler orders it frequently for her patients. It’s another way to help quantify the risk for heart disease. The results will indicate your risk for developing blockages in your arteries. inflammatory conditions increase your risk of developing coronary artery disease, so the better the inflammation is managed, the less likely you will develop future heart blockages.

What can you do?

• Focus on the food you eat. People can see inflammation improvements by changing the foods they eat. Dr. Jordan Baechler has seen patients make food modifications and seen significant changes in inflammation. Start by getting a minimum of 5-11 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. If you’re looking for more guidance on what and how much to eat, Dr. Jordan Baechler recommends the following eating patterns which vary in how strict the recommendations are:

o   The Mediterranean Diet is a good style of eating and an excellent place to start.

o   The Anti-inflammatory Diet is plant-based with fish and one to two items of other nonplant protein portions a week. The recommendations are a little stricter than a Mediterranean diet, yet has more options than a vegan diet.

o   The Vegan Diet includes no animal products. Work with a registered dietitian nutritionist to ensure you’re getting adequate nutrition for good health and energy..

Get off the fad diet craze roller coaster.

Food recommendations overlap between diseases. Everyone is unique and there is not a one size fits all heart-healthy eating pattern recommendation.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of conflicting information online about the best way to eat. For example, some recommendations given for heart health do not always work for weight loss and obesity which are risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Jordan Baechler gets asked frequently about ketogenic diets and advises her patients that the American version of the diet is often too high in processed fats and can be hard on your heart. She believes a ketogenic diet when followed strictly for long periods can raise the risk of heart disease.

What can you do?

• See a registered dietitian nutritionist to tailor recommendations for you, your lifestyle and your health risks. Dietitians are trained in medical nutrition therapy and behavior change. They can help you modify your eating patterns for life.  

• Consider following one of the three eating patterns listed above that have research behind them and show heart health benefits.

• To manage your weight as you age, you may need to consider increasing the good fat and reducing refined carbohydrates you eat in order to be successful in the long term.  A registered dietitian can help you make these modifications successfully.

Eat well, move more, don’t smoke, drink moderately, manage stress, sleep and be kind to yourself.

Changing habits can be challenging. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Where are you at?

• How can you do a little better?  

The goal is to start small. Quality of life is very important. Dr. Jordan Baechler recommends practicing the 80/20 rule (she does this too)— 80% of the time try to adhere to a healthful way of living. Find a balance that works for you. Every day is another day.

Evidence suggests making four critical changes—move 30 minutes a day, eat a minimum of five servings of fruits and vegetables, don’t use tobacco, and drink alcohol in moderation — you may get an extra decade of high-quality life. Only five percent of Americans do these four things. How are you doing with these behaviors?

It’s also important to manage stress by practicing calm. Most of us don’t do this, we’re constantly in a flight or fight state which takes a toll on our overall health and well-being. 

More and more research is emphasizing the critical importance of sleep to overall health. Ensure you wake up feeling rested. Usually, this means getting six to eight hours of sleep for most people. If you’re struggling to sleep or sleep well seek help earlier. You don’t want to suffer for two years before you get help. There are options that can help such as supplements, acupuncture, movement, food, etc.

Although not directly related to heart health, strength training with weights is important for building lean body mass which is especially important in midlife to prevent muscle loss. Lean body mass is also important for losing and maintaining weight as women age.  

The message is that we can all do a little better, one small change at a time. Don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t perfect today. Tomorrow is a new day.

What can you do?

• Move a minimum of 30 minutes a day. You can do It all at one time, or spread movement breaks throughout the day.  Join the Rumblings Move in May Challenge by downloading 40 ways to be active and follow us on social media for support and encouragement as we add more movement in our days throughout the month.

• Consider strength training with weights to build lean muscle and help manage weight as you age.

• Eat a minimum of five fruits and vegetables a day. Although our March Fruit and Veggie Challenge is over, you can still download 40 creative tips for eating more fruit and veggies in your day.

• Don’t use tobacco products.

• Limit alcohol to one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men.  

• Practice calm— meditation, yoga, staring at a candle, prayer, etc.— in whatever way works for you for a minimum of 10-minutes a day.

• Sleep a minimum of six to eight hours a night. Wake up rested.

Chose foods key to a heart-healthy diet.

Research from Tufts University found that ten foods are estimated to cause nearly half of all US deaths from heart disease each year: eating too few nuts/seeds, seafood Omega-3, vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and polyunsaturated fats, and too much sodium, processed meat, sugary beverages, and processed red meat. This research also suggests that whole-fat dairy consumption can be part of a healthy diet, especially those with probiotic-containing unsweetened and fermented dairy products such as yogurt and certain aged and unpasteurized cheeses.  

If you’re trying to manage your blood cholesterol, natural compounds can be found in certain plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and some vegetable oils have a valuable role.  Eating them helps limit the amount of cholesterol your body can absorb. These natural compounds in plants are called sterols, stanols, or phytosterols.  They can also be found in foods like margarine, cheeses, milk, cereals, and snacks that have been fortified with them. Check the labels for sterols, stanols, or phytosterols, and aim for 2 grams a day.

What can you do?

• Reach for nuts/seeds as snacks and toppings

• Aim for two Omega-3-containing seafood servings a week like salmon, sardines, Atlantic mackerel, cod, herring, lake trout, or canned tuna.

• Eat a minimum of five servings of fruits and vegetables a day

• Substitute whole grains for processed grains

• When eating dairy, choose unsweetened probiotic-containing yogurt and aged, unpasteurized cheeses like Swiss, provolone, gouda, cheddar, Edam, Gruyere, feta, caciocavallo, Emmental, and parmesan. Eat them sparingly.

Before taking dietary vitamins or supplements, work with a registered dietitian nutritionist and your medical providers to determine which ones can benefit you.

Supplement recommendations require an individualized approach based on deficiencies, medications, activity levels, and food consumed. Dr. Jordan Baechler prefers you get nutrients from your food first. 

In terms of heart health, there are no supplements that have been shown in studies to help clinically reduce heart disease risk. However, she is a fan of supplements when indicated. Supplements should be used as a complement to your food and medication regimen, not as a replacement. This is especially critical once the disease has developed.

There was a question about coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and statin use. CoQ10 is an antioxidant that your body produces naturally. Your cells use CoQ10 for growth and maintenance. Levels naturally decline as you age and are found to be lower in those who take certain medications, like statins. Statins are metabolized in your mitochondria and can deplete natural CoQ10 in your body. A supplement can help replace what is lost and there are minimal side effects to taking it. CoQ10 has also been seen to be helpful for those with heart failure. Dr. Jordan Baechler recommends starting with 200 mg a day if you’re on a statin or if your blood systolic blood pressure is over 130.

What can you do?

• Talk to your medical providers about the dietary supplement, vitamin needs, or medications specifically for you as you age This could include statins, CoQ10, and other vitamins and minerals. It can be helpful for your provider to analyze your blood levels and determine together with you what combination of supplements is right for you. 

Know what to consider if you’re advised to take a statin or aspirin.

Statins are the number one drug prescribed to lower cholesterol. Statins are intended to be used to stabilize plaque so you don’t have a heart attack or stroke, and that requires you to be on them for the rest of your life. There are no long-term effects of statin use that we know of today. Dr. Jordan Baechler feels safe having people on them, including her family members.

Before prescribing a statin, your doctor will consider all your risk factors for heart attacks and strokes. Eighty percent of people do great on statins and have no adverse effects. However, about 20 percent of people complain about side effects such as headaches, nausea, or muscle aches. If you experience side effects, talk to your doctor to review your risk factors for heart attack and stroke to see if it is recommended to discontinue the medication. Most patients’ complaints disappear as a result of stopping medications.

If you feel strongly you don’t want to be on a statin, you shouldn’t be on a statin. The mind is extremely powerful.  There was a trial done at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation where people were blinded between statin and placebo and had equal side effects. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t want to be on it, you don’t want to be on it.

It’s your body so you can decide when and if you want to be on or off a statin. There are other non-statin cholesterol-lowering medications you can discuss with your physician if statins don’t feel like the right choice for you.  

The use of aspirin in preventing heart disease as we age is common. However, aspirin recommendations have changed, and it is no longer recommended unless you have a diagnosis of heart disease. If you have established heart disease, your doctor may recommend 81 mg of aspirin daily. Aspirin use is a good topic to discuss with your doctor.    

What can you do?

• Discuss cholesterol-lowering medication options with your medical provider.

• If you have side effects from statins, talk to your physician about alternative types of cholesterol-lowering medications.

• If you have established heart disease, discuss the benefits and risks of daily low-dose aspirin

Discuss hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to manage menopausal symptoms with your provider.

There is an increased heart disease risk with hormone replacement therapy. However, not sleeping — a common occurrence during and after menopause — also increases your risk for heart disease. Work with your physician to decide the right option for you individually. If using HRT, Dr. Jordan Baechler recommends using the lowest dose possible to manage symptoms rather than using it to get hormone levels back to premenopausal levels.

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is one option to discuss with your provider. These hormones are from plant estrogens that are chemically identical to human-produced hormones may be slightly better than traditional hormone replacement therapy.  They are however more expensive.

What can you do?

• If you have menopausal symptoms, discuss low-dose hormone replacement therapy or bioidentical hormone replacement therapy with your medical providers.

There are many things you can do to prevent disease and reduce risks. Knowledge is power, and small changes add up. Take it one step at a time, and soon you’ll find yourself flourishing in midlife.

If you are facing other midlife challenges, we want to hear from you so that we can provide the expertise and answers to your questions through similar events, online webinars, newsletters, and future books.

If you want to read more about heart health, check out 5 Actions to Improve Heart Disease Risk and How to Care for Your Heart After 50.

* Dr. Jordan Baechler serves as medical director of health equity and health promotion at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.   Her previous roles included an appointment as assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Health.  Before that, she served as Vice President of the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing, Allina Health’s prevention, wellness, and clinical service line.  She served as a consultant to the Statewide Health Improvement Plan for the clinical workgroup in Minneapolis.  She has been one of the authors of the Healthy Lifestyle Guideline for the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement. She serves on the MN Department of Health Prevention of Cardiovascular and Stroke Committee.  Her leadership roles have included general board member for the YMCA of the Greater Twin Cities, MDH Maternal mortality and Review Committee member, and a policy advocate for the American Heart Association of MN and co-chair of the Twin Cities Go Red campaign 2020-2021.  She is passionate about helping individuals, families, and communities to find their highest state of well-being—body, mind, and spirit.

5 Ways to Embrace the Senior Discount

There is no category for midlife between young adults and seniors. Although AARP membership is open to adults 50 years or older and stores senior discounts often begin at 55, midlife women don’t think or feel like senior citizens. Plus, businesses and organizations aren’t effectively talking to midlife women in advertising, marketing campaigns, and customer service initiatives in a way that matches how we feel. This can take a toll on how women think about themselves as we age. Read our five ways to reset our midlife mindset to age well, and embrace the senior discount!

Last week a Walgreens employee nicely and appropriately asked me (Rebecca) if I qualified for the senior discount. Caught off guard, I responded, “How old do I have to be to quality?” She said, “55!” I wasn’t sure if I should be thrilled I didn’t qualify or disappointed I missed out on 20 percent off my purchase. 

Karyn and I often talk about the lack of a category for midlife between young adults and seniors. Although AARP membership is open to adults 50 years or older and, as we’re starting to learn, store discounts begin at 55 years old, we’re not senior citizens (often defined as over the age of 62).

With improved knowledge on prevention and new scientific discoveries around longevity, we would also argue that those standards should even be older. Why does it matter? Businesses and organizations aren’t effectively talking with us in advertising, marketing campaigns, and customer service initiatives in a way that matches how we feel. This can take a toll on how we think about ourselves as we age.

Although I am working on it, these confrontations can do a number on my mindset, which is usually pro-aging! That day, I walked out of Walgreens thinking that my wrinkles, hair, and lack of make-up must be screaming that I am old. Why else would she ask me about the discount? 

Luckily with the work we’re doing at Rumblings, I recognized my spiraling mindset and redirected my thoughts to how great I felt before I walked through the Walgreens door, having just finished a weight workout and a kale salad lunch. I quickly refocused my internal conversation to reflect that this woman was only trying to save me money rather than comment on my age or appearance. 

How do you reset your mindset when you feel too old, invisible, or undervalued? 

Try these five resets to swap positive thoughts for negative ones. 

Recognize your thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Honor how you’re feeling. Sit with it. Be present. Is your internal chatter leading you down a positive path? Are these thoughts and feelings giving you energy or sapping essential resources? Is your reaction a pattern? So many of our responses are hardwired we don’t recognize how misaligned they are with our values. Aging is a good thing. Remember, you’re not alone in this journey.

Identify why you’re feeling this way.

Why are these negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions prioritized over positive ones? What can you learn from how you’re feeling to help you react differently? What was your trigger? My trigger at Walgreens was the word “senior” preceding the discount and the images I have about being seen as a senior citizen too soon. Reflect on your responses and write them down. 

Redirect your thoughts.

Think about alternative views you could swap for your current reaction to a comment or situation. How would different responses align better with your values? After I walked out of the Walgreen’s door, I realized I had let one question impact how I was feeling at that moment. My reaction was not aligned with my core beliefs and value of wanting to age well with vibrancy and positivity. I needed to redirect my thoughts to how I wanted to feel. I did that by reflecting on how I felt before walking into the store and how I could get back to those feelings.  

Practice how you will respond differently next time you’re in a similar situation.

Visualize your new reactions. Play them over in your mind. Practice how it could play out differently with a friend. How do these new reactions make you feel? The more you do this, the more likely you will naturally respond differently next time. 

Reignite.

We often talk about reigniting ourselves in midlife because the reality is we want to honor our age, learn from our experiences, and regenerate the spark that may have dimmed as a result of the anti-aging messages we receive daily in society. This takes practice. Stepping into how you want to live is necessary. Don’t hold yourself back based on society’s expectations. Just do it. Reset and reignite today! 

Next time I walk into Walgreen’s on senior discount day, I’ll be ready to embrace my age and ask for the discount because no matter how it is communicated, I am thankful, grateful, and saving money!

This process isn’t easy, but going through it is necessary to reset our mindset to feel great and live well as we age. Showing up as our authentic, vibrant, and true selves can also begin to shift the norms of how society views midlife women. 

Let’s RUMBLE, embrace our age, live well, and flourish together!  

Learn more about resetting your mindset through gratitude, fun, intention, and joy here. 

12 Simple Makeup Tips for Midlife Women

We don’t talk much about beauty trends and makeup in midlife because we deeply oppose the anti-aging messaging we witness in beauty industry marketing campaigns. This type of advertising puts too much unrealistic pressure on midlife women not to age. The messages women shouldn’t have wrinkles, gray hair, or sagging skin feed on our vulnerabilities and are wrong. 

We are aging. We shouldn’t hide from it. What we know about aging has evolved, providing us with opportunities to age well and differently than previous generations. It’s time to embrace our age, enjoy life, and live vibrantly into the future. 

Living well as we age and focusing on doing it from the inside out is possible. But, we also understand part of living well is feeling good in whatever ways work for you. If that means wearing trendy clothes, using makeup, using the latest skincare products, or dying your hair, we’re all for it! We do it too! 

In 2021, we were so pleased to work with Multi-Media Make-up Artists Amy Marie Reed and Carmelle Eickhoff. They educated us and other midlife women on how to adapt our makeup routines as we age.  

The information provided was so helpful that we asked them to share a few simple tips to help you make adjustments in your makeup routine so you continue to feel fresh and vibrant in midlife.  

Just like you refresh your wardrobe and update your style, you can use makeup and skincare to reflect your style and personality.

Take care of your skin first! 

• Moisturize. Moisturize. Moisturize. 

• Apply moisturizer before makeup and let it set before applying makeup. 

Use a foundation or tinted moisturizer to even out skin discolorations over the entire face. 

• Apply under the chin and down the neck area and blend well. 

• Use silicone moisturizers under silicone-based foundations. If you use a water-based moisturizer, use a water-based foundation. 

• Switch from cake or powder foundations to one that is cream or liquid.

Reconsider blush.

• Use cream blushes blending to hairline and high on cheekbones. 

Enhance your lips!

• Use lipsticks, glosses, and blushes interchangeably. 

• Avoid frosty lipsticks. 

• Have fun playing with color and top off with a “sticky” clear lip gloss for moisture.

• Avoid “smeary” glosses that will settle into lip lines and smudge. 

• Use your lip liner to fill in your entire lips for a long-wearing, matte lipstick look.

• For smoother, softer lips, use an exfoliator at night. Follow it with a Vitamin E Stick to bring full moisture back to your lips. 

• To prevent your lipstick from bleeding, try semi-matte lipstick. It has less moisture, but moisture is what creates movement of the lipstick. 

• After applying your first layer of lipstick, set your lip look with a translucent powder just like you would set your makeup, and then use another layer of lipstick for a long-lasting hold.

Avoid using too much powder, especially under the eyes. 

• Using a colorless powder over foundations to “set” foundations or conceal pore areas is fine - but less is more. 

Showcase those lashes. 

• Consider using a lash curler to lift lashes. 

• Apply mascara at the very root of lashes - wiggling it to get in the lash line. You may need two coats of mascara and remove any clumps after application.

Take care of your eyelids. 

• Eyelids get oily as time passes, so use an eyeshadow primer to help with shadow adherence and longevity and even out skin discoloration before applying shadow. 

• Stick with soft neutral shadows. Shadows with a sheen are preferable to shimmery or sparkly. 

• Eyeshadow primer is also helpful on lower lashes and lower lid areas to apply shadows used as a replacement for eyeliner. Avoid lighter or shimmery colors on hooded eyes. 

• Replace eyeliner with an eyeshadow in lash lines to darken and enhance lashes. 

Be sure to blend.

• Blend edges of all makeup, whether blush or shadows, to eliminate harsh lines. 

Consider concealers.

•  Start with very thin layers, and be sure not to miss the inner corners of eyes that tend to darken with time. 

• Gently tap concealers with a brush under your eyes or use the warmth of your ring finger to tap in. Less is more!

Set your look.

• Using a final overall face mist with a setting spray helps secure your makeup and make it last. 

Leave your brows to professionals.

• Professionally wax and tint your brows. 

• Touch-up brows with eye shadow or pencils in between maintenance appointments. 

End your day with a clean face!

• Wash makeup entirely off your face and neck every night.
  

Would you like more midlife fashion and style tips? Download Rumblings Media's Fashion After 50 Tips curated by fashion experts to help you edit your closet, build a capsule wardrobe, select swimwear, and more!

2022 Galentine’s Day Gift Guide

Let’s celebrate our favorite midlife women on Valentine’s (or Galentine’s) Day with a gift made or curated by women!

There has never been a better time to shop and support women-owned small businesses.

Isadore Nut Company

Isadore Nut Company makes award-winning snacks and gifts that are more than just delicious and good for your body. They also ensure half their staff is people with disabilities. The others are women, people of color, and immigrants. They give people the chance to learn new skills and accomplish their goals by giving them a job.

Bolton Bees

Give a gift of good health and sustainability—honey. Bees are responsible for pollinating ⅓ of the world’s food supply, including many fruits and vegetables that are important to a healthy diet. Honey is a natural sweetener with nutritional benefits, but it’s also critical to the existence of honey bees, which are in turn essential to our health. Gift natural honey straight from Bolton Bees Beekeeper, Chiara Bolton.  Shop location-specific, solar-produced, or custom-label honey. 

Their gift to you is free shipping on orders over $14. Code: RUMBLINGS

Gaderian Wines

Gaderian Wines is a women-owned winery and wine you can drink with your friends and family around the table, firepit, picnic blanket, or living room. Celebrate these women with the woman in your life by sharing a bottle of Gaderian wine.

Chef Robin Asbell

Robin Asbell is an author, educator, and natural foods chef who creates luscious, feel-good food. Treat the food lover in your life to a new cookbook for inspiration or a virtual cooking class for fun times with friends.

Ear Things by Laura Wolovitch

Handcrafted jewelry utilizing new, recycled, and vintage materials. Shop Ear Things By Laura Wolovitch.

Laura Stamper Designs

Art jewelry by Laura Stamper Designs is described as the antidote for ordinary. Laura has been creating one-of-a-kind pieces for 29 years. You can find her jewelry on her website or Etsy.

SHExclusive by Susan Horowitz

Find Minnesota jewelry designer Susan Horowitz’s designs at one of her Etsy sites, SHExclusive or Minnesota Stoned.

LaurenErickaDesigns

We confess these handcrafted clutches are one of our favorite gifts to give and receive. They are perfect for a casual lunch or date night, but we also use them for cords, make-up, and other miscellaneous items. They are a must-have go-to accessory! You can shop designs here and here.

Nani Nalu Beachwear Botique

Trying on swimsuits has never been a positive experience for either of us until we found Nani Nalu Beachwear Boutique. Rumblings women have described the unique in-store or virtual shopping experiences as "life-changing.” 

Give the gift of a unique shopping experience to your friend, sister, daughter, wife, or mother by making an in-person appointment and purchasing a gift card for a new suit or other pieces of resort wear or a gift card to the online experience called SUITCASE. Get started here.

Kirtonized

Founded by Pam Kirton, an award-winning artist and illustrator, and Saeteesh, a model and entrepreneur, Kirtonized is a unique one-of-a-kind clothing gift. Contact Pam and Saeteesch by DMing them on Instagram at @kirtonized to co-design a custom gift. 

ATELIER957

ATELIER957 is a women's fashion boutique offering hand-picked clothing and accessories from small design houses worldwide. They believe in being chic, flattering, and unique at every age, size, & shape.

Monique Maxwell

Inspirational clothing with a deeper purpose embodies what the woman in your life believes. Find motivational t-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts, flannels, and more by Monique Maxwell.

Grethen House

Grethen House has been at the forefront of introducing cutting-edge fashion to Minneapolis since 1990. They showcase a thoughtfully curated collection of designers available locally and online that any woman would love.

ModernWell

ModernWell is a women-centered collaborative workspace that balances independent spirit with holistic well-being, championing a one-of-a-kind, work-like community. Membership in a well-being-focused women’s co-working space in your community is a great gift.

Kula Yoga

Kula Yoga is an all-inclusive, woman-run, boutique yoga studio providing in-person, streaming, and 24-hour playback yoga classes, workshops, private lessons, and retreats for all fitness levels. Classes range from high-intensity conditioning classes or open flow vinyasa classes to restorative classes to help you gain flexibility and relax. Kula Yoga specializes in safe, results-oriented instruction with a keen focus on physical alignment and spirituality. Give the gift of movement in an enviroment that allows women to explore and deepen a yoga practice in fresh and exciting ways.

Rhythm For Living Life Coaching

Help someone you love transform fears into compassion for being good enough as she is and find support for her to dare to become what she desires with life coaching sessions from Shelly Melrose from Rhythm For Living.

The Scout Guide

Do your female friends or family members have an upcoming trip or simply enjoy seeking new and exciting local hot spots? The Scout Guide connects people with local businesses, entrepreneurs, and others in more than 60 U.S. cities that both locals and travelers should know about.

Lip Esteem

Tameka Jones helps women feel good one tube at a time—lipstick, that is. Lip Esteem is a new cosmetic brand born out of pure ambition and passion. With more than 25 shades, the Lip Esteem look is plant-based, gluten-free, and cruelty-free, and full of life and vibrancy!

House of Colour

Personal stylists help any woman look fabulous and radiate confidence in the colors and shapes that suit her best. Check out the consultant directory to find a House of Colour stylist in your area.

Empowering Books

Between Grit and Grace: The Art of Being Feminine and Formidable by Sasha Shillcutt, MD

Her Path Forward: 21 Stories of Transformation and Inspiration Edited by Julie Burton and Chris Olsen

Notes from the Rocket by Christine Mason Miller

Unlocked: How Empowered Women Empower Women by Jane Finette

Women-owned businesses represent a critical part of economic and business growth. And, studies show that women reinvest up to ninety percent of their income in their families and communities. We hope you’ll join us this holiday season and throughout the year in supporting and lifting up amazing and inspiring entrepreneurs, makers, and small businesses by shopping female-owned whenever possible!

Are you inspired to start a new hobby, volunteer position, or career? Check out our most-read 2021 blog post-Discover How to Make Work and Life Transitions After 50.

Take Steps to Reignite Yourself After 50

In March 2018, we planned a girls’ trip to New York City with another friend. We were working in executive positions in different cities at the time. It was going to be a long weekend filled with laughs, good food, and adventures. 

The trip was all that, but it was also a turning point for us upon reflection. Our long conversations over wine were consumed with talk about burnout, the challenges of managing people, abuse in the workplace, and whether we were living our best lives. We needed this time to decompress and deeply share our challenging experiences and process these with other like-minded women in the same life stage. 

We recognized our careers were at a tipping point. Was the goal to keep climbing the career ladder at the expense of our personal lives, social lives, and families? By the second glass of wine, the conversations dove more deeply into our dreams, desires, and how we wanted to live the next half of our lives. Each of us expressed a longing for something more than the current state. At the end of the weekend, we realized we all needed to make different types of changes to move in the direction of our dreams. The spark was lit in New York City. 

Fast forward to 2020. We now lived in the same city and met regularly to envision Rumblings. We knew we weren’t alone facing midlife career, personal, and family transitions. We heard from other women our age who were struggling with the same challenges. 

The common thread we were all experiencing was an internal RUMBLING that something needed to change to live our best lives through midlife and beyond. 

The change is different for everyone. For some, it’s a career change, to start a business, or leap past fear and take on a new challenging position. For others, it’s traveling more, moving to a new city, finding new rewarding volunteer opportunities, or creating a life that aligns more closely with personal values.

Whatever your dreams are for reinvention, go for them. We’ve never looked back, and even with the ups and downs of starting a business, we know we’re on the right path—slower than we hoped, yet moving in the right direction. 

These six actions helped us leap past our fears to start creating the life we envisioned.

Embrace a learning mindset. We thought we needed to know everything about starting a business for too long before we leaped. After a year of talking about beginning, we realized we had to stop talking about it and do it. In July 2020, we launched our website and built a community through social media. The most important thing we needed was an open and learning mindset.

The reality is you’ll never be fully ready, know everything, or have the perfect plan. Be willing to leap and learn. Ask questions of others who have reinvented themselves. Learn from their experiences. Open up to learning from women younger and older than you. 

Leap past fear. Change is scary, but what’s more frightening is living a life not aligned with your values and dreams. It was challenging to start something new, put ourselves out there, not know whether midlife women would engage with us, and not feel perfectly ready when we did. And, the fear creeps in regularly when we try something new (like producing a fashion show!) or discuss something that feels vulnerable (showing our faces or sharing our personal stories).

But, the rewards have come on the other side of fear. So leap, friends, leap!

Forgive each other and ourselves. When you forge into something new, you’ll make mistakes. We certainly have —lots of them, to be honest. Early on, we made a pact to accept that we will make mistakes, laugh at them together, support each other through them, and move on quickly. This pact has worked for us and has helped us realize mistakes are our lessons, they’re inevitable, and they’re part of the process of living forward.

Be kind and forgive yourself and others as you move along your path.

Ask for support and be supportive. Reinvention takes support. We have called on friends and family to support our efforts to build Rumblings. In return, we make an effort to promote other midlife women reinventing themselves. These women have taught us so much as we’ve learned their whys for reinvention, seen their actions, and witnessed their successes.

Don’t be afraid to ask for support. Share your dreams and audacious goals. Ask other like-minded midlifers for help.

Be consistent. Consistency has been our biggest lesson and the action that continues to move us towards our goals. It sounds too easy, but in reality, it can be challenging. We need to remind ourselves frequently to break down tasks and take action every day. When we do, we see progress and change.

Change and reinvention are not easy. You have to stay focused on your why and take steps every day towards your dreams. It’s the daily steps that create progress. 

Practice self-care. To live your best life requires you to be at your best. Take care of yourself. Sleep. Eat well. Move. Meditate. Take time for yourself. For years, we put ourselves last as we built our careers, raised children, and cared for parents. We put off medical appointments, didn’t exercise, and reached for convenient food.

As we’ve built Rumblings, we’ve reprioritized ourselves alongside our ambitions. Our dreams matter. We matter. But, only we can take steps to take care of ourselves. No one can do it for us. We’ve realized that we feel better when we do this and do better.

Now is the time. Prioritize and take care of YOU. 

Reinvention is a continuous process. We’ve learned a lot and realize how far we’ve come as we reflect on that New York City weekend. We’re making progress on living the life of our dreams, and it’s exciting. We still have things we’re working on—confidence, focus, and vulnerability. We acknowledge the challenges ahead of us and reflect on these same actions as we discuss how to move past them.

It’s not too late to pursue your dreams and desires. 

Let’s reignite, reinvent, and RUMBLE through midlife together. 

Read more about how turning 50 inspired Rumblings and advice from other midlife women on how they reinvented themselves. 

10 Ways to Empower Women Right Now

Saeteesh from @saeteeshunleashed and Jennifer Cermak from @naninalubeachwear shared personal advice and stories to empower other women at our Fashion After 50 Fashion Week MN Event. Photo credit: G. Marie Images

Have you ever asked yourself, “What is one small thing I can do to start a revolution?” Jane Finette did just that during the pandemic. She felt down and overwhelmed, so she started connecting with other strong women in her network to find out how they were coping and what they were doing. Although the media headlines were dismal, she discovered empowered women doing fantastic work to support the advancement of women and girls, and their efforts did not stop during these stressful and unprecedented times. 

Talking to other women, she also found their impact did not start with a huge business plan. It began with simple, quiet, and repeatable things that they did in sisterhood. She felt these empowering stories needed to be told, so Jane summarized the lessons into her new book, Unlocked: How Empowered Women Empower Women. 

Our Rumblings community had an opportunity to have a virtual conversation with Jane to discuss our ability to influence societal change, especially when systemic and policy changes necessary to address fundamental issues of gender, age, and racial biases seem so impossible. 

She emphasized that change starts by taking one action with another person in our world. The opportunity is great, and we need to understand that we lift up all women when we help one woman. When we collectively do that as a regular practice, enough women will be standing in their full power, and systems and policy changes will follow. 

Our conversation was so rich and empowering that we wanted to share the key takeaways for women who missed it.  

How do you begin? 

Start by seeing yourself as a female activist. If you think of your actions as feminist actions, you will realize the impact goes beyond helping one dear friend or work colleague, and instead, you will recognize your simple steps are for the sake of all women. When you embrace female activism as a part of your personality and identity, you will seek ways every day to fulfill your way of being that type of person in the world.  

We’ve all had our own lived experiences as we’ve climbed the corporate ladder, raised children, taken care of aging parents, and made our way in the world. We know it hasn’t been easy, and we’re not here to claim that carving out even more time to help more women is easy either. 

However, we hope we all agree that we want a smoother path for the women—our daughters, nieces, neighbors, colleagues, etc.— coming behind us. This starts with being vulnerable, sharing your experiences—good and not so good—and asking for help when needed. 

You’re the most important person in your life. The first act of being a feminist is committing to take care of yourself first. When you make yourself a priority, you have the capacity to help other women. 

10 Keys to Unlock the Potential of All Women

1. Say yes to help another woman. Make an introduction. Have a call. Give advice when asked. 

2. Tell her she is ready! Be her cheerleader. Sometimes she just needs a gentle reminder to own her truth and claim her destiny.

3. Stand behind her. Back her up. Support her through struggles. Let her know you’re there for her. 

4. Help her help herself. Help her see everything available for her to clearly make her own choice or decision. 

5. Talk about money. Women earn less, invest less, and two-thirds of women have the potential to retire into poverty. You must get comfortable talking about money, encouraging women to ask for what they’re worth, and sharing how to invest money. 

6. Stand up for her. Support fairness, equity, and truth, especially when those principles are violated.

7. Be the example. Share your stories and personal experiences. Role model helping yourself and other women. Having empowered women as examples empowers other women. 

8. Give her confidence. Help her see her strengths, showcase her previous successes, and move past her fear. 

9. Send the elevator down. Make the journey easier for her by giving her a hand, hiring her, promoting her, or showcasing her talents.

10. Be a sister. Show up as a sister. Offer a kind word. Listen. Smile. Share a hug. 

“To empower another woman is a selfless act with untold possibilities.”

- Jane Finette

Now is the time. Get started today!

It’s all about this moment. You are ready. All that you have done before now has prepared you for this moment. You know how to put the keys to work to unlock the potential of women around you. Just begin. Start today.

Jane summed up our conversation brilliantly. “We all have everything inside us to live our fullest, and most exciting, and wild lives. We have all the wisdom from the women who came before us, and we have an incredible community of women supports. Ask for help from each other and give, receive, and keep showing up to moments like this because it’s a village; we need a village.”

If this summary has inspired you, we encourage you to buy and gift the book to all the women in your life. The proceeds from your purchases go to The Coaching Fellowship, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing young women leaders working in the social impact space, founded by Jane and described as her life’s work. 

A foundational principle, or Rock, at Rumblings is to advocate for and inspire women around us. Read more about our Four Rocks to Flourish After 50

Together We Live Well and Flourish After 50

Thank you, friends! We are deeply grateful for you, our Rumblings' community, and we wish you a very happy, joyful, and reflective Thanksgiving day and long weekend, however you celebrate.

We’ll both be celebrating locally, but If you’re traveling this weekend, check out our Top Seven Tips for Successful Multigenerational Travel. Sometimes the biggest holiday stresses come from the expectations of family members and friends from different generations coming around the table together. Plan ahead, prepare yourself, and relish your time together. If we’ve learned anything over the last 20 months is that time together is valuable and something we won’t take for granted again.

We also plan to get out and enjoy the long weekend by doing a little shopping, decorating, and consuming lots of leftovers! Small business Saturday (November 27) is a great chance to support small local retailers in your area. We encourage you to seek out and support small women-owned businesses this holiday season. If you haven’t checked out our 2021 Holiday Gift Guide for Women which highlights gift ideas from small women-owned businesses, now is the time!

This is the time of year we prioritize time to pause, reflect, and celebrate our annual accomplishments, as well as strategize and plan for the next year. One annual ritual we’ve done individually and now as a business is setting one to three-word intention(s) for the year. Our Rumblings words for 2021 were learn, connect, and inspire. If you’ve never set your word(s) for the year, check out the process we use to choose our words. We’ll be going through this process in December to set our 2022 intentions.

We love hearing from you. One thing we’ve learned since we launched Rumblings is that many midlife women are looking for alignment between their professional or volunteer work, and their personal values. Two years ago, we were there too.

This rumbling often takes the form of wanting to start a new hobby, transition to a new job role, or jump into an entirely new career. We’ve been inspired by the midlife women we’ve met who have literally reinvented their career paths and are happier as a result. Whether you are just starting to feel a new rumbling that something needs to change or you’re ready to leap headfirst into a new career, read our most popular blog post of 2021—Discover How to Successfully Make Work and Life Transitions After 50.

Living well and flourishing after 50 is achievable! Together we thrive. Take a few moments this holiday season for you. Reflect, realign, and get ready to RUMBLE into 2022.

We look forward to RUMBLING right alongside you.

Top 7 Tips for Successful Multigenerational Travel

I recently returned from a daughter, mother, grandmother trip to visit my son at Michigan State University (MSU). For almost 20 years, the three of us have intentionally planned trips to learn, connect, and seek adventure together. 

The trips have ranged from visiting the American Girl store in Chicago, a long weekend in Door County, week-long getaways in Michigan to two weeks in Italy and France during my daughter’s time studying abroad.  

We’ve had great times and created wonderful memories, but we've also learned how to travel well together. It’s not always easy when there is a 57 year age difference. 

Over time, and through trial-and-error, we’ve discovered seven strategies that work for us for successful multigenerational travel. 

1. Choose a Destination with a Personal Connection

My mom (grandma) grew up in Michigan. I was born in Michigan, lived there until I was two years old, and spent summers in my youth traveling back to Michigan to visit my grandparents. It’s been fun to intentionally plan trips back to Michigan to stir up memories and reminisce. Our trip to MSU was to visit my son at college, but also for my mom to share her stories of being a student there too. 

As you plan your trip, think about the purpose of traveling together. Is there a destination that would be fun for everyone, but also have a special connection for one or more of your family members? Do you want to create memories for your children? Do you want your children to get to know your parents and their life stories better? Craft an itinerary that fulfills the purpose for everyone.

2. Plan Activities You All Can Enjoy 

Given our age differences, choosing activities that we all enjoy can be challenging. Adventure sports, long strenuous hikes, or even hours spent in a museum don’t bring the same joy for all of us. However, there are two things we can all agree on—our love for local culture and food. We seek out innovative restaurants, local markets, or unique local boutiques while also stopping by meaningful locations during our trips. 

During our recent weekend away, we drove by the house my parents built (my first home) and the hospital where I was born. My mom enjoyed seeing the changes in these places over time, and my daughter and I enjoyed hearing her relive her memories from her time in Lansing. 

Planning activities with a mixture of new and old experiences creates excellent conversation and rich new memories together.

Have a conversation before your trip and identify what type of activities each person would enjoy. Consider each traveler's passions. Can you include that type of activity into your itinerary for everyone to enjoy? 

Do your research. We’ve found unique activities via travel books, blogs, and most recently, Tik Tok and Instagram influencers. Keep your mind open! Some of our most memorable experiences lately have come from ideas discovered by my daughter through social media. 

3. Let the Young Navigate

One of the biggest roadblocks we have tackled is how to get from A to Z. I have frequently felt stuck in the middle of a map reader (my mom) and an online Google Maps expert (my daughter). It came to a head on our trip to Europe four years ago. After living in France for six months, my daughter had Google Maps iPhone navigation down to a science. She could map us on any type of public transportation — trains, buses, and subways —in no time flat. Growing up using paper maps, my mom felt lost without seeing the big picture of where we were going to ensure we were going in the right direction. She would get anxious and frustrated with my daughter and me for not slowing down so she could review the map before deciding which direction we should go. Within a few hours, I realized I had to help my mom let go of control, trust her granddaughter's navigation skills, and be ok with following her lead so we could travel together without angst. 

In our experience, letting the young navigate creates less friction and gets us where we are going more quickly. This is not always easy for the older adults in the group who have been reliant on paper maps for travel. Our advice is to discuss this before your trip, review a paper map before your day begins, and encourage older travelers to trust, relax, and let go of the need to navigate during the day. 

4. Pack Light

A travel mantra I heard over and over growing up was never to pack more than you can carry. This has been critically important to remember during our multigenerational trips. We pack light and do not worry about wearing the same outfit multiple times. It keeps us mobile and allows us to quickly help one another when needed. 

We recommend traveling with a lightweight roller bag with 360-degree wheels and a backpack that can easily fit under the airplane seat and be light enough to carry while exploring new areas. Traveling light helps everyone in your group feel in control of their belongings, move more efficiently, and stay together during your trip. 

5. Listen

While walking the MSU campus, my mom started reminiscing about her time there from 1958 to 1962. Hearing her stories about being required to wear heels and suits to the football games, wear skirts to classes (women were not allowed to wear pants), and be in her room by curfew made Ella and I realize how far women have come in two generations. It made us appreciate the challenges women have fought to overcome so that our lives are better. 

Listening to stories from the generations ahead of you can help you better appreciate your life and opportunities while gaining new respect and appreciation for their past. This experience can create new connections between all travelers. 

Ask questions and listen. There is nothing like learning about someone in the place they lived or through an experience they had as a child as they relive it as an adult with you. It’s also fun for the adults to see a place through the eyes of younger generations for a fresh take on a familiar place.

6. Slow down

Let’s face it, our travel speed changes as we age. As my daughter, mother, and I have traveled together, we have had to adjust our expectations, pace, and patience as we have gotten older. We don't move at the same speed or schedule as many activities into a day as we once did.

Technology has added travel challenges. Mobile tickets, online check-ins, and QR codes can feel overwhelming when a person in your group is less comfortable with these new processes. Navigating technology-enhanced travel naturally takes more time for anyone not as familiar with digital changes. 

Yet, slowing down has benefits. There is more time to enjoy the scenery, take in the sounds around you, and appreciate the moment you're in instead of anticipating the next activity or sight to see.

It’s unrealistic to expect your multigenerational travel companions to all move at the same speed. Be realistic. Modify your expectations before you travel. Take the time to help others in your group who move more slowly. Walk with them. Help them with their luggage and work with them to navigate new technology. You’ll build new bonds and nurture a new relationship.

7. Be Grateful

My daughter, mother, and I are grateful for our time together traveling and the memories we’ve created. We understand that we’re lucky to have these opportunities. We have years of travel memories together. This past weekend, we added to those as we ate gelato for breakfast, wandered local boutiques, introduced my mom to Lululemon leggings and kombucha, shared memories over coffee and wine, and walked miles and miles around campus.  

Whether you are planning multigenerational trips with family or friends, consider these seven strategies for success.

What did we miss? What has worked for you and your family? Let us know. 

Are you wondering what to pack when you travel? Check out our favorite tips and items in our Jetsetter's Guide: Master the Art of Savvy Packing.

5 Lessons from A Fashion After 50 Event to Inspire Midlife Women

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides...the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years. 

~Audrey Hepburn

Over 200 midlife women attended a Rumblings’ Fashion Week MN event. It was an enormous undertaking and a departure from our previous events and outside our self-defined expertise.

It is an understatement to say that we felt out of our comfort zones. Creating an event was familiar; however, the idea of creating a fashion event was very new. We’re not fashionistas and we have the same questions about style and dressing during midlife as many other women. 

We, too, have fashion biases like believing we’re too old to wear something or our clothing choices must hide certain parts of our body we’re uncomfortable with. Yet, we believe how we dress embodies how we feel about ourselves, and living inside out is a part of living authentically. 

Our mission at Rumblings is to create a community of women who come together to learn, connect, and inspire one another to flourish after 50. A Fashion After 50 event was a perfect way to create a new opportunity to personally step outside of our comfort zone and bring midlife women together. 

Planning the event and meeting amazing new women was fun and exciting. The immediate excitement of the event has ebbed. What hasn’t faded is the energy and new way of thinking and self-discovery from doing something different, a bit scary, but a lot of fun!

Aside from the new friends we met and all we learned about fashion, business, and ourselves, several takeaways will inspire us as we plan future events. We hope it will inspire you to continue to learn, connect, and empower other women so that we can all flourish in midlife.

Women empower women when they come together and share their personal stories—especially midlife women. Over twenty-one, female entrepreneurs and small business owners came together to create this event. Most have reimagined their lives during midlife, taken a giant leap to jump into something new, and created the life they want. 

By far, the most inspiring part of the evening was hearing stories of midlife women reinventing themselves, starting new businesses, and creating a life where they flourish. It's not too late to chase your passions. We LOVED hearing their stories and all of them inspired us. 

What is your story that you can share with others? Who do you know who has reinvented themselves in midlife by changing careers, starting a business, or taking up a new hobby? Let’s start sharing our stories. Empowered women, empower women. 

Community is important. Moving into midlife can create feelings of isolation and loneliness for many women. Coming together in a community with other midlife women can help by knowing other women experience similar challenges, stresses, and transitions.

Whether we’re rethinking our careers or our personal lives, midlife women especially need deeper connections with other women in the same life stage. Midlife transitions are messy. There is something deeply personal about acknowledging our collective experiences with one another. 

That’s why we created Rumblings-a community of women who come together to learn, connect, and inspire one another. You can get involved by signing up for our email, attending events, or simply engaging on social media. Together we can support and encourage one another to thrive after 50. 

Together we create energy. When midlife women come together, we can energize a room. The past two years have been difficult. We’ve been managing careers, midlife transitions, balancing caring for family, neighbors, and older parents while navigating a pandemic and constant uncertainty. At the event, we witnessed the collective energy of women coming together, and it was magical! 

We can help one another think about how we want to shape the remainder of the second part of our lives. We are in unchartered territory in more significant numbers than women that came before us. Our mothers collectively may not have had the same options, life experiences, or financial independence as a norm that we have available to us. Sharing inspires. And, inspired women create energy. We must continually lift up one another to navigate midlife together, reimage what it means to thrive in our primetime, and have tons of fun while doing it!

Find your women. Share, support, and let go. Enjoy this fantastic time in your life.

Attendees engage with a few of the pop-up market vendors. All female-owned small businesses.

Support midlife women-owned businesses.  There will be 1.1 billion postmenopausal women by 2025. Yet, few companies market or create things specifically for our demographic beyond societal norms created by others to pressure us to be ageless, beautiful, or thin. We’ve all felt at one time or another to be less relevant because of aging. After years of working, many of us are either financially independent or have significant buying power. There is no reason we have to accept marketing and advertising that caters to younger demographics or males while diminishing our value by either ignoring us entirely or trying to limit our worth based on our appearance or age. We deserve better, and together we can advocate for it. 

There are amazing, diverse, and phenomenal midlife women running businesses. Seek them out. Support them by purchasing from them. Let’s create a social movement for change and show the world what it means to be a midlife woman. 

Fashion is from the inside out. Fashion is a reflection of who we are from the inside out. It should make us feel good about ourselves, which means wearing what makes us happy and confident. 

Download our phenomenal Fashion After 50 Tips curated by the expert panelists at our event. Learn how to edit your closet, build a capsule wardrobe, select swimwear, and more!

Fashion After 50 Tips

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Missed the event? You can watch the entire evening, experience the energy and excitement, hear expert advice from our panelists, and see looks from local boutiques on real-life (non-professional models) midlife women here. 

Sign-up today to get more information on how to Flourish After 50! 

Together We Rumble!

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