Full Day of Eating at 52 in Menopause: Meals and Workout

Nikkiey: Welcome to the day in the life of a 52-year-old menopausal fit G-ma. You know, a grandma that's fit. I'm a recovering pre-diabetic who was chubby, depressed, and addicted to sugar and cardio. So we do things a little differently around here. Come follow along.

I don't know about you guys, but I wake up thirsty and I always struggle to get in my water. So I start every day off, first thing before anything else, with a full glass of water. While I'm at it, I also fit in all my supplements. Today we're taking some DHEA, some methylated B, and some C. I took my magnesium last night. We're good to go.

After a few morning chores, some dishes, some laundry: my favorite part of the morning. I just drink it black. I like to save my macros for my food.

Now comes the very best part. Let's go do some meditation. When I meditate, I usually like to do a guided session. Sometimes I use Gabby Bernstein, or sometimes I just use the guided session from my Oura Ring. All right, now let's go get ready for the day.

It's not fun if you're not getting a little messy. Okay, what's great about these little ramekins is I can throw this in the microwave for a couple minutes and it cooks it perfectly. I've got one full egg and then 100 grams of egg whites. And I like to use the majority egg whites because I get the protein content without all the extra calories. So it's a good trick to get a bigger volume of food for less calories. We've got to spice it up a bit too. A little Italian seasoning, a little salt, pepper. We'll throw it in the microwave and it'll come out perfectly. Okay, we'll throw that in the microwave for about two minutes. Oh, look at that. Look how perfectly that egg turned out.

All right, now for the oatmeal. Got to put in our carbs. We're going to do about 40 grams of oatmeal. Perfect. Throw that in the microwave. A bit of sugar-free syrup on this because I love a little sweet, just about five or six grams. And then the magic part is some blueberries. We'll add about 40 grams.

All right, so we ended up with a perfect balance: protein, fat, and carbs. I'm going to feel satisfied. My workout is going to be energetic. I'm going to be able to push really hard, and my blood sugar will be regulated. Mmm, yummy. So I pretty much lick the bowl. All right, let's go get a little work done now.

Okay, before I head to the gym, I want to get my chicken prepped for the rest of the day, and it'll probably work for quite a few meals for the rest of the week. So what I like to do is throw some salsa into my Instant Pot, and then I can throw all this chicken in as one big, huge batch. Today I'm just going to use some organic ranch spices. It's a neutral flavor that goes with anything. So I can use it on salads. I can use it for different recipes. I can throw it in a wrap. Today I'm even going to make some soup for my family, and it'll use part of this chicken. So, easy breezy. Okay, let's go to the gym while this is cooking.

All right, on our way to the gym. It's only like five minutes away, so I'm a little spoiled when it comes to that. And a lot of times this time of day is my favorite, because there are only like two to three people there. So it's a good time to go to the gym. I can have all the machines I want. So we'll walk you through just a typical workout today.

All right, today we're doing back day. I'm going to warm up a little bit with some lighter weight, higher reps, just doing some lat pulldowns. All right, now that I'm warm, I'm going to do four sets of about 10 to 12 reps, going near failure. On my last set, I usually like to take it as close to failure as I can get.

While we're here, we'll do some face pulls and get the posterior delts along with the rhomboids. And again, we'll do about four sets of 10 to 12 reps.

Next, we'll move to a neutral-grip lat pulldown. Really get the latissimus dorsi right here. Four sets of about 10 to 12 reps.

Okay, moving on to a wide-grip row, so we're really going to work that back. All right, we did four sets of 10 to 12 reps of those as well.

All right, we're going to end with some cross cables, really hitting the back of the shoulder and the posterior deltoid. That's my favorite place to work. You know, women like those. This will help that out. All right, finishing those up. That was four sets of 10 to 12 reps.

We'll do a little stretching, maybe hit a little sprint training, and we'll call it a day. All right, if you're not familiar with sprint training, what it is is bringing your heart rate up to your zone four for 20 to 30 seconds. And then you let your heart rate come all the way down. That takes about a minute or two. And you can do three to seven rounds of this. But if you're getting to your highest level of output, you're really forcing that body to have some great adaptation. You burn through some glycogen, and then your body for another 24 hours is really up-regulated metabolically. So you're getting really into those fat stores. It's a great source of cardio.

All right, after a workout I usually make sure I hit my creatine. Sometimes it's just easier to raw dog it. Done. I usually do five to ten grams. It's good for mental health, building muscle, brain function, you know, all the good stuff. Get in your creatine, ladies.

All right, workout complete. We're ready to start making lunch and preparing some of this chicken that will be ready for dinner and the rest of the week. Okay, I'm going to just shred this chicken. That's what's so great about using the Instant Pot: it's so moist. You can do anything you want with it. Keep it as a chicken breast, or shred it up so we can measure it for all of our other meals. This will probably last seven or eight meals. Ooh, that just fell apart. So good. There's no reason you need to sacrifice flavor. So we put in salsa, a bunch of spices. We can do all kinds of stuff with this chicken.

For lunch, we're going to make chicken wraps made with that delicious chicken I just made. We'll use some Greek yogurt, some peppers, load it with a little cheese for some good fats, some lettuce, and we'll be able to hit all of our macros. So again, I like to split it up: about 35 to 40 grams of protein, about the same of carbohydrates, and then about 15 grams of fat. It's going to be delicious.

Okay, so I'm going to do about 100 grams of the chicken. That's just over 30 grams, 30 to 35 grams of protein. Throw on a little bit of plain Greek yogurt. I like to use this as a substitute for sour cream, and I want this to have more of a Mexican flavor to it. And of course the magic sauce. Frank's goes on everything. Usually I'd like some sharp cheddar, but I'm out, so we're going to use some Swiss cheese today. And of course we need some crunchy lettuce. Stuff it in there good.

The true test: you have to cut it in half and look at the insides, right? Oh, look at that. Perfect balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fat. It'll help me fuel my workout and get me to dinner. So good.

All right, we're going to work for a couple hours. I've got a few Zoom calls I've got to take, and we're going to double task here and get in our steps while we're at it.

Okay, it's already time for our afternoon snack. This is my favorite snack in the whole world. It's pretty much a muffin cookie cake, and you're going to want to save this part of the video because it's to die for. All it takes is cottage cheese, some PB Fit, almond flour, a little bit of sweetener, and your favorite protein. I'll show you how it's done.

Okay, we're starting with 100 grams of cottage cheese, 30 grams of my favorite protein, 30 grams of PB Fit, 30 grams of almond flour, and just a little bit of sweetener to your liking. You can put in a lot if you want. I just like maybe a tablespoon-ish. We're going to mix it really well, and if it's too dry, just add a teeny bit of water. Sometimes the cottage cheese is moist enough that you don't need water. This one's a little drier. So we want it in between a cookie dough and a cake consistency. See how it's crumbling? We want it just a little bit more wet than that. A little bit of water. Now, you're going to see the chunks of the cottage cheese, but that's okay. It gives it its ooey-gooeyness. Just wait.

Okay, and the macros for this are about the same too. We're getting about 40 grams of carbohydrates, about 35 to 40 grams of protein, and about 10 to 15 grams of fat in this. Okay, pretty good consistency. It's solid, but it's not going to pour out. We're going to throw it in the microwave for four minutes. Now we wait.

About 500 calories, perfect balance of carbs, protein, and fat. We're going to break it away from the sides. It's so moist and dense and delicious. The perfect snack, especially if you're a sweet tooth girl like me. This gets me by. I don't ever feel deprived. I get to enjoy a yummy treat, and that'll hold me off until dinner, and it supports my body and my metabolic rate. Okay, of course we've got to dress it up just a little bit. So, sugar-free whipped cream, and then we're going to get some good fiber and a few more good carbs. And guess what? This is still eating healthy.

Okay, we're going to use the rest of that prepped chicken to make a soup for the family. So this is my white chicken chili. I really don't know why I call it that. I guess it used to be kind of white, and the cream cheese makes it lighter in color. So I'm going to add, it's kind of what I have right now, some fat-free cream cheese and then some full-fat cream cheese. I'm going to add both because we're not really afraid of fat around here. We like a little bit of good fat. I've already rinsed my beans. I've got some black beans, some pinto beans, and some kidney beans. And the chicken still has the juices from when it originally cooked. Sometimes I add just corn. Today we've got some mixed veggies, half a bag of those. It really doesn't matter. Throw it in, make it delicious. We've got one more ranch packet just to give it a little more flavor. And we're going to put it back in the crock pot to cook for about an hour or so to get it all warm, get those juices flowing, and it'll be done, ready to go.

All right, and again, the macros for that: I'll end up having a bowl that's about 35 to 40 grams of protein, about the same in carbohydrates, and 15 to 20 grams of fat. So that'll end the day between 1,800 and 2,000 calories, just right for someone who is in maintenance, still trying to put on muscle, and just feeling the best they can in their body.

Thank you for spending the day with me. I hope it gave you just a little insight into how a 52-year-old menopausal fit woman tries to live her life. I've seen both sides of this. I've been on the side where I was really sick, depressed, pre-diabetic, overweight, not knowing what was going on with my body, to a place now where I have food freedom. I'm less depressed. I enjoy my life. I'm excited to get up in the mornings. So I hope this gives you some insight into how I've met these challenges and how I enjoy my life so much more now, being a healthy, fit grandma, enjoying the people I love, enjoying being active, enjoying my life every day.

All right, to end the day, I usually like to hop in the sauna for about 30 minutes. After that, I'll hit the sheets and try to sleep for a good eight hours. Thanks for spending the day with me.