Fitness trainers share tips for women approaching menopause

“Total Body Beautiful: Secrets to Looking and Feeling Your Best After Age 35” (Human Kinetics, $28), by Andrea Orbeck, Desi Bartlett and Nicole Stuart, draws on the women’s areas of expertise: weight and resistance training, yoga and Pilates, respectively.

Its message is straightforward: Hormonal changes starting in early middle age are inevitable, but you can manage them to age more successfully and gracefully. The key, in a nutshell, is to move.

Stuart, a Las Vegas native and 1988 Valley High graduate who now lives in Southern California, says the concept of the three disciplines relieving or counteracting hormonal-linked changes is rooted in science. But the goal of incorporating more movement in our lives does not need to be confined to those disciplines.

“It’s not just these three things,” Stuart says. “It’s whatever is your thing that motivates you. If it’s not Pilates, yoga or weight training, just do something — anything, really. We’re just living examples of doing these practices for our whole lives, and knowing what they can provide. But walking and other types of exercise provide great things.”

‘Things start shifting’

Orbeck and Bartlett, both 51, and Stuart, 52, say they chose the “after age 35” subtext for their book because it’s a common point for the transition to menopause to begin.

“Thirty-five is when things start shifting,” Orbeck says.

“Estrogen, progesterone and testosterone will be in much shorter supply (post-menopause),” the trio write in the book. “Because we know that estrogen has a positive effect on our arteries, research has found that loss of it may be a factor in the increased incidence of heart disease. Research is starting to confirm that menopause alone isn’t to blame for all the symptoms of hormonal decline. Fitness activity leading up to menopause and beyond will reap great rewards in disease prevention.”

It makes sense. But don’t forget inner health. Regular yoga practice can increase flexibility, strength and bone density, Bartlett says, but also decrease stress, improve sleep and improve balance.

“Yoga sends a clear intention each morning,” she says. “Whatever we focus on, we’re able to attract that to us. How do you feel when you wake up in the morning? It’s about feeling great from the inside out, stepping up to your power.”

“Stress changes you at the cellular level,” Orbeck adds. “Stress can kill you.”

Slow and steady

The book includes a foreword by actress Kate Hudson (whom Stuart has been training for 20 years) and testimonials from numerous other Hollywood stars, but it’s geared to everywoman, with photos and instructions of various yoga poses, resistance and weight-training exercises and Pilates movements that can be done at home.

Bold-face names pop in and out, but in relatable anecdotes. For example, a client story on Stuart training Anna Faris for “The House Bunny” is filled with caveats.

“Here’s the deal with the bodies that you see on the big screen,” Stuart writes. “Often, they’re the result of dedicated, hardcore training plans and restricted-calorie diets that shouldn’t be followed in the long term” because overuse can actually reduce energy and metabolism.

Stuart and her co-authors say to think long term, with more realistic programs. “If weight loss is your goal, slow and steady is the way to achieve sustainable loss,” she writes.

And on the topic of slow and steady, as opposed to quick fixes: Stuart has some thoughts about the current Ozempic craze, saying she hopes physicians prescribing it remind patients of the importance of a healthy diet and exercise plan as well as “mindful practices.”

“My fear is that people are looking for a quick way out and would not exercise,” she says. “Happiness isn’t just on the exterior. You have to change your inner self, and exercise and diet can help with that. If you just take that and look for an easy way out, you will be depressed.”