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

Why Physical Activity is Important as We Age

We know that physical activity and exercise are essential. Physical Activity is one of the most important things we can do for our overall health. Yet, for many of us, we have the same type of relationship with exercise that we do with fad diets.

We try it, and we may even try the latest exercise trend, yet less than half of the people who start an exercise program stick with it for more than six months.  

The benefits of exercise and activity are clear. Anyone who is physically able should accumulate 150 minutes of moderate physical activity every week, and half as much if that activity is intense.

In 2018, the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans were updated to recommend how much adults should move. It includes a review of movement, sitting, and health science.

It’s difficult to shift through the information on how much exercise is enough. How hard does exercise have to be to count? Do you have to do 30 minutes all at once for five days a week? Is it even worth the effort to do less? The most straightforward answer to these questions is moving more and sitting less. Continue to do that consistently, and you will reap the health benefits.

Research shows middle-aged and older adults spend an average of 8.5 to 10.5 hours a day sedentary. Compared with their more active peers, this inactive group had higher mortality rates.

The most important thing you can do is to get off the couch. The most significant health benefits come from spending less time being sedentary and more time being physically active. We spend most of our free time sitting. Many of us work at a desk in front of a computer. Since the pandemic, we sit even more. We transition from our desk chairs to spending our evenings in front of a screen or reading a book. We drive to do our errands, pick the closest parking spot to the door, use drive-thru windows, and meet friends for dinner and sit.

Even kids, the most active segment of the population, have dramatically increased the amount of time they spend being sedentary.

Many who do structured exercise each day with a run, walk, or other cardiovascular (cardio) activity are sedentary for the remainder of the day.

An inactive lifestyle has many adverse effects on your health. You burn fewer calories, contributing to a loss of muscle strength contributing to weight gain. Your bones grow weaker and lose mineral content. Your metabolism changes and your body won’t break down fats and sugars. When this happens, it causes inflammation and poor immune function.

Those health effects from inactivity ultimately lead to the diseases that midlife women experience with age leading to more and more inactivity.  Lack of physical activity can contribute significantly to an inability to live independently and have a high quality of life as we age. 

It’s time to get honest about getting active and find ways to be active throughout your day. Get bite-sized activity ‘snacks’ spread throughout each day. These snacks are essential whether you’re doing a 30-minute brisk walking session or similar activity five times a week or are a couch potato.

If you are a yo-yo exerciser, primarily sedentary, or a somewhat inactive exerciser, try building a foundation of daily physical activity. Move more and sit less throughout the day, and you may find yourself moving into a daily exercise program you can sustain as a regular habit.

By incorporating activity snacks, you may enjoy counting steps and find that you can accumulate the number of steps to improve your health.  Newer research indicates the optimal step count for people younger than 60 is about 8,000 to 10,000 a day and 6,000 to 8,000 for those 60 and older. You may even accumulate the 150 minutes of moderate physical activity recommended each week without even realizing it. 

What do these activity snacks look like? Check out the ideas below. It’s easier and more fun than you might imagine incorporating small chunks of activity throughout the day. Start by using these ideas, and then create your own.

• Take a break from sitting. Get up, stand, or move for at least 10 minutes every hour. Set a timer as a reminder. 

• Have shorter meetings. Shorten meetings to 25 or 50 minutes and use the extra time to move.

• Walk one flight up, two flights down. Always take the stairs whenever possible, even if you only start with one or two flights.

• Walk the dog. Rather than let your dog out into the yard, take them for a walk. It’s an excellent activity for both of you!

• Park farther away. Take a parking spot farther away from the door and walk when driving to errands. It’s easier to find a spot, and there will be less traffic further away.

• Find every opportunity to walk. Walk around during phone calls. Walk rather than sit in a coffee shop. Get up during TV commercials. Walk during breaks at sporting events.

• Schedule an active gathering. When getting together with family and friends, have it centered around activity. Hike, take a scenic walk or even play Pickleball.

• Play more. If you have grandkids or even older children, find a way to incorporate more play into your day. It’s a fun way to spend quality time with them, and it models active behavior for them.

• Walk to do your errands. Walk to the grocery store, pick up dry cleaning, or the bank.

• Use a standing desk. The more time spent standing rather than sitting or reclining (other than sleeping), the better. Meet or work standing up.

• Do yard work or garden. Weeding, watering, or tending a garden or yard is a fun way to be outdoors and get activity.

• Stretch every day. If daily exercise is a struggle, do a daily stretch as a way to stay flexible while adding more physical activity.

Are you looking for even more ideas? Download Rumblings’ 40 free tips for incorporating more movement in your day as part of our Move in May Challenge, or read our blog post on ways to move more and sit less in midlife.

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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.

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!

Can protein help women age well?

Eating adequate protein plays an essential role in preserving skeletal muscle as women age.

It’s impossible to move through your day without seeing a headline about what you should eat for good health. In your lifetime, you’ve most likely witnessed the popularity of macronutrients (carbohydrates, fat, or protein) rise and fall. Most of us are old enough to remember the nonfat obsession of the early 90s. Today protein is all the rage, but does it have a role in aging well through menopause and beyond?

Eating protein is essential to good health. As you age, it helps maintain healthy muscles and physical functioning. Compared to carbohydrates and fats, protein also takes the longest amount of time (and energy) for the body to digest and absorb, so it has a significant role in helping you stay full longer after a meal.

A growing body of research suggests that loss of skeletal muscle mass (sarcopenia) and strength along with fat accumulation in muscle tissue begins in your 40s. Decreasing estrogen plays a part in the process, but so does the increase of sedentary time (e.g., sitting too much) and decline of physical activity. The combination over time decreases muscle strength and power by two to three percent a year. The progression can lead to increased risk of falls, metabolic dysfunction, heart and respiratory disease, early mortality, and decreased quality of life.1

The good news is you can prevent this decline by eating high-quality protein throughout the day and exercising (prioritizing, strength, or resistance training). You can read more about the keys to getting fit after 50 and how to sit less and move more in previous blog posts. Today we’re focusing on protein as part of a nourishing eating pattern for aging well after menopause.

Why do you need protein? 

Eating adequate protein plays a role in making and preserving skeletal muscle before, during, and after menopause. Protein distribution at meals and quality have also been reviewed recently in the literature.

The current Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is .8 grams per kilogram (1 kg = 2.2 pounds) of body weight. The RDA is the amount of protein healthy adults need each day to prevent deficiencies. However, there has been criticism that these recommendations may not be optimal for older adults who may need additional protein to sustain muscle mass and functionality.

Experts suggest that the current protein recommendations don’t account for research showing that while older people can make as much muscle as younger individuals, they require more protein to achieve the same effect. 

How much protein do you need after menopause?

Your personal protein goals will vary based on your age, activity level, and goals. Working with a registered dietitian is the best approach for determining exactly how much protein you need each day.

However, several expert groups have advocated for 1.0 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day for healthy adults and >1.2 grams of protein per kilogram per day for older adults with acute or chronic illnesses. For example, a healthy 150-pound woman would need 68 to 82 grams of protein a day.

Is there an optimal way to consume protein?

Our skeletal muscles are in a constant state of growth and repair, so it’s essential to understand how to feed them most effectively. Studies have looked at whether it is better to consume protein throughout the day or at a single meal and suggest an even distribution throughout the day helps maximize muscle-making.

Aim for 20-25 grams of protein at each meal and pair 5 to 10 grams of protein with a fruit, vegetable, or fat as a snack.

Does protein quality matter?

As women age, the protein quality may be more critical than when younger. Protein quality impacts digestion, absorption, amino acid composition (e.g., essential amino acids that our bodies don’t make), muscle growth, and muscle repair. 

Animal and plant foods provide protein, but meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, and seafood supply all the amino acids that the body cannot produce. Gram for gram, animal proteins are better for stimulating muscle growth than plant proteins, but both can help you reach your protein goals. Plus, plant foods are packed with nutrition, like fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals beneficial for aging, without the cholesterol and saturated fats found in animal products.

Leucine, a branched-chain amino acid required to grow and repair muscle, skin, and bone, may be vital in preventing age-related sarcopenia. Plant foods tend to be lower in leucine than foods rich in animal proteins. Short-term studies have evaluated higher doses of leucine at meals with lower total protein content and seen beneficial effects on muscle growth. Therefore, try to incorporate foods like chicken, steak, pork chops, tuna, tofu, tempeh, chickpeas, lentils, navy beans, milk, yogurt, nuts, seeds, and eggs into your daily eating pattern. 

Can protein powders help you reach your protein goals?

Although we do recommend eating whole foods to meet your protein needs, there are times when protein powders can help supplement your protein goals. There are many choices on the market. 

Whey protein (from dairy) is one of the most commonly used proteins, contains all the essential amino acids, and is easily digested. Collagen is popular on the market today, but it doesn’t include all the essential amino acids. Research is still inconclusive regarding health benefits, so if you’re reaching for a supplement, you’re better off choosing an alternative to meet your protein requirements. 

Many plant-based protein powders are incomplete protein sources (lacking all essential amino acids), so you may find plant-based powders contain a mixture of plant protein sources. Plant-based options include soy, brown rice, pea, or hemp. The bottom line is to choose a protein powder you like with the least amount of additional additives. 

In summary

Eating adequate amounts of high-quality protein throughout the day, doing resistance or strength exercises at least twice a week, and reducing sedentary time are all vital for maintaining muscle mass and strength as you age.

No matter your age now is the time to assess your intake, review the quality, and look at how you distribute protein in your meals and snacks. Aging well may require tweaks to what you eat and your exercise routine to ensure you live the quality of life you desire in your later years.

Resources: 

1. McKendry J, Currier BS, Lim C, Mcleod JC, Thomas ACQ, Phillips SM. Nutritional Supplements to Support Resistance Exercise in Countering the Sarcopenia of Aging. Nutrients. 2020 Jul 10;12(7):2057. DOI: 10.3390/nu12072057. Erratum in: Nutrients. 2021 Mar 23;13(3): PMID: 32664408; PMCID: PMC7399875.

2. Roger PS, Zanella R Jr, Martins GL, et al. Strategies to Prevent sarcopenia in the Aging Process: Role of Protein Intake and Exercise. Nutrients. 2021;14(1):52. Published 2021 Dec 23. doi:10.3390/nu14010052

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables: It’s Not as Difficult as You Think

You know fruits and vegetables are essential for good health and longevity. You've heard this message since you were a youngster and adults encouraged you to eat your green beans. 

Yet only one in 10 adults eat the minimum 5-A-Day recommended amounts of fruits (1.5 to 2 cups) and vegetables (2 to 3 cups) on any given day. 

Eating a diet abundant in plants can help reduce the risk of many leading causes of illnesses and deaths, like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, and obesity. 

No matter what eating pattern you follow—keto, paleo, vegan, Mediterranean, or plant-forward—fruits and vegetables are at the foundation of the recommendations. Eating more produce is a great place to start when trying to improve your eating habits for aging well. 

Consider what you ate yesterday. How many servings of fruits and vegetables did you eat? For most of us, we could eat more. The 5-A-Day recommendation for good health is a baseline. Research continues to suggest that eating additional servings is even better for health. 

We realize this may be old news for some, but living well and flourishing after 50 requires going back to the basics, assessing where we're at, and modifying our lifestyles to align with the recommendations for healthful eating. This is especially important as our nutrition needs change as we age.

Behavior change can be hard, especially when it comes to what we eat. We understand. We live the challenges too. Eating patterns become habits. Habits can be difficult to recognize and modify. And, even if we make changes, we often find ourselves slipping back into our old ways. 

Instead of focusing on the statistics of why you should increase fruits and vegetables in your diet, let’s focus on how to do it so you can create healthier habits for good.  

Because no matter where you're at on your fruit and vegetable consumption journey, it's not too late to look for ways to add more servings into your day to reap health and well-being benefits. 

Let's get started. 

First, assess what is getting in your way of eating more fruits and vegetables.

It's difficult to make sustained changes without identifying what is actually getting in your way. Think about what is stopping you from eating fruits and vegetables. For many people, it's the taste. Growing up, you may have been served overcooked or canned vegetables that tasted bland. Or maybe you have a habit of reaching for convenience foods for meals and snacks. Depending on your climate or location, you may even lack access to fresh produce. Whatever your barriers, write them down. Think deeply about how they impact your food choices on a day-to-day basis. The good news is that it is always easier to add something health-promoting to your lifestyle than it is to take something away. 

Next, set a goal. 

Start small and be realistic. Trying to make too big of a change at one time can set you up to fail. If you're eating three servings of fruits and vegetables a day right now, can you add one more serving every day this week? If you're doing well on eating enough fruit but not veggies, set a goal to substitute a veggie for a snack each day. Write your plan down and post it somewhere you can see it every day. Use your goal to make a plan for the week. For example, you may have to modify your grocery list or adjust your weekly meal plan. 

Be adventurous.

Take a look at your plate. Are you eating a variety of fruits and vegetables every day or unintentionally limiting yourself to just a few? Different fruits and vegetables deliver specific nutrients and therefore promote various health benefits. Aim to choose a variety of dark leafy greens, red and orange veggies, cruciferous veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, or cabbage), berries, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, and garlic daily.

If you're looking for additional ideas for adding fruits and vegetables to your day, join us for Rumblings' Fruit & Veggie Challenge. Together we're committing to increasing our intake, enhancing the variety of choices we make every day, being more adventurous in trying new types of fruits and vegetables, experimenting in how we prepare them, and supporting each other along the way. You can download tips to get started and follow Rumblings Media on Facebook and Instagram to be inspired. 

Track your progress.

Writing down your goals and progress helps you focus on overcoming your barriers, prioritize your intentions, stay motivated, and celebrate your successes. Putting specific goals in writing and then visualizing successfully achieving them is associated with a greater likelihood of reaching them. Plus, it helps you be consistent, stay on track, and recognize your progress. Writing down your goals and checking your progress is worth the effort. 

Be aware of how you feel.

It's essential to recognize how you feel when you eat more fruits and vegetables and how you feel when achieving your daily goals. Recognizing positive progress impacts your confidence in your ability to make a lasting change. How we feel often dictates what we do more than knowing something is healthy for us, so make sure you're intentionally focusing on how you feel. Write down how you feel physically from eating healthfully, and how you feel about achieving your goals and making progress. 

See yourself as a role model. 

It's not what we say, but most often what we do that influences the behaviors of others. Think of yourself as a plant-eating role model to your kids, nieces, nephews, grandkids, neighbors, girlfriends, or partner. Not only will this positively influence others' behaviors, but it will also make it easier for you to be consistent and sustain your fruit and vegetable eating patterns. For example, talking about the great taste of vegetables helps you motivate others to give them a try.

Believe in yourself!

Self-efficacy is your belief or confidence in your ability to succeed in a particular situation. It plays a role in how you feel about yourself and how you think and act. Believing in yourself will help you achieve your goals. Believe that you have the knowledge, skills, motivation, and willpower to overcome your barriers, be consistent, and sustain your new fruit and vegetable eating behaviors for the long term. Tracking your progress can provide an external motivator until you have established a solid internal sense of self-efficacy of changing your behaviors.

Celebrate your success. 

Changing behaviors is challenging, especially when adding additional fruits and vegetables to your eating plan. When you reach your goals, celebrate! Tell others about your achievements. You did the hard work and deserve the accolades. Your success will motivate others to join you in your new healthy habits!

Living well as you age will take work. It's worth it. Commit to eating more fruits and vegetables to flourish after 50. 

Join us in celebrating National Nutrition Month as we challenge ourselves to eat more fruits and vegetables, support one another, and get healthier as a community. Download our free Fruit & Veggie Challenge Tips and follow Rumblings Media on Facebook and Instagram for support, sharing successes, and discussing challenges. 

Together we RUMBLE! 

Is your favorite chocolate the best choice for your health? Find out 4 ways to check.

The media would have you believe that eating a superfood—like chocolate— will ensure you live a long healthy life. 

Sounds good, but unfortunately, when consumed as part of an eating pattern containing mostly processed or ultra-processed foods, no food has superpowers. 

So-called superfoods are nutrient-dense choices (a good thing) that should be consumed regularly as part of an overall healthful eating pattern. 

Dark chocolate is often on the “superfood” list. We love that! 

But, there is a lot of confusion and misinformation surrounding the health benefits, type, and how to choose chocolate that’s better for you. 

The Cacao Bean

Chocolate is produced from the cacao bean and goes through steps of fermentation, drying, roasting, nib grinding, refining, conching, and tempering to make the cocoa, chips, chunks, and bars you find in the grocery stores. Many brands are available, but not all offer the same benefits. 

The Benefits of Chocolate

Chocolate is rich in polyphenols—plant micronutrients packed with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and other potential health benefits. Studies suggest that chocolate's polyphenols, such as flavonoids, contribute to improved blood pressure, blood lipid levels, heart disease risk, cognition, and potentially skin health. However, a recent literature review on healthy adults and the effects of chocolate intake only supported a positive association between consumption and improved lipid levels (triglycerides).  

No matter the extent of the health benefits, the reality is most everyone loves chocolate! 

As with any food, when choosing what to buy or eat, you should select foods with the highest nutritional value.

How to Choose the Healthiest Chocolate

The polyphenol content of chocolate varies based on raw ingredients and types of processing.  There are general rules to remember to ensure you get the best health benefits when eating chocolate.

1. Choose dark chocolate with a minimum of 70% cocoa content. Dark chocolate can be 50-90% cocoa solids, cocoa butter, and sugar. The higher percentage of cocoa indicates a higher concentration of polyphenols than chocolate with a lower cocoa percentage. It is also a clue that there is less sugar in the bar. The higher the cocoa content, the better! In comparison, milk and white chocolate are only required to contain 10% and 20% cocoa, respectively, so it’s best to avoid or limit them as they’re mostly sugar and have little nutrition. 

2. Check the ingredient list. Good quality chocolate contains only cocoa solids/powder, cocoa butter, and sugar/sweetener. Ensure sugar or other sweetener is not listed first on the ingredients list. Skip chocolate with added butterfat, milk, trans fat, vegetable oils, artificial flavors or colors, and emulsifiers (e.g., lecithin).

3. Ensure your chocolate has not been Dutch or alkali processed by checking the ingredient list. Meant to give the chocolate a smoother mouthfeel and less bitter taste, it degrades the health benefits of cocoa. 

4. Choose Fair-Trade and organic chocolate whenever possible. Fair-Trade will ensure the cacao bean farmer earns a fair price for the product. Choosing organic chocolate will reduce exposure to pesticides, herbicides, and other artificial chemicals while ensuring a high phenol content. 

Enjoy Dark Chocolate in Moderation

Studies suggest adults may experience health benefits from eating one or two squares of dark chocolate daily. Chocolate is primarily fat, sugar, and calorie-dense, so moderation is critical for good health. Limit your serving size to 1-2 ounces (30-50 grams) daily. 

The foods you eat can significantly impact your feelings, overall health, and quality of life as you age. 

Learning to choose foods that are nutrient-dense and delicious is vital. The more you enjoy healthful foods, the more you’re likely to reach for them again. 

Rest assured, a square of decadent dark chocolate can be a part of your healthy aging-well eating plan. 

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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.

13 Ways to Transition to Autumn Using a Chinese Medicine Approach

Jalashree working with a guest.

Guest Blog: Written By Jalashree Pradhan, Licensed Acupuncturist and Reiki practitioner.

“There is a necessary wisdom in the give-and-take of nature, its quiet agreements and search for balance. There is an extraordinary generosity”- Suzanne Simard.

As the last warm days of our late summer wind down and the busy Yang energy of summer recedes, the transition to autumn begins. The days are shorter, the sun sets earlier, and the mornings are cool and crisp. Observing nature in transition during the autumn season, we begin to prepare for more dormant days ahead. Leaves turn and begin their journey back to the earth. Fruits fall, seeds dry, and tree sap returns to the roots. The natural world is preparing for the cold, dark, and challenging months ahead. We, too, must make our preparations at this time. We stock up on colorful and still abundant fruits and vegetables, dry, preserve, and store foods, and rediscover our forgotten sweaters and wool socks—the summer Yang energy transitions to the slower, quiet, and introspective Yin energy during this time.

Welcome to autumn.

The philosophy of Chinese medicine teaches us to live in reciprocal harmony with the natural world’s cycles so that we can maximize our health and wellbeing.

The Five Elements:

According to Chinese medicine, the Five Elements, or 5 phases, are a method by which we can explain the manifestations of this world. Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water help us define our relationship to the physical world, the spiritual world, and bodies.

In Chinese medicine, autumn is represented by the Metal element and is related to the Lungs and Large intestine organ systems. The Metal element governs mind, organization, order, stability, an eye for beauty/refinement, and its ability to come together and let go. It relates to the color white. The body tissue it connects to is the skin and body hair. The sensory organ is the nose. We experience this element through a yearning for spicy, pungent, and somewhat sour foods.

When the Metal element is not balanced, we may experience excessive grief and sadness or have difficulty letting go and need control. When in balance, we experience a natural sense of acceptance of the transition of this world. We can let go with grace and grieve appropriately, recognizing change as a natural transformative process.

The Lungs and Large intestine organ systems include the nose, throat, skin, and digestive systems, designed to protect us from harmful external factors. The Qi that circulates on the surface is called Defensive Qi, “Wei Qi.” This encompasses the Western concept of superficial immunity and protects us from seasonal illnesses like colds, flu, and allergies. The Lungs are most susceptible to wind, cold, and dryness at this time of year. If Wei Qi is strong and in balance, we can generally maintain health and avoid illness. If our Lungs are out of balance due to overwork, lack of sleep, or improper diet, we are more likely to suffer from “lung conditions.”  

Common symptoms associated with Lung and Large intestine system imbalances are allergies, asthma, breathing problems, constipation/diarrhea, cough, excessive grief, indifference, sadness, sinus infections, sinus headaches, shortness of breath, susceptibility for colds/flu, skin issues, pain in shoulders, elbows, and lower limbs.

Autumn is an opportune time to nourish these vulnerable systems and balance your overall energy and immune system.

There are many things you can do to transition between seasons and embrace autumn:

Stay Warm - Weather changes quickly during this dry season, so wear extra layers. Keeping a scarf around the neck and chest offers additional protection and makes a bold fashion statement. According to Chinese medicine, wind penetrates through the back of the neck and brings environmental pathogens that can lead to vulnerability to catching an illness. Cover up and protect your skin.

Practice Slowing Down - Exercise is essential at this time, but as the world around us slows down, we should reflect on the pace and not run from it. Try calmer forms of exercise – yoga, Qi Gong, nature walks, taking in the beauty of color changes of the trees, or watching a sunrise/sunset. Seek inspiration and beauty all around you. Embrace the transition.

Share activities with family and friends like raking leaves, foraging mushrooms, apple picking, and bringing the garden to a temporary lull. Take time to watch the beauty and changes as they happen all around you. These are relaxing, connected forms of mental and emotional exercise as we say goodbye to one season and welcome another.

Protect Your Sleep - Days are shorter, and nights are longer. More hours of the day are Yin (dark, quiet, cool, and inactive). Try following nature’s lead by going to bed a little earlier. Make sure to turn off screens and keep the bedroom cool and dark. Going to bed and waking up at regular hours will help restore and repair your body and mind.

Incorporate The Bounty Of The Harvest - Move away from summer’s cold, raw foods to more warm and heartier foods such as soups, stews, sautés, stir-fry, and roasts. Rich and dense foods such as winter squashes, winter peas, broccoli, beets, carrots, cauliflower, red cabbage, sweet potatoes, yams, and dark leafy greens support and help keep the digestive system strong to keep the lung system protected. Seasonal fruits such as cranberries, figs, pears, apples, persimmons, and chestnuts support the Lung and Large intestine organ systems. The season provides us much to be grateful for and acknowledge.

It’s best to avoid rich and fatty foods in autumn. They are difficult to digest and can produce phlegm that blocks the Lung Qi. Also, in Chinese medicine, excessive intake of fruits, juices, and dairy can produce mucus, causing coughs and phlegm, so best to limit these to protect the lungs.

Say Yes To Sour/Pungent Flavors - Add sour foods into your diet (olives, pickles, sauerkraut, lemons, leeks, tart apples, etc.) to help hold the Qi within us. It is wise to add pungent aromatic seasonings such as garlic, ginger, coriander, chili, mustard seed, cinnamon, sage, thyme, and rosemary. They improve Qi and blood circulation and support fluid balance to release mucus. Do use all these sour and pungent spices in moderation to not deplete the Qi and Yin. To support the Lung and Large intestine membranes and get rid of mucous, add fenugreek, marshmallow root, flaxseeds, and kombu seaweed.

Add White - The color white corresponds to the Metal energy. Incorporating white foods such as onions, garlic, ginger, cauliflower, cabbage, bamboo shoots, radishes, turnips, daikon, horseradish, parsnips, mushrooms, apples, pears, almonds, cashews, egg whites all help support the Large intestine to eliminate properly. Also, add fiber-rich whole grains and legumes such as rice, oats, amaranth, white beans, soybeans, and white lima beans.  Do avoid white refined flours and sugars. Wearing white may also bring a sense of lightness.

Cultivate Simplicity - It is time to bring the energy more inward and shed things and activities to help simplify daily life. Consider how to live simply, consciously. Try the Marie Kondo approach to organizing closets and drawers and get rid of things you no longer need; it may help you feel a sense of lightness. Autumn is an excellent time to let go of emotional baggage as well. Clear old resentments, foster compassion and forgiveness, and shed the baggage of unprocessed emotions—all with loving attention and care.

Pause to Breathe - The Lung is the Yin organ of the Metal element and brings Qi, a breath of life, to mind, body, and spirit. Shallow and rapid breaths can reduce oxygen and increase stress/tension and deplete the immune function. Remember to pause and take a mindful breath in from your nose, and exhale slowly from your mouth throughout your day. This will help calm the mind and nourish the Lung system to stay healthy.

Observe and Reflect - This time of the year provides a perfect time to watch the Yang energy transition to Yin energy. It is time to slow down. As the days grow shorter, we may feel anxious or melancholic, saying goodbye to the warmer weather. As beautiful as the changing season can be, the closing days of the year can remind us of our cycles and mortality and helps us to live in alignment with what is greater than ourselves.

If we can be persuaded to put aside our fears and accept all that is happening around us and become a part of the larger life cycle, grief can be experienced as a cleansing emotion.

It is essential to make time to cry and grieve. The sound of the Metal element is weeping. The process of letting go, releasing old patterns and unresolved grief will allow us to move with courage and integrity to clarity, recovery, and finally, acceptance.

Incorporate Essential Oils - The Lungs are related to the nose and our sense of smell. When the Lung system is balanced, we can smell all five smells. Deeply inhale essential oils like rosemary, niaouli, eucalyptus, fir, or peppermint to open and clear the nasal passages, and cinnamon, clove, and lemon, in addition, can help boost immunity. Essential oils of lavender, orange, neroli, ylang-ylang, chamomile, and blue tansy help calm mild anxiety, worry, and stress.

My favorite essential oil blends that I carry at my clinic are from Snow Lotus: Vir-Away, Sinus Clear, Sweet Dreams, Stress Release, and Worry-Free.

Add Chinese Herbal Remedies - Chinese herbal remedies are a time-tested and effective support for the immune system and treating cold and flu. They can also be used to support recovery from various long-haul symptoms of COVID-19. It is best to consult with your East Asian Medicine practitioner or me for the appropriate formula for you.

These are a few formulas that can be safely added to your daily regimen as prevention and maintain health through the autumn and winter seasons:

• Host Defense Immunity Comprehensive/ Stamets 7: a powerful blend of medicinal mushrooms for supporting general immunity

• Griffo Base Camp: classical Chinese herbal formula with medicinal mushrooms in teas and tinctures support seasonal immunity

• Dao Labs (Mpls) Immunity Support: classical herbal blend can be added to your daily autumn regimen

Balance with Acupressure Points - Acupoints can be massaged rotating clockwise for 30 seconds to balance the immune system and support the digestive function.

• CV 17-Sea of Tranquility is on the center of the chest at the 4th rib space and in front of the thymus gland, opens the chest, relaxes the diaphragm, supports the immune system, and brings a sense of calm and ease to the whole body, mind, and heart.

• LU2-Cloud Gate is on the upper chest, below the front of the shoulder and end of the collar bone. This point will help with cough, asthma, and pain in the shoulders, lift the cloud of sadness and grief, and allow brightness and warmth to enter by supporting the Metal element.

• TB5-Outer Gate is on the backside of the arm, about three fingers above your wrist crease between the two tendons. This point powerfully reduces inflammation and balances the fluids of the whole body. Also, the Outer gate allows for a feeling of warmth and connection from others.

Restore with Preventative Care - It is more important than ever to stay healthy and balanced, as well as protect and strengthen your immune system. It is beneficial to schedule a seasonal tune-up with acupuncture, cupping, and Chinese herbs to address allergies, digestive issues, long haul COVD-19 symptoms, sadness and grieving that need compassionate attention, and so much more. A holistic, individualized plan can be developed to support and meet your unique needs. Schedule your next visit by booking an appointment here. 

You can schedule in-person and telehealth appointments with Jalashree using the link above.

Check out our upcoming facial roller event with Jalashree on November 8, in Minneapolis.

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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Can understanding your Enneagram type help you age well?

Kate Ostrem created her business, 9 Open Doors, to share the wisdom of the Enneagram in a practical, down-to-earth way. She loves helping women better understand themselves and others. We wanted to know if learning more about our Enneagram types could help us on our journey to aging well, so we sat down with her for an interview.

We’ve done a lot of personality tests, from Strength Finders to Myers-Brigg during our careers. Each one teaches us a little more about ourselves and gives us a way to think about who we are and why we do what we do. We both are learners, so we find the insights fascinating.

Over the last few years, we’ve noticed more and more people referring to themselves as numbers—one through nine. It definitely sparked our curiosity enough that we both took a free online Enneagram assessment. However, knowing our number, or personality, hasn’t been enough. We wanted a deeper dive into interpreting what our number reveals about our personality and how to use this knowledge to live better. 

We sought out Enneagram Expert and Educator, Kate Ostrem, for an interview. Kate is certified with Anne Mureé and has studied with some of the most prominent thought leaders in the Enneagram community, including Ginger Lapid-Bogda, Russ Hudson, Helen Palmer, Jerry Wagner, and Beatrice Chestnut. She has been an Associate Member of the Enneagram in Business Network and is a former board member of the Minnesota Chapter of the International Enneagram Association.

Kate created her business, 9 Open Doors, to share the wisdom of the Enneagram in a practical, down-to-earth way. She loves helping her clients better understand themselves and others. From a conference in New Zealand to teams in corporate environments to a few close friends in a backyard and everything in between, she teaches the Enneagram in a meaningful way for every audience.

What is the Enneagram? 

The Enneagram is a fascinating, centuries-old personality tool that depicts nine different types to explain the motivation behind how we think, feel, and act. 

Why is knowing your type important? 

Our type has many advantages, but it can also limit us. Once we identify our type, we begin to recognize our patterns and can cultivate the ability to make intentional, conscious choices instead of acting from a place of immediate habit. 

How does knowing your Enneagram type help you better understand your personality tendencies? 

Understanding your type allows you to access a deeper part of who you are. Our type is the result of deeply ingrained patterns which go back decades - recognizing it can lead to the realization that we have other options accessible to us. But first, we need to understand our automatic tendencies and what's behind them. 

How can we use this knowledge to be more intentional about our lives as we age? 

I believe that self-awareness is the key to aging well. The Enneagram frees you from a rigid definition of who you are and what you are capable of and opens your eyes to living fully from a place of wholeness.

Can knowing our Enneagram type help us get along with others better? 

Yes, understanding that we are all operating through our type can help us take things less personally. It can also allow us to make adjustments to our own reactions and responses, which can positively impact our interactions with the people around us.

Can I change my type? 

While our type remains the same all of our lives, what we can do is loosen how tight a hold it has on us.

What can we expect to learn at the Enneagram workshop on October 4? 

For many people, discovering your type is a process that can take a long time. My hope is that our time together on October 4th will spark your curiosity, give you some insight into who you are, and point you in the right direction of learning how your type impacts you on a daily basis. I'm looking forward to it!

Do you want to learn more about your type and how to use it to your advantage? Register for Rumblings’ Enneagram workshop here. 

25 Ways to Build Strong Loyal Friendships After 50

Social connections matter throughout our lives, but especially in our 50s. Research has shown that strong relationships and personal connections help us live longer and bring joy to our lives.  

Too often, women in this life stage have told us they feel anxious, lonely, and socially isolated. But this year, more than ever, people are feeling disconnected and alone. Many women are languishing—living between feeling great and feeling down. It’s as if the effort of holding everything together to get through the pandemic has taken a toll. Now that things are opening up again, it may feel difficult to jump right back into a pre-pandemic routine and social life. And, you may not even feel like it. 

These feelings are common after difficult times, disasters, emergencies, and health crises.

In addition, midlife is a time of life transition — kids leave home, marriages may end, careers peak, homes get downsized, and aging family members need care and support. Social connections built while raising kids or building careers often disappear due to these midlife challenges and can result in a lack of deep and loyal friendships at a time when we need them most. 

Many women find themselves hungry for strong loyal friendships again but may struggle knowing how to develop new relationships with other women. 

Maybe this isn’t you. You have a robust and abundant network of female friends you can share and confide in. You feel socially connected. Your friendships bring you joy. Great news, this puts you in a perfect position to help other women. 

Whether you feel lonely, socially isolated, or deeply connected, these 25 ideas will help you build strong, loyal friendships and foster a strong social network after 50.

Connecting with other women matters. It’s up to us to ensure all women feel connected, supported, visible, and valued. We must lift each other up and ensure all women thrive through meaningful connections with one another. We need each other now, especially. 

Make a goal to reach out to one woman this week who you haven’t connected with recently, or at all. 

Imagine the difference you can make in your own life and the lives of others by taking the first step to connect, build deeper relationships, and create safe spaces for women to talk about what they’re emotionally experiencing. 

To get started, invite a girlfriend, neighbor, acquaintance, or complete stranger to try one or more of the following ideas with you. 

1. Share a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share and make a date to meet and divide the share each week

2. Explore a new local trail on foot or on bikes 

3. Check out a local pizza farm 

4. Try a new restaurant with a great patio 

5. Go berry picking

6. Have a picnic

7. Get coffee at a different shop each week

8. Go for a walk

9. Check out the fresh produce at a farmer’s market

10. Sign up for a community education class

11. Learn a new sport like pickleball

12. Take an exercise class together

13. Meet at an outdoor yoga class

14. Take a cooking class

15. Go to a free summer concert

16. Make s'mores around a bonfire

17. Attend a neighborhood association meeting

18. Cook a meal together and try a new recipe

19. Host a potluck or book club

20. Go to a festival

21. Walkthrough a zoo

22. Explore a museum

23. Take a dance class

24. Buy tickets to a sporting event

25. Go bowling

Don’t stop with just one invitation. Deep, meaningful relationships take time. Reach out. Be inclusive and supportive. Reap the personal benefits of connection and give the gift of social connection to others! 

Do you need more evidence supporting the value of social connection? Check out our four discoveries from Rumblings’ 31-day Commit to Connect Challenge last October.

Together we can make a difference! 

Rumble on! 

14 Ways to Find Joy in Your Diet

In 2012, my husband and I (Rebecca) challenged ourselves to go 100% vegan for one month. To be honest, when I committed, I didn’t eat a lot of meat. Dave, on the other hand, enjoyed meat, eggs, and dairy foods. As you can imagine, his vegan eating pattern lasted less than two weeks. Mine lasted over seven years.  However, I have to admit I was never comfortable calling myself vegan. I preferred to say I mainly ate plants, vegetarian with no dairy, or 90% vegan. 

Why was I hesitant to self-identify as a vegan? I’ve always loved all aspects of food — growing, preparing, eating, and experiencing the taste, smell, and textures. I grew up traveling, and part of experiencing and appreciating other cultures always included the food. For example, when I traveled to Canada, I tried poutine, and when in Scotland, haggis. My family trips growing up included visits to local markets and joining local food tours. Now, I design and share similar adventures with my children, such as sampling various types of tacos and agua frescas from local vendors on the streets of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

For me, identifying and following one diet fad or way of eating such as vegan, paleo, Whole 30, Atkins, or gluten-free meant saying no to a valued experience. It also meant feeling like a fraud or diet imposter if I broke from the strict diet philosophy. 

As I’ve moved throughout my career, I’ve seen diets come and go, and the diet feuds only get worse. Individuals with strong food identities constantly fight online about which ideology has more scientific merit, extends life, or best fends off disease. In reality, and rarely mentioned, these ways of eating have far more principles in common (more fruits, vegetables, and fiber and limited ultra-processed foods) than conflicting advice (meat and dairy types and quantity recommendations). As a result of the fighting, many people are confused, fed up, disconnected, and feel like failures because they haven’t been able to comply with one or more of these restrictive eating regimens.

I am not saying that following a specific dietary pattern won’t have personal benefits for individuals. I’ve seen people lose weight, improve blood pressure, reduce blood cholesterol levels, improve blood sugars, and feel better by modifying what and how much they eat. I firmly believe in the health benefits of food — especially fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. I also understand the medical necessity to limit foods for specific allergies or chronic diseases.  

At the same time, I strongly believe in the mental and social benefits of coming around the table to share a meal with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. Something magical happens when we eat together and fill our souls with nourishing foods. We may be restricting joy in our lives when we are so strongly attached to a certain dietary pattern, believe recommendations are rules that if broken equal failure, or refuse to see the value in other approaches to eating. 

Are your food rules limiting your potential to experience joy from food or eating experiences?

Circle the statements below you practice. 

• I am open to trying new foods even if I am unfamiliar with the ingredients 

• I don’t feel guilty if I stray from my usual way of eating

• I accept invitations to social events even if I know I won’t be able to find foods within my typical eating style

• I don’t preach the benefits of the way I eat to others without them asking

• I try foods from other cultures even if they don’t align with my preferred eating pattern

• I eat and enjoy foods at holidays and family events that are considered family traditions even if they aren’t consistent with my diet rules

• I prioritize eating foods that are high quality and nourishing over foods that strictly comply with a certain diet pattern

• I understand that prescriptive eating patterns are merely a guide for choosing foods for good health, and understand that choosing foods outside of the recommendations will not derail an overall healthy diet

• I look for ways to find commonalities in eating patterns instead of denouncing the value of the food choices other people make 

• I understand that eating for health and well-being includes enjoying food, experiencing culture, and celebrating with family traditions

• I know that a single food or meal will not ruin or break any diet rules

• I don’t avoid eating categories of macronutrients such as carbohydrates or fats

• I realize a healthful eating pattern for me may differ from someone else 

• I understand that what and how much food my body needs may change as I age due to my activity level and body composition, and I am ok with that

Review the list. Did you leave statements uncircled? These may be areas of opportunity for you to modify and discover more joy in eating. 

As I’ve aged, I have to say I am tired of the all-or-nothing approach to eating. I don’t want to restrict the enjoyment out of my life by following a rigid eating pattern. Although I follow a plant-based eating pattern most of the time, I want to be able to dine with friends, travel, and enjoy a good meal without feeling stressed that I am breaking diet rules, if I try something unusual. I don’t want to feel guilty or not a part of a particular tribe as a result of the food choices I make. 

We live in a diet culture. We are experiencing a time of divisiveness where picking teams is more common than styling our lives in ways that bring us joy. As we enter the prime time of our lives, let’s focus on joy and re-design our lives to live fully and authentically. 

Instead of challenging you with yet a new diet for flourishing after 50, I challenge you to loosen the reins and seek joy in the experience of eating well without strict food rules. 

Rumble on! 

The Key to Getting Fit After 50

“Fitness is a journey, not a destination. It must be continued for the rest of your life.” Kenneth Cooper, MD, started the aerobics movement with his book Aerobics in 1968. 

As an exercise scientist with a background in health, conversations with family and friends often center around fitness and physical activity. 

This year has been especially challenging as most of the women we speak with have been sharing they were more sedentary and exercised less than they had previously. 

Combine this with the changes and effects of aging, and the body and fitness level changes have been dramatic. 

As one family member shared, looking in the mirror is shocking enough to wonder, whose body is this?!

It’s tempting to jump on the bandwagon of quick-fix diets and exercise plans. But we’re over that! Right, friends?

Just as you may have started and failed a myriad of diets or eating fads, you may have an on-off-again relationship with exercise and physical activity. Any promise for a quick fix is exactly that - fast and unstainable. Thankfully that’s in the past! 

And, unfortunately, the focus for exercising is commonly based on improving physical appearance, yet the more important benefits of exercising and being physically active come from the inside out. We need to have a long-term focus on living a healthy lifestyle. 

But, what exactly is the difference between being physically active and exercising? Which is better for us for a sustainable lifestyle approach as we age? 

Most of us have been told over the years that we need to participate in structured fitness programs - mainly cardiovascular or aerobic. For many, that means attending a class, getting on a cardio machine, running, or biking. Read our last blog post on how much exercise is optimal for health. 

The truth is, physical activity and fitness aren’t all-or-nothing propositions. And doing one doesn’t negate the benefit of the other. The real trick is to find ways to incorporate physical activity throughout our day, every day, with or without a regular exercise routine. 

Crushing it on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes, four times a week, only to spend the rest of your day sitting at a desk and moving to the sofa in the evening minimizes the health impact of your hard cardio workout. 

We’ve found that many women—whether they exercise or not—are short on meeting recommendations for physical activity. Research shows that half of all women decrease regular exercise during middle age. At the same time, women lose lean muscle mass as they age.

A key to leading a more active life and being consistent in creating a sustainable movement-oriented lifestyle throughout our lives is having a foundational base of movement incorporated through everything we do. 

The great news is it’s never too late to feel great, have more energy, and get significant health benefits from increasing both exercise and physical activity. It doesn’t take much to get results. 

All activity is beneficial, and the health and well-being benefits are additive. It’s like getting extra credit for having fun! 

Likewise, suppose you’ve been primarily sedentary. The good news is it’s never too late to begin being active. A great place to start is to incorporate more physical activity into your day. As you become a physically active person, you can add structured exercise activities that are higher in intensity and provide more cardiovascular fitness benefits. 

Read more here, in our last blog post.

Whether finding a foundation of increased physical activity or building on that base with a more intense, structured exercise routine, the key is to keep moving your feet. Move more and sit less.

We both love structured physical fitness activities. We aim to do cardiovascular exercises for a minimum of 60 minutes of vigorous activity or 150 minutes of moderate activity per week (learn how to tell the difference here.) But we also work hard to walk 10,000 steps per day. That’s how we monitor our daily activity and get inspired to build more movement into our day. Finding ways to get more steps in each day requires a great deal of creativity. But it’s also fun!

Check out the tips below to get started. 

Be prepared as you add more activity into your day; you’ll likely enjoy yourself so much that you’ll find yourself wanting to do more!

Start by setting a goal for yourself. Whether you want to maintain your current level of fitness and physical activity, start a new program, or kick it up a notch, you have to know where you want to go. Stay motivated by occasionally mixing up your routine or trying new activities for fun. 

Next, break down how you’re going to get there. Create your roadmap. One way to do that is by looking at the goals you set and working backward to map out the steps to get there. You’ve worked on this process before, and even though it seems simplistic, it works!

Write your goals down and keep them in a place (like your bathroom mirror or the front door) where you see them several times a day as a reminder. The actual act of writing down goals ignites an entirely new dimension of consciousness—your brain starts seeing opportunities that are difficult to attain if you're merely THINKING about your goals rather than actively doing something to achieve them. Plus, writing them down and in a place where you can see them consistently keeps you focused on what you want to accomplish and why. 

Review your progress regularly. Being active for life requires some creativity based on what activities you enjoy doing, your schedule, and what feels best for your body. Don’t worry about whether or not you did what you needed to achieve your goal yesterday. The real question is, what are you going to do to achieve your goal today? 

Reset your mindset to focus on your body’s exceptional capabilities. Just as food is sustenance and fuel to keep your body nourished, physical activity and exercise keep your body strong, healthy, and supple to support the life you want for yourself. 

Whether that is having fun with your friends, staying strong, chasing after grandkids, or keeping up with our teenagers or young adults, focus on the benefits and beauty of living an active lifestyle. Our bodies are a gift.

It is difficult to watch our parents and elders struggle with weakening bodies that are wearing out. However, research shows that physical activity and exercise significantly impact our strength and ability to remain independent and strong with more vigor and vitality until the end of our years. Now that’s something to be grateful for!

Discover the joy in the journey. Physical activity in and of itself can be fun and a means for living in the moment to create beautiful memories. 

Think of things that you can do with loved ones or friends centered around being active together that would be memorable. 

Moving more may also be a great goal to set together with others. It’s more fun to be active together, you’re more likely to both stay committed to your goals, and you’ll be supporting each other with a gift of health. 

Being active with someone else is an opportunity to connect and can be a new way of interacting. Make a date to hike through the woods to see the beauty of a waterfall at the end of the trail, learn to play pickleball with a few girlfriends, or share a bike ride with grandkids. 

Be consistent. Physical activity and exercise both have to be consistent to achieve long-term benefits. It truly is a use it or lose it proposition. 

Research shows that as humans if our physical activity is purposeful (gardening, biking/walking for transportation) and meaningful (things we enjoy such as hiking or pickleball), we are much more likely to maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

Use these tips to incorporate purposeful activity into your life. And, remember, when you’re ready, adding vigorous exercise and fitness activities can add even more health benefits. 

You can be a person that values fitness and health. If you need a reminder - keep a list of your goals, the activities you want to do, and the memories you want to create in a place where you can see them day after day. 

Rumblings’ philosophy on food, fitness, and physical activity focuses on the science and knowledge that your body is made for movement. Keeping this in mind will continually replenish your zest for life and enable you to thrive!

Want more ideas on ways to be active? Want to be inspired by other women? Join us this month as we get active together. Download our idea sheet. Follow us on social media as we post our ways to #moveinmay and #flourishafter50. 

In upcoming blog posts, we will cover how to measure if you’re getting enough physical activity and exercise, the importance of caloric balance and weight training for optimal health, and weight management for women in their prime time. Sign-up today to get more information on how to flourish after 50!

Rumble on!

Karyn and Rebecca

*Disclaimer: If you have doubts about your health, are experiencing signs or symptoms, have been previously sedentary, or are looking to alter your physical activity or intensity levels, please check with your healthcare professional.

Discover Eight Motivating Ideas to Help You to Move More and Sit Less During Midlife

As we age, we tend to get less and less physical activity and exercise. And, most of us know that exercising and being physically active has health benefits. 

Over the last year, with many exercise facilities closed and most of us working from home, it’s been even harder to live an active lifestyle. We’ve had to be more creative to find ways to engineer even the most basic activities into our days.

A recent survey conducted by 35 research organizations worldwide found that home confinement during COVID-19 negatively impacted physical activity intensity across all fitness levels. On average, the days of walking decreased by 2.45, and daily sitting time also increased from 5 hours a day to 8 hours daily. It is enough of a decrease in physical activity to cause an increase in disease and mortality rates. 

As if this wasn’t enough bad news, we also know that about half of women decrease regular exercise during middle age. At the same time, women lose lean muscle mass as they age. 

Having muscle helps us burn more calories, so losing muscle mass reduces our metabolic rate – the number of calories we burn during rest. The combined effects of decreasing activity and loss of lean body mass contribute significantly to weight gain during menopause. And, in this vicious cycle, the increased weight gain contributes to the risk of disease. Ugh!

The good news is it’s never too late to feel great, have more energy, and get significant health benefits from increasing exercise and physical activity, and it doesn’t take much to get results. 

Research shows that adults who weren’t active until later in life - after 50 - have an almost equal reduction in risk for disease and early death as adults who were always active. 

Continue your active lifestyle if you already have a routine, but remember it’s never too late to start being active or exercising. Making changes, no matter your age, can help add quality years to your life!

For cardiovascular exercise, also known as aerobic exercise, the recommended amount for optimal health is at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 60 minutes of vigorous activity per week. That translates to 30 minutes a day, either five days a week for moderate-intensity or 30 minutes of vigorous exercise 3 days per week. 

Moderate-intensity activities include walking, biking, stair walking, or dancing. Vigorous-intensity activities include things like tennis, running, or jumping rope. 

To help you quickly gauge your intensity level, you can use the talk test. 

During moderate-intensity activity, you should be slightly out of breath but able to speak a few sentences at a time. Think of a brisk-paced walk with a friend. 

During vigorous activity, you may find it more challenging to speak in complete sentences, but it still feels comfortable to continue. 

There are other ways to monitor exercise amounts to ensure you’re meeting the minimum health and weight maintenance levels. You can use a heart rate monitor, smartwatch, or fitness tracker to measure your heart rate and target heart rate zone. You can also aim for burning 1000-2000 calories through physical activity per week. 

Some people find calorie counting an easier way of tracking the amount of activity completed if they use exercise equipment or other calorie counters to monitor dietary intake. 

To achieve higher fitness levels or additional weight loss, you can increase your minutes of exercise, set a goal for also doing 10,000 steps, or find ways to add extra activity into your day. Little things like gardening, parking in the far corners of the parking lot, taking the stairs, or taking ten-minute walking breaks throughout the day add up!

Both physical activity and cardiovascular (aerobic) activity are essential. Recent research emphasizes just how vital moving throughout the day is for longevity. 

If you think this is all excellent information on what you need to do for exercise and physical activity, but believe it’s all easier said than done, you’re not alone!

Modern conveniences of living have engineered activity out of our days, so it’s harder to stay active year after year. Think about it; you don’t have to get out of your car to pick up food, dry-cleaning, money from the bank, medications, and even a bottle of wine. We have to work harder to design an active lifestyle. 

You can do some simple practices to help build additional activity and exercise into your routine and stick with it.

• Prioritize physical activity and exercise in your life. Make it essential by adding it to your calendar, and like any other important meeting, don’t schedule over it or work through it.

• Be consistent. Things get in the way of developing habits, but going back, again and again, is part of what makes it stick. On the days you lack motivation, make a pact with yourself to do at least 10 minutes of some physical activity. Stretch, do yoga, or yard work to get moving. Committing to a minimum of 10 minutes of activity, you’ll get started to build consistency in your routine and will often end up doing more than 10 minutes. 

• Have a routine. Block your calendar, have a daily structured routine for activity. Are you a morning exerciser, or are you more consistent in scheduling your activity after work? Pick a time of day that works better for you. Make a plan for what you will do when things derail your best intentions. 

• Make exercise and physical activity a social outing with friends or family. Women often sacrifice their own needs to put others first. Make a date with other people to be active, and you’ll be more likely to prioritize the activity and help others get active too.

• Find the right environment. Belonging to a gym or fitness center where you feel comfortable, feeling safe in your neighborhood if you walk after dark, and inclement climate and weather are all factors that impact the desire to be active. Trying to find alternatives to minimize these influences is important. 

• Focus on the health benefits of being active. Write how you feel after being active in a journal, on a post-it note, or in your calendar. It will help you focus on the benefits of being active and why you want to be more active.

• Discover your internal motivation. Do you feel euphoric after exercising? Are you experiencing a sense of accomplishment from staying committed to your goals? Has your time spent being physically active or exercising become a time of mediation or stress reduction for you? Whatever your internal motivation is, write it down and revisit your reasons often. When you lack the motivation to be active, review your list of inspirations. Internal motivation will keep you going for the long term.  

• Delete what you don’t enjoy! If you’re doing an activity you don’t enjoy, pick a different activity. There are countless ways to exercise and be physically active. You won’t stick with something that makes you miserable. Want more ideas on ways to be active? Want to be inspired by other women? Join us this month as we get active together. Download our idea sheet. Follow us on social media as we post our ways to #moveinmay and #flourishafter50. 

As we age and start to experience aches and pains, it’s natural to want to sit and rest. However, the key to living a long, healthy, and independent life with the ability to enjoy ourselves to the fullest is to sit less and move more!

In upcoming blog posts, we will cover simple ways to fit more activity into your days, the importance of caloric balance and weight training for optimal health, and weight management for women in their prime time. To learn more, sign-up today.

Rumble on!

Karyn and Rebecca

More Than 25 Ideas for Living Well and Making This the Best Summer Ever

Spring is here! The days are growing warmer, longer, the birds are singing, and nature is awakening after a very long winter. The idea of renewal and awakening is meaningful after the extended hibernation of this past year. Spring typically brings a sense of hope and new beginnings, followed by an increased energy that is uplifting and positive. 

Many women have been telling us they are emotionally exhausted - the fatigue comes from caring too much for too long. They’re feeling burned out after the heaviness and struggles of this past year. We feel it too. 

We’ve dealt with many unknowns, changes, and disappointments, but we’ve also found new ways to laugh and be in the moment. We can embrace that and find joy in those new experiences and smaller everyday moments.

Some of us will sprint forward, anxious to get some semblance of our lives back after putting everything on pause. Others we speak with feel apprehensive and uncertain. 

Whatever feelings we’re experiencing, we can still begin to move forward through this tunnel to the other side. 

Let’s appreciate all we’ve been through and all we have learned about ourselves. It’s all helped us grow. Let’s look to the future and plan more fun and festive activities to do TOGETHER with friends and loved ones! 

Here are some of the activities we’re planning and putting on our calendars for the next few months. Some are tried and true. Others are new interests we want to explore and experience, refining what is most important to us over the past year. 

Join us as we jump into spring with a renewed mindset and mission to flourish, have fun, and live well. 

• Go outside and set an intention to notice  the small things — Spring blossoms, tree buds, sunshine, or just the fresh breeze

• Read a book while sitting in the woods, listen to the sound of the wind in the trees

• Rethink your wardrobe as you start wearing non-athletic or leisurewear clothes again

• Refresh your exercise routine: do more outdoor activities, maybe go back to the gym

• Get picnic supplies and schedule a series of picnics with friends and family

• Plan short or long road trips along scenic highways, with specific stops along the way

• Re-evaluate your skincare and makeup routine to better fit with your new lifestyle

• Plan a hiking and camping trip

• Plant a flower, herb, or vegetable garden and share the bounty with others

• Make a top 10 list of new things you’d like to try or places you’d like to visit

• Become a tourist in your town or city, going to places you’ve never been

• Visit a new beach, lake, or river 

• Do yoga, tai chi, or meditate outdoors, either by yourself or in a class

• Schedule a guided nature hike at a regional or state park

• Go berry picking at a local farm

• Stargaze to see how many different constellations you can find, maybe with a telescope

• Buy postcards wherever you visit and send them to people describing your adventures.

• Play fun outdoor games like cornhole, badminton, tennis, or Pickleball

• Take a lot of photos and create picture books and share to memorialize your fun

• Split community-supported agriculture (CSA) share with a friend or neighbor

• Check out a new neighborhood farmer’s market each week

• Rent equipment to try a new outdoor activity (hiking, kayaking, canoeing)

• Plan a campfire and outdoor hootenanny

• Plan a weekend getaway, or road trip with some of your favorite people

• Make reservations at local restaurants you haven’t tried yet and invite someone new to go with you

• Plan celebrations around small milestones — 5 workouts in a week, finishing a big work project, speaking up when your instinct was to stay quiet, or a friend’s promotion, your son or daughter’s new apartment,

• Make a pact with a friend to do something new or adventurous each week

We could go on and on - but even preparing this list got us excited to plan more fun activities. You get the idea, and we can’t wait to hear about your adventures! We’d love you to send us a note or connect with us on social media on your ideas or how you’re planning for this next phase. And, please send us pictures!

Rumble on!

Discover 5 New Techniques to Improve Your Mind-Body Connection to Live Well After 50

As we’ve aged, advertising and marketing messages told women we could have it all. Unfortunately, as a result, we felt we needed to do it all.

Instead of empowering women, our society normalized simultaneously working tirelessly, raising kids, taking care of parents, juggling family schedules, keeping up the home perfectly, and being superwoman 24/7. 

For many of us, reaching 50 was the moment we asked if there was more to life, if we needed time for ourselves, or wondered if we had a purpose beyond family and work. It's not that we don't love our children, careers, or our families. We have a rumbling that there might be more for us individually in the next half of life. 

However, as women have more power than ever, we have found ourselves powerless to manage some of the messy transitions that brought us to midlife.

Transitions are different for each of us. We can all relate to significant milestones at this stage in our lives - kids leaving home, aging parents, job transitions, or divorce. The reality is that messy midlife transitions are a part of all of our lives. 

You’re not alone. We can use practical tips, tools, and techniques to rethink our rhythm for living well after 50 to understand better how to decouple our experiences, patterns, and beliefs from our approach to handling life stressors and tumultuous times. 

A group of Rumblings women came together virtually with Shelly Melroe, MS, AS, LMFT, owner of Rhythm for Living Therapy & Counseling, to learn how to resync our mind-body connections. We discussed finding compassion for our unbreakable habits, negative self-talk, and limiting beliefs we bring into midlife that may be preventing a healthy mind-body connection and authentic journey into midlife. 

We all have patterns and habits for reacting and dealing with difficult or uncomfortable situations. We may not realize that those patterns and habits stem from our beliefs about ourselves that we deeply imprinted from our life experiences. Some of these experiences can date back to when we were infants and impact how we assess a situation or interpersonal exchange and how safe we feel as adults. 

Most often, these patterns come out as automatic physical responses when we encounter an uncomfortable situation. That body sensation could be a dry tight throat, heart palpitations, a voice that cracks or raises, cold hands, a need to fidget, or even flushing of the neck or face. These emotions or feelings may build-up for some women until they eventually spill over in a fight or flight response. Others may completely shut down in an attempt to remove themselves from the situation, and it may lead eventually to an outburst. 

We've all experienced these body sensations, but what we may not know is we can recognize these body responses and use the energy differently, in a healthier way. Recognition will help us break the cycle and stop impulsively and unconsciously repeating the same patterns shaped by our beliefs and life experiences. 

Our beliefs aren't something we consciously choose.

Beliefs evolve from our upbringing and how people interacted with us. They are part of human development. We learn through our interactions with others. Our beliefs shape how we perceive our relative importance compared to others. We realized what was safe and what was most honest in the world. 

We rarely think of our beliefs, even when they impact our daily lives through negative self-talk. Talk that may include thoughts like, 'I can't go back to school.’ 'I'm not fit enough, or 'my skin isn't smooth enough. 'I don't deserve to go on that trip.’ 'I don't deserve that new sweater.’ These beliefs about who we are, especially those put on us by others, are insidious and subtle and the most damaging. They come out as second nature, with little thoughts creeping in the back of our minds as we go about our day – even when we believe ourselves to be very confident. And each time we repeat this pattern of negative self-talk, it further ingrains our beliefs and habits within us and adds layers on top of our emotions.

That voice inside our head seems to get louder and louder as we get older, along with a fear that we're admitting we need help or are not satisfied if we bring it up. Instead, we may need to recognize that perhaps we can't do it, don't have it all together, or are exhausted after all these years of appearing to juggle everything effortlessly.  And, that’s ok. These are the fundamental and often real messy life experiences. 

What can we do about the negative self-talk? Can we change it? Can we do something differently? Are we getting in our own way? 

There are many approaches to working with and modifying our beliefs to align with how we want to react, learn, and grow during our life transitions, who we want to be in midlife, and what we want to accomplish in our prime time. 

Once we recognize these limiting beliefs, we can name the emotions behind them and begin to tame and reframe them into a reaction that helps us achieve a more positive outcome. It requires going deep within ourselves to get in touch with the emotions we experience. Next, recognize what caused the emotion. By understanding where that emotion originated, we can try to reframe it. 

It begins with hanging onto your thought and remembering, whatever you are experiencing or whatever your self-judgment, maybe it got there naturally and honestly from your life experiences. Thoughts can stem from wounds dating back to childhood. You may have developed protective mechanisms in situations to help you feel safe. You do have the ability to heal these old wounds. The desired outcome is to resync your emotions with your thinking and with your body and integrate them. 

Resyncing emotions allows us to reframe our beliefs, patterns, and habits. We can find the space to be secure in managing messy transitions in a way that opens up possibilities to grow, learn, and take advantage of opportunities that come our way in our personal and professional lives. Midlife gives us a chance to reimagine and reignite who we are and what we want from this life. Each of us has a story, and it may shape us, but we can separate ourselves and our sense of who we are from it. Our stories and our history do not define us. 

Below are some of the skills that we can work on to help us navigate a new way of harnessing the power of a healthy mind/body connection. Start with small changes to find an untapped spaciousness to open our emotional circuits and walk into the authentic power within each of us.

• Recognize your emotions: Learn how to reconnect with your body and accept your current habits and beliefs by examining your emotions. Be aware of the feeling. What are the physical clues you have happening in your body and your sensations? What are you aware of or thinking? What state are you in during the moment? When you begin to recognize these emotions, you can start to engage with yourself. You can also begin to connect with others very naturally. Become more open. You can start this by journaling your emotions and patterned responses and the energy you noticed as you became aware of that pattern. 

• Name your emotions: Get up close and personal with your current rhythm - learn how to go into an empowered and healthy emotional state more naturally. Learn to name the emotions you're feeling. Try to connect to the emotional side of yourself. Begin to name those emotions as you're experiencing them or when you're holding them back. Be graceful with yourself and acknowledge that there is no benefit to judgment. You're experiencing that emotional state because it's something important to you. 

• Experience your emotions: Feel the rhythm with your emotions. Bring awareness to your emotions and thoughts so that you can change the limiting beliefs and habits that may be holding you back. Learn to tame the emotions by allowing yourself to experience them. Begin to understand if you tend to go into a hyperarousal state or if you tend to shut down in uncomfortable situations. What are the thoughts (beliefs), movements (habits), body sensations, and emotions you feel? Do you take a position of blaming others, or do you feel sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, disappointment, frustration, or vulnerability? 

  Eventually, you'll be able to harness that energy more positively if you can avoid the natural fight or flight tendency (e.g., avoiding what you’re feeling). Start with a PAUSE where you allow yourself to sit with or even step into the emotions. Doing this is difficult, but it gives you space to move away from autopilot so you can change your existing beliefs and habits by integrating the information you're receiving into your thinking and decision-making. 

• Reframe your response aligned with your values. By sitting with your emotions, you’ll experience an inner fire on the other side. By learning to tap into this empowered state, you’ll experience courage, compassion, and clarity with your emotions as your energy source. New energy allows you to reframe your response because you created space for yourself. When you are predominantly in your empowerment state, courage, compassion, and clarity will come naturally. Your emotions become the guide for your passions, desires, and values. You can begin to tap into this empowered state with a meditation or mindfulness practice that includes a body and emotion scan. It means we don't fight, flee, or shut down but show up to the experience in different ways. We can be more curious if that reflects who we are or if we get pulled into it because of our story. It becomes a place to start connecting emotionally to examine the type of energy that occurs when you recognize you could feel safe in the rhythm of the situation.

• Enjoy a new rhythm for living. By having an integrated daily rhythm, you create a complete integration with your mind and body. You have a new daily rhythm for living that is more aware, with different behaviors, positive thoughts, and more integrated. You begin to accept current habits and beliefs and even start to use them to tap into an empowered state of courage, compassion, and clarity with your emotions as your energy source. When you’re intentional with your feelings, rather than acting out of impulse, you create a more natural, healthy, and connected state for yourself. You can have harmony in your differences with others and even use those differences for growth. 

Coming into midlife is our chance to learn and consciously decide where we want to go next in our lives, how we want to grow, and how we show up for ourselves and those who matter most to us. Midlife is an opportunity to embrace our inner selves, become more integrated, and live well.

Let’s take advantage of our capacity to move through messy midlife transitions, let go of old ways of being, and reignite our journey to flourish after 50. 

Live Well as You Age with These 4 Tips to Reset Your Mindset

We now have evidence that the brain is malleable. What this means is by learning new skills, changing current behaviors, and modifying lifelong habits for better health, you can halt cognitive decline as you age — even into your later years.

Live Well As You Age with These 4 Tips to Reset Your Mindset

You’ve done it before - picked up a new hobby, learned a new skill for work, or started a new morning routine. It’s not always easy to learn something new or change an existing behavior, especially as you get older. All humans are actually hardwired to resist change, but the younger generations generally find it easier to change than those of us in our prime time. 

The reality is that getting out of your comfort zone, learning something, and adopting a new behavior (or two) is actually good for your brain health and has been shown to increase happiness. There is evidence that the brain is malleable. What this means is by learning new skills, changing current behaviors, and modifying lifelong habits for better health, you can halt cognitive decline as you age - even into your later years. 

The story of decline in aging you’ve been told isn’t true. Successful aging requires a
change-is-good mindset, the desire to learn, and a progress, not perfection attitude.      

Get Started with these four mindset reset tips listed below. 

Create a Gratitude Mindset

A gratitude journal is a wonderful way to reset your mindset. By focusing on what you are grateful for, you'll open yourself up to experiencing an abundance of emotional, social, professional, and health benefits.

If you’re already in the practice of writing down what you’re grateful for, try taking your journaling a step further. Make one of your points of gratitude everyday descriptive about someone else and what they've done for you, so that not only are you grateful for your own life, but you also recognize the people in your life and how they contribute to your success and wellbeing. Then challenge yourself to spread gratitude to improve someone else's day.

Send the person you recognized in your journal a note to let them know how grateful you are for them and the impact they have had on your life. Think of the lives you can impact by committing to sending just one message a day! 

Adopt a Fun Mindset

Rebecca’s high school boys had their high school finals coming up  in one week. She realized that her freshman would be experiencing high school finals for the first time and might be feeling added pressure.

When she asked him how he was feeling about finals’ week, he replied, “I am so excited; preparing for finals is fun.” 

Fun and finals weren’t the two words she expected to hear in the same sentence, but she was glad to hear he wasn’t stressed and overwhelmed. 

Fun was his mindset which was making the process of preparing enjoyable and exciting. 

What if you took this approach and reset your mindset when you had something stressful coming up in your life? What if, instead of an automatic response of being overwhelmed, you looked at a stressful event as something fun to be excited about? What if you focused on the process of learning being fun and took the pressure of the results off yourself? 

Give it a try. A reset mindset towards fun can help change your perspective quickly and your life may even feel more fun! 

Build an Intentional Mindset to Change for Good

Like many of you, we started 2021 by setting intentions and a word as our guide for what we want to give attention to over the next 12 months.Transitioning our desired behaviors into lifelong habits is part art, part awareness, daily work, and a whole lot of science.

A place to start is with proven strategies or ‘how tos’ on changing behavior for good. 

We all have patterns of behaviors that we fall back on when we're feeling vulnerable, helpless, angry, stressed or alone. These can be choices that feel more comfortable than sitting still with our emotions. In reality, the only thing that behaviors done mindlessly do is cast a shadow inhibiting our ability to live wholeheartedly. These mindless behaviors give us a false and fleeting sense of soothing and comfort. 

One reason we advocate for sitting still and going inward is the process helps you be mindful about the intentions behind your behavior choices. There are no checklists to identify mindless and comfort behaviors, but self reflection allows you to identify them for yourself. 

Here is one question you can ask yourself that may help. 

Do my choices comfort and nourish my spirit and contribute to my ability to live inside out and flourish, or are they a temporary respite from life?   

Be intentional and identifying red flag personal behavior patterns to help you stay mindful on the path to reaching your goals. For example, if you automatically reach for the sweets after dinner, try going for a short walk instead. 

Being intentional is a mindset. Intention can create awareness around habitual behaviors and help you create change for good. 

Seek a Joyful Mindset

Aging well and flourishing after 50 doesn't require a lengthy to do list or lofty goals. 

Focus on the joy in the journey! 

Do things that nourish you from the inside out. 

Here is where we have found joy the last few months:

• Participate in gentle movement like yoga or meditation

• Walk, ski, or snowshoe in nature 

• Have a conversation with a friend

• Enjoy a wholesome meal with family or friends

• Read a thought-provoking book 

• Listen to an intriguing podcast

• Have a conversation with someone who holds a differing view-point, listen, and seek to understand

• Plan a staycation

• Enjoy the extra time at home to do a puzzle or play a game

By resetting your mindset to focus on the pleasure found in the moment versus what you’re not able to do right now, you’ll discover the joy in so many new experiences in your life. Plus, it can help you positively navigate your life during these stressful times. It’s certainly helped us.

Discover a YOU-First Mindset

Does the recommendation of putting yourself first make you cringe just a little bit? For many of us it certainly does — especially for women. 

Stay with us here. As we’ve aged, we’ve grown tired of trying to live up to someone else’s expectation of who we should be, how we should act, and what we should look like as we age. For many of us, these external expectations create stress in our lives and have become an unrealistic burden that we’re trying unsuccessfully to live up to.  

The reality is you get to decide and write your personal story. And, in doing so you will soften your mind, have greater clarity, and calmness as you evolve closer to your truer and more authentic self.

This is hard work. Society will tell you the goal is to be ageless, instead focus on loving yourself as you are and live age free. 

How to begin? Go inward daily. Set your intentions. Do frequent check-ins to catch yourself if you get off track. Live. Love. Flourish. 

At Rumblings, our philosophy is this...we must reset our mindset in order to live the life of our dreams.  

By focusing on gratitude, intention, joy, and YOU, you can reset your mindset to flourish as you age!  

Rumble On!

Rebecca and Karyn