Ep. #575: How Maria Got Fit with 3 Kids and Stays Lean In Her 50s

Mike: Hello, and welcome to Muscle For Life. I’m Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for another installment of the best of Muscle For Life, which is basically a hand picked selection of the juiciest morsels from some of the more popular episodes I’ve recorded over the years. And I do these episodes because some people.

My favorite people. Of course, they listen to most or even all of my podcasts, but my analytics tell me that while many listeners do tune in on a regular basis, they don’t catch every episode. And thus they miss out on insights that could help them do at least a little bit better inside and outside of the gym.

And so I had the idea why don’t I do these best of 

episodes, where I share some of the most practical and compelling ideas. Tips and moments from the more popular episodes that I’ve done over the years and these best of episodes they do well. And so I keep doing them. So in this installment of the best of Muscle For Life, you are going to be hearing handpicked morsels from three episodes.

The first is a success story interview I did with a woman named Maria. Who got fit with three kids and who stays in great shape in her fifties. And she talks about how my work helped her accomplish that. And some of the biggest lessons that she has learned along the way. Some of her best practices, so to speak that have helped her get into great shape after having three kids and that are helping her stay in great shape.

And then you are going to hear highlights from an episode called, should you do cardio, if you lift weights, science says yes, in years, why? And. That tells you what you are going to be learning about. And finally, I have a few snippets from a monologue I recorded called in filth. It will be found a little motivational piece.

Before we get started. If you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, then you will probably like my award-winning fitness books for men and women of all ages and abilities, which have sold over 2 million copies have received over 15,004 and five star reviews on Amazon and which have helped tens of thousands of people build their best body ever.

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If you need to lose more or want to lose more and gain eye catching amounts of muscle definition and strength. And even better, you will learn how to do those things without having to live in the gym, give up all of the foods or drinks that you love or do long grueling workouts that you hate. And with my books and programs, you will do that.

You will transform your physique faster than you probably think is possible. Or I will give you your money back. If you are unsatisfied with any of my books or programs. The results, anything for whatever reason, just let me know. And you will get a full refund on the spot. Now I do have several books and programs, including bigger leaner, stronger, thinner, leaner, stronger and muscle for life.

And to help you find the one that is right for you. I created a short quiz that asks about your goals and circumstances, and then recommends the book and program that will help you the most. So to take the quiz, go to muscle for life.show/. Quiz muscle or life.show/book quiz. Okay. So let’s start with the first episode featured in this episode.

And that is the interview I did with Maria. I think it’s 

Maria: important to say how old I am. I’m 53 years old and I have three kids and I’m in very good shape. And I think my story is interesting because a lot of women don’t think that they can continue, keep and continue being in good shape at this late stage over the game.

I began getting into fitness and body building around 23 before that, we’re talking 35 years ago, right? it’s a long time ago. But before that I was into the whole Jane Fonda thing and the leg warmers, and I was more what you would consider. Skinny fat or scrawny. So I was thin, but I just had no muscle on me.

And at that time, a boyfriend of mine said I was going through a really hard personal time, Mike. And so a boyfriend of mine said, why don’t you try lifting? Why don’t you go to the gym now I’m from Bolivia. So for a woman at that time to step into the gym was. Really weird. But anyways, I went to the gym with him and it was a male dominant, ambiance, like 199% of the people.

There were men and here I was in the gym, but I liked it because I just saw like how focused everybody was. And it was just different from what I was used to. And I began lifting and honestly, Mike, that changed my life. I like one of your quotes that you say, if we have the power to change our bodies, We have the power to change our lives.

So I began training at the gym. It was imperfect because nobody knew anything at that time. Nobody showed me how to do it, but I just began training at the gym and lifting a little bit of weights and following with what everybody else did. A lot of people criticized me for it at that time, because Bolivia is a very male dominant society.

And so for me to go into a gym where it was, all guys was like really weird. And a lot of people thought, why is she going to wasn’t she trained like normal people but you know what. Incredible. Within a matter of months, I began seeing muscle on me. I had never seen that. Like I had done cardio and all of these little classes for years and I had never seen muscle.

And all of a sudden my legs began popping and I got a little bit of abs. Arms I lost weight. I looked really good. So 

Mike: I continued. And that’s not what you expected from weightlifting. I’m assuming. I wasn’t sure what to expect, 

Maria: obviously at the time. We thought everybody thought that I would get bulky and huge that’s what all my friends said, you’re gonna look horrible. You’re gonna have, and you know what, Mike, I’ve tried to get huge my entire life and no, it hasn’t happened. I’m certainly very athletic. Looking, I have a lot of muscle on my body, but I’m far from huge. I weigh 1 25 pounds. 

Mike: Not too huge.

Maria: So that’s not very huge. I have a six pack though. the gym is a refuge. It was a lot more than what I looked like. It was also the. Empowerment the, I can’t tell you it changed the gym, changed my life, but in a way it did it empowered me. I all of a sudden began feeling stronger, not only outside, but in the inside too.

Like the discipline, the grit, the resilience that was built inside of me, just from lifting weights is amazing. It made a huge difference in me. And to this day, 

Mike: what was your experience like when you started having kids and how did you deal with those? Okay. 

Maria: I have three kids and they were two years apart.

So think of this nightmare. I had a one, a three and a five year old and this is the answer I did it imperfectly Mike. That’s how I did it. It wasn’t perfect. I did little sets here and there wherever I could. I just accepted the fact that there was no way in heck I was going to go to the gym. For 45 minutes or an hour a day, there was just no way I couldn’t do it.

So what I did is I did little five minute squats holding one baby, little bit of lunges while I was, I don’t know one was taking a nap, whatever I could, I did five minutes at a time, 10 minutes at a time, maybe 15. And it added up, like if you add five plus five plus 10 plus 15, it added up to 45 minutes of a workout.

It wasn’t perfect. But I think that’s my biggest recommendation to young moms. Just do it imperfectly, but do it, it’s better than nothing. Like I have friends who said to me, you know what, I’m not even gonna workout until my kids are in preschool and then they never began, but I beat everybody else because I was doing something.

And crack quite a bit. So tip number one is train imperfectly and that’s it. Do whatever you can. And I guess the tip number two, I can tell moms is that, babyhood and toddlerhood doesn’t last forever. You think it does. But very soon if you have three kids like me very soon, my eldest was in gay care.

And then a little bit later, my second and I had a little bit and a little bit more time. Maybe I still couldn’t go to the gym for an hour, but I squeezed in whatever I could, as I had a little bit more time. And it’s good that you talked about prioritizing because I. As a young mom, you have so much to do your house is a mess.

You have a ton of laundry. The dishwasher is full, but a lot of my friends left their kids at daycare and they went home to fix the mess of their house. I did the opposite. I left my kids at daycare or whenever I had a free minute and I went to the gym. I thought, no, I need to go to the gym. And then I got home and I did whatever I could with my house.

And don’t throw in the towel. The worst thing you can do is look at yourself and throw in the towel. That’s the worst thing you can do. It’s a, self-fulfilling prophecy believe in the process. And that’s what I did. I thought the process, I thought I don’t wanna look like this forever. I want to get back into my gym as soon as I can.

I want to get back into my eating program as soon as I can. And I. And it worked. The thing is that when you stress yourself out and you want results right away, you do extreme things that then make it non-sustainable and then you throw it all away and then nothing gets done. So it’s better to do it slowly and sustainably than to go hog wild.

And then to go, that’s it. I’m not doing this anymore. I hate it. Always for breakfast, I have eggs and egg whites. So I always make, I always eat the same thing for breakfast, but actually that works for me and for a lot of people to eat the same thing for a few meals. Sure. So you don’t have to think about it all the time.

So I usually every single breakfast I have two eggs. Plus 120 grams of egg whites, and two pieces of toast. That’s what I have every day. I would cup. That’s what I have. And then for lunch, I usually have some chicken, a chicken sandwich or chicken and rice, chicken, and rice and vegetables, something like that.

Or roasted Turkey. I usually have one of the poultries. And for dinner, I have fish meat, lean cups of meat. So I’m not a vegetarian, I’m not a vegan. I eat everything. I sometimes have more of a vegetarian meal, but I usually have either chicken fish, seafood, lean cups of meat, along with a good car. I have carbs by all meat.

I eat 40% of my calories from come from carbs. So I do have carbs and I always have a source of fat. So I have a really well balanced diet. Mike, I don’t. Anything, I have probably 40% carbs, 40% protein, 40% fat, more or less. And that keeps me strong, healthy, it’s sustainable. Something I can maintain. I’m about an 18% body fat, which is quite low for a woman my age in particular, but it’s sustainable for me because I, I don’t feel hungry.

I eat well. I have good carbs. I have fats might give myself a treat whenever I want. I just make sure I included it to my calorie account and it’s super sustainable for me. Cause I’ve been fit for 30 years or more. The secret to success honestly, is consistency. And in 30 years of training you have good moments and bad moments.

You have illnesses, you have trips, you have all sort, I’ve had a few surgeries, I’ve had it, all babies. , I’ve moved from one continent to the other. we’ve moved a lot. A lot of, life happens, but through think and through thin I’ve just kept on going sometimes. Perfect. And sometimes imperfect life happens.

Just go back and realize that there are bumps and ups and downs along the way. But if you look at the graph of your life, if you’re constantly going up, you’re always there. Consistency. Trump’s perfect. It has to be done. If it’s important to you put in the work and the results will come, but a lot of people think it’s easy or it’s, there’s a quick way to do it.

There is not, you just have to put in the grind, enjoy the process, but you do have to put in the work. I think it’s important to say that. I think right now at 53, my biggest challenge. Just to keep my muscle mass. I think that’s my, I don’t know how much more I’m gonna gain, but if I can keep my muscle mass for that, I really have to train hard.

So it is sacrifices because probably like you I’ve sacrificed social time. I’ve sacrificed, maybe meals that I wanted to have. And I didn’t because my fitness goals were more important in the focus that it needs. It, there are one has to have priorities and everything has a price. And for me paying the price of fitness has been well worth.

Mike: All right. That’s it for the highlight reel from the interview I did with Maria. And if you want to listen to the whole thing, it was published in may of 2020, and it’s called how Maria got fit with three kids and stays lean in her fifties. Let’s now move on to the next episode, which is, should you do cardio, if you lift weights, science says yes.

And here’s. By cardio, I’m talking about any kind of exercise that involves maintaining an elevated heart rate for more than a few minutes at a time, a more accurate term would be endurance training or aerobic exercise, but I’ll just call it cardio in the podcast to keep things simple. So I’m talking about running and swimming, cycling.

Rowing playing different sports where you run around a lot like basketball, soccer, or even ping pong, even table tennis, brisk walking, and so forth. All of those things qualify as cardio. So as for benefits, the first big benefit that cardio. Can provide you, is it burns a lot of calories and it can burn a lot more calories per minute or per hour than weight lifting.

And this of course is why many people do cardio to lose weight. And it can certainly help by just allowing you to create that calorie deficit that drives weight loss. When you know what you’re doing when you’re restricting your calories, let’s say aggressively, but. Recklessly. So maybe a 20 ish percent calorie deficit, and you’re eating plenty of protein and plenty of nutritious foods, plenty of fiber drinking, water, getting off sleep.

What you’ll find is cutting is not only faster. When you add exercise into the mix, it’s also easier. It’s easier physically. It’s easier. Psychologically. I can burn 50 to a hundred percent more calories per minute. With cardio than I can with weight lifting. And just to really drive the point home, here’s another way of looking at it.

I’d have to do 40 sets of deadlift with about 400 pounds on the bar doing about eight reps per set. If I even could do that’s what I’d have to do to burn as many calories as I could. Running or cycling at a moderately difficult pace for about an hour. Okay. So the key takeaway here is the claim that cardio just doesn’t really burn that many calories, no matter what you do.

And that weightlifting burns many more is basically fake news. If you are willing to work moderately hard in your. Cardio workouts in terms of intensity and duration, you can burn a lot of calories so much so that it can be the difference between continuing to lose fat and not, especially if you’ve been cutting for a while and you can no longer drop your calories anymore without running into major problems.

That basically leaves adding cardio to continue losing fat. And fortunately it is very effective if you’re willing to work hard enough in those workouts. All right. Let’s move on and talk about cardio versus weightlifting for cardiovascular health, because as the name suggests. Cardio workouts probably improve your cardiovascular health, right?

And yes they do, they can dramatically improve your heart health, but weightlifting can as well. And recent research indicates that you can get many of the same cardiovascular benefits. Of cardio by just lifting weights. Which should you do? My answer is boats. What I do, what I’ve been doing for a long time and what I recommend my books and articles and so forth.

And there are a few reasons. The first one is a combination of cardio and weightlifting has been shown in research to be better for lowering blood pressure than just cardio or weightlifting alone. The second point is that doing cardio and weightlifting together in an exercise regimen. Also better for improving cholesterol levels than just doing cardio or weightlifting alone.

The third point is the same effect has been seen with lowering LDL or bad as it’s generally referred to the combination of cardio and weightlifting has been shown to be better for lowering LDL cholesterol levels and raising HD. Cholesterol levels. That’s the quote unquote good cholesterol. And the fourth point is research shows that cardio increases capillary density and blood flow more than weightlifting.

And the fifth and final point is cardio enhances, arterial health, more than weightlifting. So high blood pressure also referred to as hypertension significantly increases the risk of a whole host of diseases and scientists have known for some time now. There’s research going. To the sixties on this, that people who do cardio regularly are less likely to develop high blood pressure.

And since the sixties, pretty much every major meta-analysis on the topic has found the same thing. When you do cardio consistently, your blood pressure drops significantly. And this is true of lower intensity, cardio, longer duration, cardio as well as higher intensity and shorter duration stuff. So the bottom line is if you want to have healthy blood pressure levels, cardio is going to help period.

Okay, let’s move on to this next point that we discussed. Earlier, which is cholesterol and the power of cardio plus weightlifting to improve cholesterol levels. Now I mentioned earlier that LDL cholesterol is generally referred to as the bad cholesterol. And so anyway, LDL cholesterol generally considered bad HDL, generally considered good.

And for good reason, because research shows that high levels of LDL on the blood is associated with heart disease. Whereas high levels. HDL in the blood is not associated with heart disease and actually is generally considered protective against heart disease. So good for your heart health. Now what about cardio and weightlifting?

Research shows that both of these types of training can help raise your HDL and lower your total. And LDL cholesterol levels. So very good for your heart, but if you want the best effects, if you want the biggest effects, then you want to combine them. That tends to be the most effective. And so the takeaway here really is if you want to have the best cholesterol levels, you possibly can, one of the best ways to do.

Is to do a lot of exercise, really do as much as you can without pushing things too far. So to put numbers to that, my general recommendations are, let’s say three to six hours of training your muscles per week. Of course I’m partial to weightlifting, but you can do other things. If weightlifting doesn’t suit you, or if you can’t lift weights, for whatever reason, training your muscles is the key.

And then probably about half of whatever you’re doing in terms of training your muscles in cardio. Okay, next up on the list of benefits that I shared with you earlier is capillary density. And that cardio increases this more than weight lifting. So what am I talking about? Capillaries are microscopic blood vessels in your body and they deliver oxygen and nutrients and hormones and other compounds, other stuff to cells everywhere in the body.

Now, as you can imagine, capillary. and density are strong indicators of overall health and fitness and a decrease in capillary health and density is associated with high blood pressure, diabetes, and even a decline in brain function because of course blood flow is vital for everything that needs to happen with our body.

And there is very. Research on how weightlifting affects capillary density, but scientists have known for decades. Now that cardio can benefit us greatly. In this regard, there is no question. Cardio is good for capillary health and density. And unfortunately, as I mentioned, there isn’t much research on how weightlifting can impact capillary density and health.

The data that we do have is not very impressive. All right, next up is arterial health. And this is a biggie because doctors have been saying for a long time that we are as old as our arteries. And that’s why arterial health is regarded as one of the best barometers of our general. Cardiovascular health and a blocked artery.

Heart attack is still the most common cause of death among American men. And one of the main signs of a healthy artery is its ability to expand and contract as blood flow. Increases and then decreases. And so when the heart is pumping more blood throughout the body, we want the arteries to widen and allow the blood to pass through faster.

And when the heart is pumping less blood, we want our arteries to constrict. Now what can happen though is due to various causes, it could be unhealthy living. It could be just getting older. It could be some sort of disease. Our arteries can become too stiff and. When that happens, it places excess strain on the heart, which then increases the chances of a heart attack.

And that’s why arterial stiffness is associated with a whole host of cardiovascular problems like hypertension left, ventricular hypertrophy, ischemic, heart disease. And congestive heart failure and research shows that arterial stiffness can be used to reliably predict heart attacks in otherwise healthy adults.

So we want to make sure that our arteries don’t get stiff. What’s the best way to do that. Cardio. So an excellent example of this comes from a study conducted by scientists at new castle university, where the researchers parsed through 42 different studies that looked at the effects of resistance training and cardio on markers of arterial stiffness, and across the board.

Cardio. One cardio significantly reduced markers of arterial stiffness with higher intensity cardio, particularly associated with benefits. So that’s where they saw the biggest benefits. Whereas resistance training seem to have no effect at all on markers of arterial, stiffness. All right. Those are the main cardiovascular related reasons to add cardio to your weightlift.

Program or to your exercise or training regimen. And there’s one other biggie that I want to cover. And that is insulin sensitivity because the less sensitive our body is, our cells are to the hormone insulin, the higher, the risk of many, not just bad, like life threatening conditions, like cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure and kidney disease.

And of course, Diabetes, one of the ways your body processes glucose. And this is also synonymously referred to as blood sugar, right? Is that your body pulls it outta the bloodstream. And then it packages it into molecules of glycogen and then stores it in the muscles and the liver. And the more muscle you have, the more glycogen you’re able to store and the more glucose then you can pull out of your blood.

And that of course helps you maintain healthy blood glucose levels. You can think of it this way, insulin sensitivity is like a gas mileage for your car. You want to get as much mileage you wanna get as much glucose, storing ability, glucose processing ability out of every drop of insulin that your body has to produce as you can.

And in the study we just discussed the weightlifting, gave the participants a bigger gas tank, right? So that’s more muscle mass in which they can store glucose. Whereas the cardio improved. Mileage it made their muscles run more efficiently and suck up more glucose with less insulin. And another interesting point in this study is researchers saw these improvements without any weight loss or fat loss.

And we know that losing fat definitely improves insulin sensitivity. But we also know as evidenced by this study and others that exercise and especially cardio is so powerful in this regard that it can improve insulin sensitivity even without fat loss. And so what that means then is we can combine weightlifting and cardio to dramatically improve our insulin sensitivity, regardless of whether we’re losing weight or.

Hey there. If you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a. Friend or a loved one or a not so loved one, even who might want to learn something new word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the show.

So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. And that’s all for the featured tidbits from that episode. And if you want to listen to the whole thing, it was published in July of 2020. And again, it’s called, should you do cardio if you lift weights, science says yes.

And here’s why. And last I have in filth, it will be found. Today. I want to talk to you about easy, fast, and free. Those are three of the most powerful words in the English language. Whether you want to win someone’s money, their muscle, or their mind, just one of those words is often all it takes. That’s why those words.

Are also dangerous. That’s why they are often sung by political, economic and social sirens because of those three words, millions of people live in a trance transfixed by their desire to get more for less effort, less energy, less time. And it’s understandable. We have all been there before. We’ve all asked ourselves.

Why does this have to be so hard when life puts us on the ropes? We’ve all thought there’s gotta be an easier way. When the obstacles in front of us have appeared insurmountable, we’ve all wished that someone else could just do the work for us. When the demands on us have. Become too great. It’s perfectly normal to have these types of thoughts.

In fact, it’s perfectly normal to use those types of thoughts as excuses to compromise on our standards or to quit altogether. It’s also perfectly normal to be over 20 pounds overweight, to do just a few hours of real work and watch. Four to five plus hours of TV per day. And in some cases you also have to tack on a couple hours of social media, including YouTube watching as well, and to have over $130,000 in debt and less than $1,000 in savings.

All of that really actually is. The norm these days now, one way to escape the terminal disease of normality, which in some ways it literally is. And that it leads to terminal disease is to condition ourselves, to despise what is easy, fast, and free, and instead learn to embrace difficulty. Tedium and sacrifice.

Instead the author, Steven Pressfield summarized this well in his bestselling book, the war of art, which I highly recommend. He said, quote, the years have taught me one skill, how to be miserable. I know how to shut up and keep humping in E grays end, during essay, the common denominator of success. He argued that the biggest thing that sets the successful.

In any field or endeavor apart from the unsuccessful is the habit of doing the things that most people simply don’t want to do. It’s not even that successful people like doing these things. They just have enough drive to muster the willpower and the energy to do them, regardless of how they. So I’m often asked for advice.

People often email me and ask how to be more successful in their fitness or their business, or just their lives in general. And one of the more important lessons that I’ve personally learned, and that I share is this. If you want a hard life, then go in for the easy, fast, and free. If you want an easy life pursue the hard, slow and costly.

In other words, I’ve found that the most difficult way to do things, almost always turn out to be the easiest in the end, as well as the most effective and. That’s often why they turn out to be the easiest, because they’re almost always the only ways that actually work. Nothing is more frustrating than putting in time, effort, energy for failures for very little progress.

But. You take that same time, energy, and effort, then put it into something that produces actual results. Maybe they’re a bit slower or a bit smaller than what you anticipated or what you hoped for going in. But the fact that you can continually make progress, changes your perception of the work itself.

Now I believe in this so wholeheartedly that when I enter a new activity or a new discipline, the first thing I do is to go looking for the purposeful hard work that most people simply don’t want to do. I actually ask myself, what is the average person running away from here and more often than. That question alone helps me easily discover the most direct paths to getting real results.

There was a saying in medieval alchemy and it went in Quis in Venito. It roughly translates to in filth, it will be found now Carl Young, later expounded on this. And what he said is that what we most want to find in our lives will be found in the places where we least want to look. And so it is with most everything in life, only in the filth.

Of all the things that are difficult, complicated, uncomfortable unexciting, and sometimes exhausting are the true gems found. Now, if everything I have said here leaves you feeling a little less than inspired, or maybe even a little disillusioned. I do understand I’ve been there before myself, but you should know this.

Nothing is more difficult and ultimately disappointing than the quest. For easy, fast and free. It’s a shell game of false hopes and fools. Paradises where you simply can’t win someone once asked the Spartan king Leonitus to identify the Supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed his reply was.

For death for us as strivers and scribblers of all stripes. Think the difficult contempt for the difficult is our Cardinal virtue. So what is a gem 

that you currently desire? What is a shiny, attractive goal? That you currently feel drawn toward now consider what is the purposeful hard work that most people with the same desire don’t want to do?

What difficult, complicated, uncomfortable, and unexciting things are these people running away from reflect on that and research it. If you have to, until you have created an extensive list. Then pick one thing from the list that you can do today right now, even, and just go do it continuously. And that is it for a few of the more interesting points of in filth, it will be found.

And that one was published in November of 2018. In case you want to listen to it in its entire. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show, because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you.

And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you. Ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share. Shoot me an email Mike muscle for life.com, muscle F or life.com. And let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you’d like to see me do in the future.

I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode. And I hope to hear from you soon.