Lift Heavy, Protect Your Brain: Strength, Creatine, and Sauna for Women with Dr. Stacy Sims

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver continues her conversation with exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist Dr. Stacy Sims, moving from what does not work to what actually does for women in perimenopause and menopause. They cover why strength training, not endless cardio, is one of the most powerful tools women have for protecting muscle, bone, and brain health at midlife, and Dr. Sims walks through exactly how to structure a 20 minute strength session for maximum benefit.

The conversation turns to creatine, including why women between 18 and 65 see some of the strongest benefits for brain and heart health, proper dosing, and why timing and mixing matter for bioavailability. Dr. Sims and Dr. Haver also discuss why distance runners can still develop osteoporosis despite years of training, and how chronic under fueling and calcium loss play a role.

They separate marketing from evidence on some of the biggest wellness trends right now, including GLP-1 medications, gray market peptides, cold plunging, and sauna use, and explain why women often respond differently than men to cold and heat exposure. The episode also covers why sit-ups are not necessary for a strong core, why cardio remodels the female heart differently than the male heart, and why women are more fatigue resistant than men from a biological standpoint. Dr. Sims closes with practical guidance for women just starting a strength training journey, along with her top priorities for circadian rhythm alignment, movement, and building sustainable habits for long term health.

Guest links:

• Dr. Stacy Sims
  
• Dr. Stacy Sims (Facebook)
  
• Dr. Stacy Sims (YouTube)
  
• Dr. Stacy Sims (Instagram)
  
• Stacy T. Sims, PhD (LinkedIn)
  
• Dr. Stacy Sims Newsletter
  
• Dr. Stacy Sims Microlearning Course

Books:

• “Menopause and Beyond,” by Dr. Stacy Sims
  
• “ROAR: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Unique Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life,” by Dr. Stacy Sims
  
• “The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver
  
• “The New Menopause,"⁠ by Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Articles:

• Effectiveness of Early Time-Restricted Eating for Weight Loss, Fat Loss, and Cardiometabolic Health in Adults With Obesity (JAMA Internal Medicine)
  
• Randomized controlled trial for time-restricted eating in healthy volunteers without obesity (Nature Communications)
  
• Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves 24-Hour Glucose Levels and Affects Markers of the Circadian Clock, Aging, and Autophagy in Humans (Nutrients)
  
• Changes in Physical Activity and Body Composition in Postmenopausal Women over Time (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise)
  
• The Impact of Walking on BDNF as a Biomarker of Neuroplasticity: A Systematic Review (Brain Sciences)
  
• Lactate and BDNF: Key Mediators of Exercise-Induced Neuroplasticity? (Journal of Clinical Medicine)
  
• Physiological and molecular sex differences in human skeletal muscle in response to exercise training (The Journal of Physiology)
  
• Women Have Higher Protein Content of β-Oxidation Enzymes in Skeletal Muscle than Men (PLoS One)
  
• Effectiveness of nature-based walking interventions in improving mental health in adults: a systematic review (Current Psychology)
  
• The 2022 hormone therapy position statement of The North American Menopause Society (Menopause)
  
• Epigenetics of prenatal stress in humans: the current research landscape (Clinical Epigenetics)
  
• Placental H3K27me3 establishes female resilience to prenatal insults (Nature Communications)
  
• Stress during pregnancy: Fetal males pay the price (PNAS)
  
• Minimizing Injury and Maximizing Return to Play: Lessons from Engineered Ligaments (Sports Medicine)
  
• Creatine in women's health: bridging the gap from menstruation through pregnancy to menopause (The Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition)
  
• Does Creatine Supplementation Enhance Performance in Active Females? A Systematic Review (Nutrients)
  
• Single-Dose Creatine Reduces Sleep Deprivation-Induced Deterioration in Cognitive Performance (Nutrients)
  
• Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation (Nature)
  
• Biological sex differences in fatigue in resistance-trained individuals: A scoping review (International Journal of Sports Medicine)
  
• The effects of biological sex on fatigue during and recovery from resistance exercise (PeerJ)
  
• Sex Differences Are Here to Stay: Relevance to Prenatal Care (Journal of Clinical Medicine)
  
• Male excess among anatomically normal fetuses in spontaneous abortions (American Journal of Medical Genetics)
  
• Effect of Fetal Sex on Maternal and Obstetric Outcomes (Frontiers in Pediatrics)
  
• Sex Differences in Vulnerability to Prenatal Stress: a Review of the Recent Literature (Current Psychiatry Reports)
  
• Early sex-dependent differences in response to environmental stress Get access Arrow (Reproduction)
  
• Elevated risk of stillbirth in males: systematic review and meta-analysis of more than 30 million births (BMC Medicine)