56: Building Muscle: Your Blueprint for Better Health

You hear it everywhere these days: building muscle is an absolute MUST for women in midlife.

As a midlife woman, who is also recovering from breast cancer, I’ve been taking a deep dive into my own health. What I’ve learned about muscle is truly staggering.

The statistics on bone fractures and falls for older women are jaw-dropping, but here's the thing: it all ties back to how much muscle we have.

I'm giving you my top three most compelling reasons to start building muscle today, plus some simple, actionable steps to get you started.

In this episode, we'll dive into:

• How building muscle now can protect against bone loss later in life.
• The shocking statistic about the leading cause of death for women, that muscle can help prevent.
• My personal number one most compelling reason you need to start lifting weights today.
• The simple scan you can get today that tells you exactly where you are with your bone density.
• What a “physique coach” is and why I hired one at 50.

Envision what you want your life to be like in your 50s, 60s, and 70s. Give yourself a strong, healthy body now, as your insurance policy to make that happen.

More Support For You:

✅ Free Protein Guide
💪 Get the exact at-home programs Ashley uses to build muscle. All you need are some dumbbells!
🙋‍♀️ Work with Me
🍳 How I Cook Just 3 Nights/Week
🧠 Mindset Framework to Stop Relying On Motivation
📌 Connect on Instagram

Transcript

You hear it literally everywhere. You see it everywhere. That building muscle is the thing to do as a woman in midlife.

If you're mom in perimenopause or menopause, maybe you've gone so far as to buy one of those weighted vests for your walks because you have heard that that is gonna help you build some muscle. I have been digging into various aspects of my health this year after being diagnosed with breast cancer early in the year. And I really want to give myself every opportunity to recover fully.

But in the process, I have learned some shocking statistics and it has helped me to realize that it is so incredibly important to build muscle for so many reasons. So I want to get into those statistics and then we're going to talk about why you need to start building muscle today. And I'm even going to give you some of my easiest ways that you can get started.

So let's look at those statistics. I find them incredibly staggering and stick with me because a lot of them have to do with bone health. And I know this episode is about muscles, but it's all going to tie together. So just listen to these. Up to 50 % of women who break a hip, they are unable to live independently after the injury. Up to 50%, 10 to 20 % of women in Western nations

are often put into nursing homes or the residential care facilities for the first time following a fall that includes a bone fracture. And if you have ever visited one of the assisted livings or residential care facilities, you know that that can create additional health issues. If you have fallen and you're in a

care facility, you can have further decline with your basic daily living like dressing and bathing. You might have decreased mobility overall. Maybe you're going to need a cane or a walker. You automatically have an increased risk of other fractures of your bones because while you're sitting in that care facility, you are losing muscle mass. And

It goes without saying there's a severe decline in mental health for people who are in some of those care facilities. They're away from their families, away from things that feel comfortable, and they can really struggle with depression. All of this to me was incredibly staggering information. And like I said, I know a lot of this has to do with bone health, but bone health is a leading indicator of how healthy a woman is as she ages.

So our bone density increases with the more muscle that we have. So this is why building muscle is so important starting in like your 30s, because it's going to improve the quality and the density of your bones. But more muscles are also going to improve other areas of your health, which really in my mind makes building muscle an absolutely essential part.

of your daily wellness routine.

So before we get any further into building muscle, which is gonna help our bones and lots of other parts of our body and our health, I wanna tell you a little bit of a story. So my mom is, she will turn 82 this year. And when you think of somebody who's 82, I want you to get that visual in your mind, okay?

Maybe your visual looks like a woman who is a little bit on the smaller side. She's kind of frail. She maybe sits a lot of her day. She's got white hair. She's got cloud hair. So my mom, believe it or not, still clocks 10 miles a day, every day. She has a Fitbit and she refuses to close up her day until she's hit her 10 miles. Can you just imagine how good her?

her cardiovascular health is. She volunteers at local food banks four days a week. And when she volunteers, she puts herself in charge of lifting the heavy boxes. They'll get food donations from places like Starbucks or grocery stores or Walmart. And she offloads the trucks with those heavy boxes for like three to four hours a day, four days a week.

She absolutely refuses to let anybody help her with any of that. And interestingly, she also refuses to tell anyone her age, which I think is really funny because I'm really open about my age, but maybe I'll feel differently when I'm turning 82. My mom is healthy. She is on zero medications and she actually loves to show off her muscles. She has these really big biceps. It's really impressive.

She has only broken one bone that I know of in like the last 10 or 15 years, and that was her wrist and she fell, but she recovered from that and has no lasting effects from that. Interestingly, she has also fallen a few times. So she really likes to walk her dog and she will not let the weather or anything stop her. ⁓ She has special things that she puts on her shoes when there's ice outside, but she has fallen a couple of times on the ice.

But interestingly and miraculously, she has not broken any other bones and she hasn't broken a hip. So she's always looking for ways to stay active and to build muscle. And she'll probably just kill me for telling you this, but she has a trampoline in her backyard and she really says that it's for the grandkids and the grandkids all go over there and play. But I also know that my 82 year old mother also jumps on her trampoline. Okay. So I

want you to be like my mom. I really do. She is an amazing example of good health late in life and all the things that she does really support more muscle which in turn supports better cardiovascular health and better bone density. I want you to have this kind of life when you're 82 years old. I want you to be jumping on a trampoline

in your backyard, whether your grandkids are there or not. But I have to tell you, all of that starts today, right now. You are never too young to get started on building muscle, which has this cascading effect of supporting your health for the rest of your life. So I wanna give you my personal top three reasons, these very compelling reasons to start

building your muscle today. So as we talked about building muscle now is going to help you guard against bone loss as you get older. So as you age starting in your late 30s or early 40s, so take note of how old you are, you are starting to lose lean muscle. It just happens as we age and when you lose that lean muscle,

it also causes a decrease in your bone density, which like we talked about, know, all of the falls and breaks, that's why this starts to happen. So if you're not working actively to build muscle now, you're putting yourself at later risk for falls and fractures. And as we talked about, that's just not like, you're not going to recover fully from those or 50 % of women don't recover fully.

Also, depending on what age you are, when perimenopause hits, sort of in your late mid 30s, early 40s, you start losing estrogen and estrogen accelerates muscle and bone loss. So everything is working against you, unfortunately, but you have control. So you can start building muscle today to help support your lean muscle.

and in turn really supporting your bone density, your cardiovascular health and just your quality of life.

All number two, the more muscle you have, the lower risk you have of heart disease. So here's another shocking statistic that I was not aware of, I did not know this, that the leading cause of death for women in the US is heart disease. Did you know that? I did not know that. And just recently, even this month actually, September of 2025,

Melinda Gates just pledged $100 million for research into women's health. And she was very specific about where that money was to go. It was for research into autoimmune diseases, mental health, and cardiovascular health. These are all things that we've talked about in today's episode. Not so much autoimmune diseases, but the mental health piece, the depression, cardiovascular health. So it's...

hugely hugely important and I love that Melinda Gates is contributing that money so that we can really see how important it is and hopefully start getting some additional resources in how we can increase our muscle, increase our bone density, increase our cardiovascular health.

All right, number three, the more muscle you have, the better mood you will be in. Trust me, this one is so true. Just by way of working out and building muscle, this is increasing endorphins in your body. Those are those feel good hormones. So not too often do you get into a workout and you get out of it you're like, that was terrible or I feel worse. You always feel better.

Now have to get yourself to the workout and you have to build the muscle and, you know, lift the dumbbells. But once you do, you're going to feel better just because those endorphins ramp up in your body. Plus more muscle is going to rev up your metabolism, which is going to give you a better night of sleep, which that's going to make you feel better too, right? So you will look better with more muscle and you will feel more

confident with more muscle. I really think that looking good and feeling really confident is important as we age. I want to look good in a tank top. I want my toned arms to show. And so if I can do that now at 50 years old, I also want to be able to do that when I'm 80 years old or 82 like my mom.

All right, so guarding against bone loss, lowering your risk of heart disease, being in a better mood. Personally, I think those are like three really compelling reasons to start building your muscle today. But I wanna give you a bonus, and number four, I want you to build muscle because you do not know what lies ahead of you. So the work that I have put into my health already actually means that I have a pretty decent baseline.

to start and support my recovery from breast cancer. But I still have a lot of work to do.

When I got my recent DEXA scan, which measures bone density, I realized that I am borderline osteopenia, which osteopenia comes before osteoporosis. And unfortunately, the cancer treatment drugs that I'm taking for the next five years are going to greatly reduce my bone density, partly because it's reducing and eradicating any estrogen from my body. And we've talked about that estrogen.

supports muscle and bone health. So I find it for myself incredibly important that I had already started working on a base of health for the last 10 plus years because that gives me a better chance of recovering and doing better health-wise as I get older. I'm also really glad that I hired a physique coach this year. So this was something if you've

been here for a minute, you will know this story, but at the beginning of this year, I hired a physique coach because I wanted to see now that I'm 50 years old this year, how strong can I get? And I don't, I don't want to be a bodybuilder. don't want to be giant, but I do want to have really defined tight muscles. And so I hired a coach to help me with that. And all of that was before I was diagnosed with cancer. So

I didn't know that breast cancer was in my future and I hope among all hope that that is never a part of your future. But I had already started working on my health and it gives me that fighting chance to come out of treatment with really good health with strong muscles and strong bones. So my number four compelling reason is because you don't know what's coming. You don't know what your future holds and if you

are capable and able to build that muscle today, it is going to pay dividends for you no matter what comes your way.

So I know you cannot listen to those statistics and this data and say, yeah, muscle isn't that important. You see it, right? You understand and feel really like convinced that yes, building muscle is super, super important. But I also know that I don't want you to walk away from this episode and say, okay, I know muscle is important and not do anything about it. So I wanna give you a couple of ways to just get started today.

that will help you to start building that muscle and start making basically like an insurance policy for your health for the rest of your life. So the first thing I encourage you to do is get a DEXA scan. So this is what I just talked about. It is a scan of, for this purpose, it's a scan of your hips and your spinal column, and it shows the bone mineral density. So,

you want to have a really good baseline. So you can understand, okay, today I am 35 years old or I am 65 years old and this is where I'm starting. This is typically covered by insurance and I want you to work with your conventional medical doctor for this. There are standalone facilities that do DEXA scans and typically they do that for like body fat percentage.

I have done those as well. Those are not a reliable source for the bone mineral density to understand if you have osteopenia or osteoporosis. So definitely work with your doctor on this. They'll recommend where you need to go. And like I said, insurance typically pays for this. So you can do that today, okay? You can make a call to your doctor, your OB-GYN, your general practitioner and ask to be ⁓ sent over to have a DEXA scan.

Okay, the second thing you can do is increase your protein. And I know you have heard it already. Here we go again with the protein, but increasing your protein is going to help you build that lean muscle. So you can build it by, you know, working out, but to have more protein on board is really going to help you to build those muscles faster.

The other thing that's going to help is carbohydrates. So don't toss those out. You actually need the energy in order to build your muscles. So you want to be eating carbs, but you definitely want to be increasing your protein. If you're curious, like how much protein, how do I get all that in every day? Check the show notes. I have my free protein guide linked down there, and it tells you exactly what you need to figure out how much protein you need.

how to get it all in every day and how to do it in a way that feels fun and delicious, okay?

All right, the third thing that you can do is lift heavier weights. I know you probably look at your dumbbells that you have in your garage or your basement and you're like, yeah, I've got some like two pounders and some five pounders. It's not gonna cut it. I know you can do more than that and you actually can lift heavier than you think. But guess what? You don't know that until you try.

For me, hiring a coach was incredibly valuable. She was able to look at me and say, Ashley, you can lift heavier than what you're doing. So I tried it and guess what? I did. I lifted heavier weights than I thought I could. You can also, if you don't wanna hire a coach, you can go to a gym and just see what you're capable of. Start tracking your weights and figure out what is your baseline for what you can lift for a bicep.

or an overhead shoulder press. And then by tracking your weights, you can start increasing your weights because you'll know, okay, well, last week I did eight pounds, maybe in two weeks I'm gonna try 10 pounds or 12 pounds. So by tracking, you'll know how to improve over time.

If you need some support around the lifting of heavier weights, for me, I was really glad to have some programs that showed me proper form, ⁓ exactly what I needed to do and sort of how to put together a program to lift the right muscles and in the right order. So I have linked to the programs that I have used to build my muscle in midlife. And so you can check that out. All you need is some dumbbells at home.

and you'll be able to get started. And what I love about that is that you don't necessarily have to go to the gym. And if you need help with like which program to start with, just reach out to me. can help you with that. But I've linked all that in the show notes for you. So see already, I've got some things for you to get started. You can call for your DEXA scan today. You can download that free protein guide that I have in the show notes.

And then you can look into the programs that I shared with you that will help you to lift weights. All of that is in the show notes. You can do all of that today. So that's three things you can do to get started. The other thing that you can do to really help yourself build some nice, strong, lean muscles is to work on your mindset. I want you to create this identity of a strong, fit, older woman. Remember when I asked you to think about an 82 year old woman, my mom?

You had a vision in your mind of somebody who was frail and sitting in a recliner maybe and just not super active. But imagine being my mother. How can you create an identity that you see yourself when you're 82 years old, clocking 10 miles a day and lifting heavy boxes as you volunteer? What does your strong fit older self

look like physically? What does she do every day? What kind of activities does she do? My mom, she's in this competition with herself to lift heavier boxes every day. So how can you shift your mindset to say, it's all up to me. I can start building muscle now so that it allows me to live the life that I want well into my 80s. So really picture, what do I see myself

doing? How do I see myself as that fit woman in my 60s, my 70s, my 80s? And then start doing those things today that are actually going to get you to that vision of yourself when you're older.

So building muscle, it is no longer optional. It just isn't. If you are older than 35 years old, you must get started today. You cannot hear these statistics and just ignore them. But you also can't wait until your life is a little less busy or when things slow down. You can't wait. You owe it to yourself and especially your future self to start building more muscle today.

So I want you to go get that DEXA scan, get the protein guide, start building your muscle and really envision clearly how strong and healthy you will be with every passing year. I'm so glad you joined me for today's episode. I hope it was really valuable for you and I cannot wait to see you back here next week.