Muscle, Menopause and Mindset with Luisa Mayhew | S2E083

Well, everybody, welcome to A Call for Love.

And A Call for Love is all about tapping into

that higher vibration of peace, love, and joy. So if

you are feeling stressed or anxious or

worried, this is the place for you because we dive

into all the ways that we can raise our vibration,

raise our awareness, and just step into our light.

And this is the perfect timing because as

we record this, it's the new year. And one

of my real intentions this year

was to increase my

my ability to expand my healthy

living. And that means focusing

on my muscles. You know, I'm into agility, mobility, and

flexibility as a yoga and

meditation guide. But now I'm thinking about those

muscles. And in fact, I'm holding up

something that my son bought for me for

Christmas. I asked them for

hand weights because I want to start including more

weight training into my life. And that

brings me to my very beautiful guest,

and her name is Louisa Mayhew. And she was

born and raised in Colombia and grew up surrounded by the

joyful Latin rhythms. And from a very young age, she

loved to dance and exercise and was involved in sports.

She earned her bachelor's degree in business administration

and worked in the banking industry for a few years.

I feel a shift coming on, but after her first child,

she decided to follow her passion and began earning several

fitness wellness certifications. And since

2007, she's been teaching group fitness classes,

including boot camps, strength training, dance,

yoga, mobility, wellness, and nutrition programs,

and at home 1 on 1 personal training sessions.

Today, she helps women over the age of 40

understand the importance of strength training for maintaining

muscle mass, improving bone density, and

enhancing overall health. Louisa supports beginners

and seniors in rebuilding confidence with sustainable

habits, and her mission is to help others live active,

healthy lives with joy and purpose. So welcome,

Louisa, to A Call for Love.

Thank you, Linda. I am so absolutely excited to be

here, and I feel honored that I am your guest today

and feel so excited to talk about today's topic,

which is exercising as we age. Yeah. It's so,

so timely. You know, I joined one of your

sessions you had online and absolutely loved it. I

think it was in the fall, and I wasn't quite ready to commit.

But I want to just tell the listeners something,

and it is that I discovered that I'm a bit of a

rebel. And so what happens is I

have heard so many people say to me, oh, you know, Linda,

you know, you're getting older. You're in menopause.

You have to start lifting weights. And once I hear somebody

say, you have to do this. You have to do that. I don't

know. It just maybe the rebel in me is like, well, why do I have

to? And so I didn't really

understand the importance until I

started doing it. And so I want you to just

right off the gate tell the listeners, why

lifting weights? Like, why invest the

time, the energy, the money, and it doesn't even

cost that much money, but why weight training?

Yes. Absolutely. So weight training is crucial as

we age. But let's take a step back,

and let's discuss a little bit, what happens,

in a woman's life. So we get into menopause,

which is a natural phase in a woman's life,

and that it's going to mark the end of

our menstrual cycle and fertility.

Okay? And it comes in different stages,

perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. So

perimenopause, it's, the transition

stage leading to menopause,

and it could be even 10 years in the

making. Okay? This is what a lot of us

or a lot of women do not know, that you can be in

perimenopause, at the end

of your thirties or anytime during your

forties. Okay? So each stage brings

changes and different challenges. So, for

example, for in perimenopause, you're going to have irregular

periods, night sweats, not everyone, but these are

just the common symptoms. You have

hot flashes, changes in your sleep patterns,

in your mood, in your sexual desires,

vaginal dryness, and there's decrease in fertility.

But you can still get pregnant, but it's irregular. So you don't

you might or you might not. Then you hit

menopause, which is those 12 months

where you're, you're not getting a period. So consecutively

12 months, no period. And

in this stage, then, you

still can get the night sweats and the hot flashes, but the most important

thing is that estrogen and progesterone, 2 very important hormones,

go down. And I'll tell you after what happens when

that when when that beautiful thing happens.

Right? And then postmenopause is after,

and that's when, we don't have a period

anymore, which, it's great in

some ways, but still the progesterone and, estrogen

are very low, and that is leading us to a

higher risk on osteoporosis and,

and sarcopenia. And I'll explain later what that

is. And, also, lots of changes in your

emotional and mental state. Okay?

So that's the base of

what menopause is. And

but all these changes and challenges, we

can actually do something about them. Okay?

And that leads to your question, why lifting

is going to be so important as we

age. Okay? So,

lifting is very important as we age because,

as we grow older, we're going to start losing

muscle mass. Mhmm. Now our muscles

right? And that is going to lead to a

slower metabolism and, a whole bunch of

other things that are going to happen because of that.

And when we lift, then we can increase that muscle

mass and then, reverse those

changes that are happening in our body as as

we grow older. There's many other, situation and

many other benefits about that, but, that also helps

our bone bone density. Bone density

is when our bones start to get weaker,

and low bone density, osteoporosis, and osteopenia. They

start to get weaker, and then we also need to

do something to stop or to reverse that. And

that's why, also, weight lifting is

very important. Yeah. It's so,

so important. I realize it now and everything that you said because

our bone mass decreases.

Mhmm. With with well, with the loss of

the hormones, estrogen. Is it solely estrogen that

is the is the cause of bone loss?

And, is is the cause of muscle mass. Yes? Oh,

muscle mass. Yes. So muscle mass. So

muscle mass goes down, estrogen. So,

it's interesting. I just wanted to I was, like, trying to find

an analogy of what happens because the estrogen is,

like, the leading hormone of so many things happening in

our body. And as we grow older and then these estrogen goes down, it

affects so many things. And one of them being

the loss of, muscle mass, and that slows down

the metabolism, which metabolism is the ability of

the body to convert food into energy. Right?

And as we grow older, then that metabolism slows

down. And then we are not as efficient.

Our body is not as efficient to convert all these,

energy, all these, food into,

like, energy, efficiently. So

yeah, so estrogen plays a big role in that. You know,

it's so interesting because,

you know, as I see some people aging, they

get frail more frail. They

look a little bit tiny. They look a little bit,

like I can see their muscle mass decreasing

in front of my eyes. And I don't think we

want that, but we really have to be conscious of

including more, as you said, you know, lifting

weights. What else can we do to increase the muscle mass? I I think

just lifting weights. Yeah. When you

are talking about what is a plan that you

can incorporate as your as part of your

physical health, lifting weights, it's

the number 1, in my opinion.

Lifting weights, changing the

way that you lift also, not

as many repetitions. It's less

repetitions with higher weight higher,

weight. Oh, so less repetitions,

but with higher weights. And that's why, actually, because I had 3,

5, and 8 pound dumbbells. And right now, I'm

holding £10.15 that my

son got me for Christmas, because I was just thinking,

those little ones, I didn't feel exhausted lifting those

up. Yeah. So what,

say, for example, in this case that you're using dumbbells or you're gonna start

using dumbbells, you can, slow down the,

the loss of muscle mass and also add some

muscle strength as you are going to start working

out and, training. And that is going to help

you to increase your, muscle

mass. Okay? And for you,

perhaps, is, for each person is different, but but for

you, perhaps, heavy could be

starting maybe at 8, 10. And as

you keep going, you are going to start

lifting higher weights. But it has to be conscious, which

mean which means slower movement.

With conscious meaning you can think about the muscle that you

are working out, and, less

repetitions. Because you want that very last

repetition to be challenging, and to challenge the muscle.

So, it's, it's efficient. So do you

want the muscle exhausted? Yes.

Yes. Yeah. So the very few repetitions, you

are not going to be able even to talk. Like, if

you're talking, like, that's a good way of putting it. If you

can lift and you can say a

full sentence without a problem, that means that you can

still bring, your weight, higher. So

when you lift, then those final repetitions

in in your set, you're not, or you're not going to

be able to say that same same thing

continuously. Like, it it it's gonna take some You don't

have the breath. You don't have the breath. No. What about I have a question.

So I go to some classes because I work

at studios, guiding yoga,

and so they will have they'll say pick a 3

pound or 5 pound weight. Yes.

So am I wasting my time when I pick up a 3 or 5

pound weight? Okay.

So this is my take around all this.

Okay? When

you go to classes, it's great.

You perhaps want to keep moving, and

you want to maybe

start or learn how is your form and how

things go in terms of lifting your weights. But

my take around this is that it's better to have a

plan. Have a plan with a specific

goal, and then when you

do your weights, when you start lifting, then you have a

goal in mind. You know which muscles you're

working, what's next in your week, what's next

in your month, what's next in the next month. When you go to

classes, it's a little bit of, like, everything.

Mhmm. When you have a plan in place,

you are really focused. You are

really thinking about what is that you

want, and then you can start switching

your mindset into getting into

that goal and even switching your the

way that you talk. So it's not a workout

anymore. You're training. Right?

You're training yourself towards whatever your

goal is. Ah, that is very, very

interesting. So when

which classes are great? Because sometimes you need the motivation. Are great. Yeah.

Classes are great. I'm not saying they're not. Yeah. No. Yes. I agree. I know

exactly what you're saying. I think what you're saying is that, you know, you get

the community, the connection, and you go there. But it's like a full

body workout. But what you're saying, and I know you

provide this to your clients, is, like, today we're

working upper body or today we're working the lower and then you have the day

of rest. And so there is a plan. There is, like,

this road map to get you from point a

to point b. Exactly. Yeah. Which

is really important. I I think that

if we start with

an intention of, okay, now in

your case, I want to lift weights because I want to

gain muscle mass. Okay. Great.

And you just start going to classes,

I feel that it's almost like you want

to learn how to swim and you just jump in the

water. You kinda go wherever you want

to go. If you really want to know how to

swim, it's better that you ask for

help from a trainer or follow, like, a training

program to learn how to swim. You

know? It's the same. It's the same. If you want

to lose weight okay. I'm just gonna

lose weight. Where do you even start? You cannot just,

like, say it, but

not really having a plan in place. Is

the same. It's exactly the same. So

it depends. If you want

to better your mental health and you want

to better your community and you want to expand

your social network, classes are the best

while you move and you work out, if that's your

goal. If your goal, as I said,

it's to increase your muscle mass and maybe with the

classes you might, yeah, along with, like, a good

nutrition, program as well or nutrition lives like a good

nutrition, program or plan,

then perhaps, yes. But if you have that clarity,

crystal clear, and you know this

1st month, I'm developing my base. The

2nd month, I'm practicing that base. The 3rd month,

wow. I feel that I can do this

already on my own. The 4th month, you are on your own already doing

your stuff. So, yeah. It's very

empowering. You know, we have a place up north, and

there's a lot of lifting to do up north. Like, you know, we'll have

to move the kayaks from the shed to the

water or, you know, there's a picking up logs. And and

I know that if I have, you know,

been using my muscles with proper

technique, that I'm able to actually function

better up north in in all the things that we do. So

it's very interesting. I love how it ripples into one's

daily life. So my question for you is, I know you

have clients, and I know you help them work through

plans, which is very important. And

if you were to guide somebody in

a plan, what are the things that you need to think

of? So here it is as people are listening to this

episode. And I always say the moment is

now. Right? Now is the next moment of your life.

And if now you want to create a plan with

technique that propels you forward,

what would you do? Do you do upper body? Like, what would a week look

like? Yes. That's an like, that's a

a a great question. So, obviously,

each individual is different, and each person has their own

own strengths and weaknesses and things that we need to work

on. But, in general, if, let's

say, I'm taking a a beginners or some a beginner

a person who's a beginner and does not know too much

about lifting, about, form, about what they

need to do, I set the base.

The base is posture,

form, lighter weights at the beginning because

we focus more on posture and form.

Yes? And safety, right, while we do the exercises. And

then once we have the base, I go over

upper body, how to do it. I go over lower body, how to do it,

core stability, moves, and

some plyometrics, which is, like, more power

moves, which is also very important for bone density as we

age. And so I set the base. Right? And

then we practice that base for as long as

the person needs it. We start about

increasing the weights, because at first, we

start with a base of, like, some weights. And at this

point, maybe it's not the importance. It's

not, oh, okay. I I want to exhaust the muscle at the beginning.

It's more so the person knows how to do everything. And

then as we progress, we start with the

progressive overload, which is, increase the

weight. So 1 week

will look like this in my in my eyes. 2 or

3 days of weight training.

Yes? So anything that is resistance training,

body weight, dumbbells, barbells,

bands, or gym equipment. K? Any of the machines. All

that, 2 or 3 days. Okay?

Then, 1 or 2 days, and

you probably know this, mobility or or

yoga, which is stretching or mobility, which is

going to help you tremendously so much

with being safe as you do your

strength training. Because mobility is, you know, the

ability to move freely,

focusing on your different joints. Right? And stretches,

it's more like stretching your muscles.

So everything is to prevent and to help you when

you lift. These 2.

Also, focus, another one, another day could be,

along with mobility, it could be 1 also one of those 2 days,

core. So anything that is a core program

or Polaris or anything that is strictly core,

because core is in the center of your body and is going to help

you have a strong back, you know, strong

midsection, which is very important,

and walking. So walking every day, it's incredible.

It's very, very good. And then I would say

as we go along, plyometrics, which

is a power kind of move, but it

doesn't necessarily have to be jumps. And it's just,

fast and powerful and then

combined with a rest period. Wait. Is

that is that, like, interval training where is that to get

your heart rate up? That could be. Yes. HIIT.

It's HIIT, height, interval in, yeah,

training. HIIT. Yes. We had

a discussion about this one day. High interval intensity training.

Yes. Yeah. That so well, that that

seems like more than 7 days for a week, so you have to

be very strategic. No. I mean,

1, perhaps 2 of the days strength training. The

3rd day could be core, like, a core, a

core, workout along with, more

mobility. The other day could be mobility, and the other day,

combined with core. Like, it's, like, it's not it's not

as bad as it sounds, but, ideally, if you can do

5 or 6 days a week of movement, that'll be

great. Oh, yeah. For sure. How many minutes for a

day? At least 30 minutes. And the high intensity

interval training, at least 30 minutes. Yes.

Yes. I know people wanna sneak it in fast.

You know? There's these 15, 20 minutes, but I think, really,

you you do need 30. And I do feel also that

people skimp on the warm up and the cool

down? No. Warm up is extremely important.

Very, very important. Cool down, very important.

Warm up is leading to the exercises or the

workout or the train that you're training that you're doing, so it's very

important that you do it. You need to train yourself and to warm

up leading to the activity. Right? Otherwise, it's gonna be

like you're gonna hurt yourself. Yeah.

Exactly. I mean, I feel very proficient in

the agility, mobility, and flexibility department. It's

completely lacking in the, strength training.

But that is this is the year for me. Now I would like

to talk about visceral

fat. If people don't know what that

is, it's like the thing that hots me. It's the it's the weight

around the belly. Oh my goodness. Why?

Why do we have to have that? My god. I know that. Right?

So okay. So, let's

step back, and the muscles help you to shape your

body Yes. And to keep up the metabolism

not working well. But as we age, the metabolism goes

down, and then, also changes in

hormones like estrogen, right, have an

impact on that. So imagine estrogen and and I was,

like, looking for an analogy, and I love and I love this one.

Because imagine estrogen as being the,

police person that guides in a

Traffic. In a traffic jam. K?

Estrogen is guiding the fat. Okay. You go over there. You go over there.

You go over there. When it's working normal, so before

before all these changes. And then estrogen disappears.

There's no more police guiding the fat where to go.

So then the fat is like, oh, okay. I can I'm gonna go

to a place that, that I feel it's going to be efficient

when I when the body needs it the most. So it goes

to around your, vital organs.

Right? So it's see. Yeah. So it's easy

when it needs, like, a a a quick energy, like, when it's

it's it's needed so it's faster. And

and I thought, oh, okay. Well, that's a nice analogy so we understand a little

bit better. And, also, some of the hormones

like cortisol, which is the stress hormone, it also

increases with as we age.

And to protect, your body,

then it creates more fat

because it's protecting you from that stress.

So how wonderful. I mean, all these things that your body

think is doing to protect you, it

ends up, like, accumulating in in in this area of

of our of our body. And, also,

it's, it's less sensitive to

insulin, which helps with,

with, with the, the the blood

sugar. Right? And that also

creates increase in in weight. So all

these changes in hormones that are happening while we are in

menopause are creating,

this increase in our belly. So if

the estrogen isn't there, so the the police are not

directing the fat, Weight

training Yes. Helps the body work more efficiently

and use up the extra

calories or fat. So I started

saying, you know, the muscles help shape the body and,

have a better metabolism. So with weight training,

then that's what we're doing. We're, like, having a, like,

better metabolism as we start working out our

muscles again. Because with the loss of muscle mass,

also, it's because the estrogen goes down. That's why, like, the muscle

mass goes down. But as as soon as we start

working out, then we reverse that And everything so it's

a chain. It it it reverses that, and

we can have a faster metabolism. And

then it redistributes, like, hopefully, your

fat in a more efficient way. Yeah. But

this has to, like, this has to absolutely go hand in

hand with a good nutrition program. It just it's not

just your exercises. I know.

Sometimes I'll have a treat, and I'm like, okay. I'm not even gonna have

a treat because it'll take too much work to

take to to use up those calories. You know? It's

very interesting. But, so thank you

for all this information. I could talk to you for

hours, and luckily, we live fairly close by, and I have

been part of your program. So I will definitely dive into that.

But as a guest on A Call for Love, I

ask a question of my guests at the end. So

Yeah. A call for love is about bringing

awareness to your state of being. I know you're

very in tune with your physical and, emotional

and nutritional being. But when you're identified with

your ego, Louisa, and living from a place of separation,

fear, or lower vibrations. Yeah. How

do you embrace a call for love? Like when you find yourself

out of alignment with your higher self, what practices

help you realign and shift towards greater love,

not just for yourself, but all beings, like that greater presence?

This is such a beautiful and profound question, and I thank

you for that because

your physical state

is completely related to

the emotional and the the the mind portion

and the spiritual portion of your being. So it's

not you cannot just work one and leave the other ones on

the side. It's impossible because it that that's

not how it works. So

when I think about that and when I am out of alignment,

I feel that that's when I am stressed or

overwhelmed or when I am too hard

on myself, and that's when all fear that's

the fear based of myself. Stress,

overwhelming, and all that. That's, like, where when I think I am out

of alignment. If we translate that into

your fitness journey, perhaps,

you just you're trying too much or you're

trying to like, you go to scale and you see yourself and you see your

body weight and you, you punish yourself, and you don't

eat your your nice, sweet or your

treat, or you're trying to meet unrealistic goals.

Right? Or you try to do, like, a super hard workout,

or you train harder thinking that that's the way.

That's when you're out of alignment. Usually, I step

back. Mhmm. And if

I if I am in a good state of mind,

I I, I change my my mindset

into if I cut if I catch myself in one

of these out of alignment situations, stress,

overwhelm, all these, then I I can

start shifting my mindset more into

that love underlying the underlying,

love. So then I start to

listen more to my body. Mhmm. I

feel that I need

compassion towards my body if we're talking about workouts. I'm

talking about my journey in the fitness. Right? I

need to be compact. The self compassion is huge

because then it's okay. Like, I am

in a journey. These changes, they don't happen

in a week, in a month. It's a long process,

so be patient. Self compassion

is huge. And then as you turn everything,

into self love, then each

repetition, each class, each movement, each

walk outside, all that,

it's geared to more

more love. Yeah. I think it's

really beautiful what you're saying because I hear

in in your message here that we beat

ourselves up a lot about our physical body.

But what you're saying is it's not just our physical body.

It's our mindset, you know, our spiritual being,

everything. So it's all this package. And if we can be kinder

to ourselves on our journey to wellness

through self compassion, then that helps bring us back

into the path of our higher self knowing that, you know, we

can be kinder and get

to where we wanna go. Is that what you're saying? Yes.

Focus on your on the journey.

Focus not on being perfect. Yeah.

Embrace those small wins. You finish

a whole week. You are like, it's like,

embrace that. You're you're you're doing it.

You want to honor how the limitations that your

body has. You know? We

cannot do the same things that we that we used to do,

but we can do stuff still. You know? Yeah. I

would say we need to thank our bodies for Thank our

bodies. Like, be grateful. Like, that's like each each

single thing that we do towards our body, it's like a

step towards our self love. It's Yeah.

Beautiful. Mhmm. Yeah. Right? So the

mindset is so much. Mindset is a huge part of my

programs. Oh, it has to be. I I was, like,

triking up my weights the other day, and I was, like, having a fight with

myself. Oh, put it down. No. You gotta pick it up. No. You

can stop. I was just, like, having this internal dialogue,

and I think my husband was watching record, and he was

laughing because I think he knew what I was thinking.

And so it's it's really comical what

goes on in our mind as we are working

out. It's it would be really a funny comic.

Yeah. Yeah. This morning, I was, I was training a

client, and I said I said to her,

you know, I I want you to

shift your mindset, and so you can think

that every time that we meet, it's not one another

check-in your calendar. It's more all the

love that you're pouring to you and to your

journey and not just, like, another one. Oh, okay.

She's coming now. Okay. Let let's just check it and move

on. On the contrary, if you change that mindset

and you're really conscious of what you're doing, your journey is

gonna be so much much, much more enjoyable.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So thank you, Louisa,

for being on A Call for Love. You

know, you're such a beautiful soul, and I'm so glad

that we have connected. If people wanna connect with

you, I will place all the links in the show

notes. But just offhand, what how can they reach

you? Connecting with me is extremely,

extremely easy because I only have one platform,

going on right now moving, which is Instagram or

Facebook too, but I don't use it that often. So Instagram, luisa.mayhew

in Instagram, and then you can connect with me through there. Yeah.

I don't even have a website. I I don't have all that because my my

business is flowing so well that it's, like

and I am so busy that I haven't had the time to do a

a website. It will come. But for now, it's

working like that wonderfully. Well, it's word-of-mouth. Right? When

people Word-of-mouth. Yes. Yeah. Word-of-mouth. And that's

beautiful. That's my word for this year, flow. And when you're

in flow with your higher self and spirit, then

you don't need to strive so hard. It just kind of comes to

you. So thank you for coming to us, and to

all the listeners, I hope this inspires

you. So please reach out if you need more inspiration.

But from my heart to yours, namaste, dear friends.

Namaste. Namaste. Thank you so

much.