ah it's fair nick with the cognate ita lifestyle show and here i am back with a wonderful guest of course i know her because i know how tolerant that she is this is susan fights fitness trainer and we are going to look at you know in general this is like an appetizer disses the first show was her about tips and tricks to make sure you exercise intelligently especially as a woman specially when you get over fifty you know things are different so welcome susan thank you to start with thank you for being here tell me a little bit about yourself how you become a fitness trainer that was a long and winding road veronique i started my career in corporate america with a tiny little company called eight hundred eighty and and spent fifteen years in corporate america but had always been really interested in fitness very active i was a high school athlete i was a college athlete and that was working out and exercising and fitness was a way to release stress when i was a corporate person and i left a twenty and own a couple of small businesses both of which were successful both of which i ended up selling and i found myself in my mid forty's and a very enviable position to say ok what what do i want to do now as opposed to what what do i have to do and i thought why no capitalize on my passion which is fitness and exercise so i went back to school and became a certified personal trainer and over the years have just increased my knowledge and my experience of my expertise i have two additional certifications two hundred hour yoga instructor certification and a police mat certification so i bring a bit to the table you bring a lot and i  you're very modest but i think my next question was what makes you different as a trainer and the thing you you kind of started to explain why sure beyond my credentials which  to see if exercise yeah beauty of exercise and but i know a lot about what happens to women as we age and it's not fun sometimes  pleasant and frustrating so frustrating and i hear that every day i'm doing all of these things i'm doing the right things i'm going to the gym i'm eating well i'm you know moderately near inking alcohol why why why why why i hear that almost every day i think and the other thing is i am a great listener and people say that oh i'm not terrific listener but i have found that women are not as into their bodies and sometimes they tell me things that i pick up on with what's happening with their bodies that they haven't been aware even been aware of because we're worried about things  work and we're worried about our children or our lives or our partners or what have you and really not paying attention to what's happening with the body this is a common theme in general always women almost always everything first and shit if i've done all of these thing yes then i can treat myself or take care of myself or carve out time yeah so what is really important for women to know about exercising i know you spoke have hormones to thank for that probably the most important thing is your intensity ok you can't get by with what you did five years ago two years ago ten years ago you really have to kick the intensity to the next level but that doesn't mean that it needs to be complicated if you are a walk or what do you mean by intensity it means like it has to be harder yet it's easy yes this is the famous high intensit interval training idea is that certainly a part of it and i think we'll touch on that a little bit later but anything that elevates your heart rate higher increases intensity so you're sweating you're out of breath you could carry on a conversation where you were able to respond with one or two words but you wouldn't be able to have an interaction like you and i are having because you're too out of breath so anything your heart rate is elevated you're perspiring you're working hard that is what i mean by intensity and what's the benefit of this the biggest benefit is calorie and fat burn and with us are two of the biggest things that i also hear every day is fat burn fat burn how do i well mostly women say to me how do i lose weight but really they want to lose fat if they want to change their body composition to have more lean muscle and less fat and intensity and increase in intensity will get you there and this leads to the question what i've notice in my nutrition practice is women have a tendency to lean on the car to you for the fact loss and strength training and building muscle usually is met was a lot of resistance so x and i preach to me and to but tell us a little bit more about cardio vs strength training and the importance of strength strain and yes i that is another thing i hear every day if i can only do one thing what should i do and it's that you know that constant tug and battle between cardio and resistance training there is a place for both i certainly don't want to say none of us ever have to do cardio for the rest of our lives heart disease the number one killer of women and the number one in our country be for breast cancer before any of the cancers combined heart disease number one killer of women so we don't want to stop doing things that are hard now face it when when you do cardio you are you are are you mostly in your heart you are it's it's like a resistance are going to also over your heart yes your heart is very much a muscle and with out exercise i cardio it will atrophy what is going to change your body composition so the best analogy that i can give is that if you only did cardio you will probably lose fat but you will become a thinner version of what you already are so if you want lean muscle which you do because muscle burns more calories than fat when you're sleeping when you're sitting at your desk when you're watching t you are burning more calories with muscle you also hold your whole body you're right you are yes you need to keep those muscles yesus when we get older also we lose or muscle mass as we age we do women especially  and again hormonal changes play into that so to really change your body composition to have less of a percentage of body fat and more of a percentage of lean muscle resistance training is the way to do and that could be body weight too i mean it doesn't have to be in the gym with big weights like men do and that's the biggest fear i think with women is they're like oh i want to be long and lean i want to dancers i don't want to just be exalted i don't want to be we do not have enough testosterone in our systems to be bulky with the heaviest of heaviest of heaviest of weights that cannot physiologically happen and women i remember one day you said when we you were presenting to you during a workshop that if you had you know that you were recommending that three times a week strength training and that if you had to sacrifice you can only do one thing i only have you know i can only work out one time this week should i do cardio or should i do resistance training and you are a woman over forty the answer should always be resistance  with weight training or you're intimidated a lot of women they like to stay on the treadmill side of engine and you know never cross that horrible scary line into where all the weights and the machines are  a class that combines cardio and and there are even class that are only resistance classes are a good way to go my biggest kaviak with that is always always work at your own pace and your own level way nothing against men trainers but that this person will help understand what is your level of strength and hope for you can go instead of going crazy doing anything that you read somewhere in the gym on your own because you can hurt yourself you can you can and and too as we age not only does your body composition but your joints change it is so much easier to get injured at than twenty five or even thirty or even for any and the trainer will do that first we'll give you a solid analysis of where you are physically and fitness wise and then adjust your form because a lot of us have years and years and years of horrible habits and horrible posture that will lead to injuries if you're not careful yeah yeah the pens right now i mean to well it does depend if you are an i am a dog lover i am an owner of a dog if you are walking your dog and your dog is stopping every ten feet to and then it's very mind clearing and can be almost meditative which is great for stress relief and you said that by the way when your came to our session you said you have the car do you you have the strength but don't underestimate the clearing of the head the many things sion you need to relax as well yes so walking is a good relic sation it's great for that but if your only option only option is to walk walk briskly move your arms it is a whole body if you need to but poles i think can become crutches  balance is another thing that i see often deteriorating with some of my senior client as so anything that challenges balance and walking on an even pavement outside is going to challenge your balance so if your arms are swinging and you're really sort of trucking along that is absolutely exercise your true in fact what you're doing is you make sure that your heart you start to feel your heart is beating faster yes yes absolutely so it counts plank position where your are you are having to support your own body weight so that does count as resistance training that's why you never see a yoga instructor with flabby arms yeah or apologies instructor with a big belly i mean they all have very tight core so yeah absolutely absolutely a part of a well it's the new it type of exercise personally i have tried a couple bar classes and they're very very repetitive and methodical and that's tough for me i don't know if you you are like a dancer you have right you have it's almost like you're training to be a dancer about it not as hard but almost it is as it is that same repetitive high repetition low resistance but it it brings the point that there's really something for everyone while bar night might be not be my think it could be your thing and what ever it is that excites you that's going to get you there on a regular basis and keep you consistent that is the key just what i did over time so if you love it and you're addicted to it and it's working keep doing it but you have to find the thing you do you know very often it's like was those exercise resistant clients i have to say give it a try something is it there are so many choices that but if you don't try them you're not going to be finding your calling like a woman finally she became crazy about kayaking she bought a new kayak she bought her she was in her sixty's she was even a car and she became a kayaker because she could also enjoy nature yes but she was really looking for the much your thing yeah yeah that's going to keep you going back and back and back and keep you consistent so no i said i would go back to those high intensity interval training yes the hit that hit  and i have an anecdote to tell you because one it's in my book and when i talk about it to my clients because i say you know this is what you need to do to really burn the facts among other things and sometimes we are in the same gym we're coming to do hits was me on the elliptical ok i am doing exactly what you know i'm right in the face i cannot talk whatever and there were cruising next to me thinking that they were doing a hit so i'm getting my exercise or chatting with the person next to them which is you know you're in the gym and that's certainly better than being sedentary so yeah good point and that's yeah i guess points for that but that is not hit so hit doing intensity and by high intensity if you are a beginner if you are a beginner you are sixty to seventy percent of your maximum heart rate now how do you know what that number is you take the number to twenty and subtract your age and that is your maximum heart rate it's not super precise but it's close enough now that does that mean you can never get close to that number or your heart is going to explode no that is the number that you don't want to exercise for any direction of time thirty forty an hour minutes you don't want to go beyond that so you take to twenty minus your age to get your maximum heart rate and then take seventy eighty ninety if you're super fit ninety five percent of that number i get to the hundred percent but because i started to do hits and i've been a runner for ten years perfect but i am better today than i was ten years ago which they'll still read that i have bill muscle in my heart yes absolutely and your heart is never  never ever ever to live it but explain how it works because right you go by bursts you don't have to be suffering for ever or yes and it is super effective you don't have to do it as long either twenty minutes thirty minutes overall psycho yes but how does it work so you once you decide once you get to your maximum heart rate and you decide ok it's seventy percent eighty percent ninety percent you're going to work at that number for thirty seconds forty five no longer than a minute if you're super fit a minute and a half but that's it and then for twice the amount that you did your high intensity burst you're going to do an active recovery now that doesn't mean get off that no piece of equipment just continues just take it down bring your heart rate down and then go back up for double it's like a c sol but i at the top for a very short period of time thirty seconds a minute ninety seconds at most and i read that your metabolism is increase for up to twenty four hours after you do even twenty minutes isn't it  really that's all you need is twenty minutes so it super efficient we are all so time starved that doing head gone are the days of forty five minutes on the treadmill you can get a great workout and a calorie burn for up to twenty four hours if you're really working in that seventy to ninety five minute of that maximum heart rate so you're working classes you burn more current so this leads to me to my next question you know and you just alluded to the fact that we don't have the time to go one hour to the gym or very often it's an excuse so tell me what is this can you can you just do ten minute exercise i have in there look they call out whole more yes it  i do then minutes four times in the day versus forty minutes at once it doesn't it does what it is forty minutes whether it's for a ten minute sessions or one forty minute session as long as you are getting your heart rate  up or doing some resistance training and it doesn't even have to be complicated you don't have to go to the gym you could do a series of sit ups push ups jumping jacks and or put some great music on that you love and dance around your living room yes yeah and you know kick your knees up high and move your arms around that absolutely counts or when you're at your kitchen counter and you're waiting for the microwave you have a minute to somethin on carpet and it works on floor ok so you can do you can put if you have two of these and i would recommend to you could put them on your hands and go in a plank and do  you can put your foot on it and do lunging backwards or forwards side lunging you can put one on every year or two on your hands on your feet and really do all kinds of things with something that will literally fit in your pocketbook on this amazing grand and it's less than ten dollars ok number one the number to you is a band you these fit either around your ankles and their resistance so the body lower body what is this so like this or you have to build it that's so like this so there are varying degrees of resistance that i know tends to be a heavy what is so like this yes sing and then these bands are my personal favor that they are not only great for really fit people but people recovering from injuries or even if you're bedridden even if you could a loop one of these around a bed post a single arm so this works arms legs you could again sit at your desk put your foot on it you're on a conference call or whole you even yourself what do for your clients what is your word of was the number one is accountability going to have some accountability and that could be to a friend too there are all kinds of  websites out there where you can buddy up and partner with someone across the country where you're just logging in your workouts or sharing tips i'm a busy mom or i'm a busy professional and you need some sort of accountability that's why trainers frankly work so well because if you have an appointment that you have paid for you're going to show up and i always see even if you don't have a trainer put your