Healthy Nutrition for Strength Training Women Over 50

In this Video...
Coach Sheree shares her personal healthy nutrition for strength training, habits and tips on how to eat well without counting calories. Discover how protein, good fats, and colourful veggies form the foundation of healthy, strength-supporting meals for women over 50.

Nutrition Tips |  Real Life Example  |  No Counting

Healthy Nutrition for Strength Training Women Over 50: Readable Version

Focus on Muscle, Not Just Weight Loss

I've got one of my clients that is talking to me now about wanting to lose weight. It's the first time, I don't focus on losing weight, I focus on building up muscle and everything will follow after that. So I talk more about a good diet.

Breaking the Fast with Protein and Fat

Now, if you want to know a good diet, this is how my husband and I have been doing it for a couple of years now and it seems to work extremely well for us. We will start the day off, so ending our fast overnight, our rec fast, so breaking the fast. We'll now have a high-protein, high-fat diet, so usually have some kind of meat, we'll have some eggs in there, we'll have some homemade beans, so baked beans of some kind that my husband's made, put lots of spice in there, lentils and on the side of that I might have some avocado, kale, spinach leaves, so some greens as well to add to that and sometimes we'll even have some coleslaw mixed in with all of that breakfast.

Ditching High-Sugar Breakfasts

But now, it used to be that I used to start the day off like most people, I used to start it off with cereal and toast, maybe with jam on there, whatever it was on there, but I'm not doing that anymore because that gives you a sugar spike and that sugar spike, too many of them are going to lead to us having insulin resistance and when we have insulin resistance, we're probably going to move on from there if we don't treat that onto diabetes, type 2 diabetes and so I want to avoid that and I want this body to be well fueled up for the day to do all the things that I want it to do.

Simple Portion Guidelines for Protein and Fats

So yes, if you can think about a couple of rules, if you don't want to count calories and you don't want to be having a way of all your things, all your food, all your macros that you have, a simple way to remember is we have a palm size, so for a woman, a palm size of protein with every meal and for men, it's 2 palm size of protein with every meal and think about snacks as well, we want to include protein with snacks. So if we think about a woman, 1 palm size, men, 2 palm size, having a thumb of fats, good fats with each meal really helps because it's just an easy, easy thing that you can do if you're at work, you can do if you're out with a friend having dinner at a cafe or something like that.

Prioritising Whole Foods Over Processed

It's a simple way of doing things and when you get into that and you start to prioritize protein over having just takeaway or opening a packet, but you're prioritising healthy proteins, it is incredible how your body responds and who doesn't want a body that is being nourished and fed all the right things. I used to be, I haven't been for a long time somebody that stopped at takeaway places, but I used to just open packets of noodles and have that for a snack, I don't do that anymore. So my meals are pretty well all cooked from scratch, it could be the meal that we had from the night before and in all of those meals we'll have protein and some good fats, some really good carbs as well.

Carbohydrates and Gut Health

So carbs are to be had in there, we need colourful vegetables, colourful foods in all of our meals as well to really boost up our microbiome for our gut health. Because I'll tell you, if you've got good gut health, you don't get sick, you may get sick, but you don't stay sick for long. So having good gut health is a priority, particularly as we age.

Beyond Pills: Nourishing Your Microbiome

I don't want to be having all these tablets and lotions and potions and lots of jabs to keep me healthy. No, my body is healthy as it is and it continues to be healthy. And I've also had my microbiome checked, which was a fun thing to do by a professor and showing me where I had good amounts of this and not maybe good amounts of that, that I need to feed it a bit more. And obviously fermented foods, things like that are great for that. But really having a look at how we eat, really how we do things is really important. And if you find it too hard, it's all too hard.

Real-World Results

You don't want to count calories, you don't want to do the ways. Then having one palm size of protein if you're a woman and one thumb of healthy fats. I hope that helps you and let me know how you find it and whether you think that's a great idea. Because I know that my client certainly has and she is now down. She said her bras are feeling loose, her undies are feeling loose. And that's pretty exciting because I just want her to be healthy and well.

And she knows that part of that is to lose some of that weight she's got around her midsection and quite a bit of weight. But she also, we have never focused on that. We've just focused about becoming as healthy and well as she can be and the rest is falling into place.

So let me know how you go with that and if you're finding that that's a bit of help. Have a great day.