From Sore Triceps To Stronger Years Ahead

Twenty minutes of light weights shouldn’t wreck you, right? I thought the same thing until I woke up at 3:30 in the morning convinced something was wrong with my arms. That moment pushed me to face a truth a lot of us avoid: strength doesn’t just fade, it slips away quietly when life gets busy, and it gets harder to rebuild the longer we wait.

I talk through what brought me back to weight training and I don’t pretend it’s only about health. Vanity is part of it, and I say that out loud, but the bigger reason is longevity. Women start losing muscle mass and bone density in our 30s and 40s, and menopause can accelerate bone loss in a way that changes everything from injury risk to how active we can be. We dig into sarcopenia, osteoporosis prevention, metabolism support, functional strength, and why lifting matters if you want to hike, travel, kayak, and stay fully involved with your family as you age.

I also share the context behind my motivation: pregnancy weight gain, postpartum depression, and how sleep, mindful eating, and consistent workouts helped me lose a significant amount of weight and maintain it. Then I get practical with supplements and research, including creatine monohydrate, protein, vitamin D, magnesium, and fish oil, plus simple ways to start with bodyweight exercises at home if the gym feels like too much.

If this gave you a push, subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. What’s one small workout you can do this week to get started?

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Podcast Exists

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, this is Silver Rose's podcast. This podcast was created for women by women to elevate women's voices. I hope you all are having a wonderful week. I am very excited this weekend because I got back to starting. Well, I got back on the train for weight training. I think I've talked with you guys a few times here and there about um wanting to get back in the saddle, feeling like I needed to start working out again. And of course, the biggest motivating factor for me is when the weather starts to get mildly nice. And I immediately think about how I would love to wear something sleeveless, but God bless my mother, I have inherited her elbows, which I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you, come with a lot of flapping. Can't blame it all on her because it's not like I've been trying to get rid of the flaps, but they are there. They're present, and I would love for them not to be as present. So, in vanity, to be perfectly honest with you, I started weight training this weekend. Now, the sad truth, and I'm gonna say this to you guys here, is that it has been so long since I have done any weight training. My husband took it really easy on me, did a really light set of exercises with me. And I'm talking like literally like maybe 20 minutes of that of like weight training. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, ready to cry. My triceps were hurting so badly that I was like, something must have gone wrong. I must have ducked something wrong. I must have pulled something. No, no, I didn't. I was just out of shape. I'm just out of shape. So it's sad because I do think back. Um, there was a period of time before we moved to South Jersey um where our schedule allowed for me to work out every single morning. So what did that mean for me? I would the kids were all little, so they would be they were getting up at 5 a.m. God bless them. And um I took advantage of that. I actually am a morning person. I like getting up early. Um, and so then getting up kind of just forced me to get up with them. And and I like it. I actually like being up early, but that's you know, hasn't stopped. But anyway, so I'm in North Jersey, we're getting them up early and we're dropping them off at daycare at about 7 a.m. That means I had two solid hours before I had to start work to actually work out. Um, my husband and I used to go to the gym every morning for about an hour. So from seven to eight o'clock or 8:30 or so, we would work out and then I would go home and start my day, start my work. I was I was working from home at that point too. So I was able to really have that really great flexibility. That went on for about a year or so. Now, I never in that year, this is also the year that I started really focusing a lot on my health, my weight management. When I had the twins in 2017, I am embarrassed to admit, I was tipping the scales at about, and I don't even think I've actually said this out loud ever, but I was tipping the scales at about 380 pounds. That was right before they were born. The day that they were born, they weighed me. And the doctor came in and said, and you weigh about 300, I think it was it was about 380 pounds. And I was like stunned because I had actually been hiding from the scale for quite some time because I knew it was very bad. My husband's jaw nearly hit the floor because he knew it was bad, but he didn't know it was that bad. And yes, I understand I was pregnant and blah, blah, blah. But it doesn't matter. The weight got out of control with my second pregnancy. So I have my twins, but again, I only lost maybe about 40 pounds with the birth. So I was still stuck with all this weight, feeling awful, going through postpartum depression. You know, the the the combination of factors was just horrifying. And being that overweight, I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you, was one of the most difficult things to go through. I was getting to a certain point. I had gotten to a point where um I didn't even want to leave the house anymore. And I was embarrassed to go outside. Now, I know some of you may be sitting here shaking your head saying, you know, I should have been proud of myself, my body carried babies, and I should have just, I should have been okay, or I should have, you know, big is beautiful. Like there there is a lot of schools of thought there. And I do know I have I've had my own personal struggles and gamings with eating disorders. And so my my weight management has always been kind of all over the place, and it's always been a sensitive subject for me. So my mental health was really suffering at that point. Now, this is when, again, I started paying bet better attention to my body. I started actually sleeping for the most part, some somewhat. I had I started getting better sleep a little bit, but so working out and being mindful of the food I was putting in my body were the two combination of factors that really pushed me to losing 150 pounds. Now, since then, I've gained and lost about 10 pounds or so. So I've been in the low 200s for quite some time now. I'm 5'8. So not awful, but again, not exactly where I want to be. Now, the biggest factor here, again, vanity is a factor for me. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you, no, no, no, it's only for health. No, no, no, it's for vanity too. I want to look awesome. I want to hit I actually I'm 42 this year. I want to hit my 50s in like the best shape of my life. This is how I've been thinking about myself. So, with that though, what does that mean exactly? Well, all right, I'm openly admitting I'm out of shape at this point in terms of muscle mass and being able to really sustain myself, right? Um, that's a pretty big factor, not just for looks, but also for my health in general. In your 40s and actually in your 30s, women start to lose muscle mass and bone density. Guaranteed. It's just starts to happen. Something you don't even see, but it is something that happens. And it's something that that's part of the reason why it freaked me out so much that I was lifting these little babies with light weights and doing this light workout and had this really sincere struggle with my muscles and being so sore. And that says to me, Jenny, your body is starting to slip. You are starting to lose muscle mass and you're not paying attention to it. You need to really get your buttons gear here. Now, I'm flagging this to all of you because us maintaining our muscle mass, this is what's actually gonna carry us at like into our 50s, 60s, 70s, and have us in better shape. There's women out there, and you can't sit there and say, well, I'm not, you know, I had to start, I don't do anything. I'm too old for this, like it's not gonna happen for me. I am just gonna lift weights here and there, but it does, it does nothing for me. You have to be mindful here. And this is the part that really freaked me out again is my children are gonna have kids when I'm in my 50s or so, right? 50s and 60s. I want to be able to run around with my grandchildren. I want to be able to take care of them. I want to be an active part of their lives. I don't want to just be sitting on the couch and just kind of like unengaged and unable to do things with them. I want to have a future here. Now, even besides grandchildren, I want to have a future with my husband. I want to travel with him. I want to do fun activities with him. I like hiking. I like, you know, I we were talking about, you know, going kayaking this summer. Like there's stuff that there's stuff that is important and significant. And in order to actually get there and to be a healthy senior, you have to start now. That's the biggest factor is starting now. So that way you can build the muscles and everything that you need in order to get to that health point of getting to that healthy point of I am maintaining myself and I'm maintaining my body, and this is this is the outcome. So, really quickly, I did do some Googling here because I didn't want you guys to think I was just yammering on. Building muscles essential for women to combat age-related muscle loss. It's also called sarcopenia. It boosts our metabolism, increases bone density, which prevents osteoporosis. It improves cardiovascular health, it enhances functional strains for daily activities, aids in weight management, boosts mental health through increased confidence and reduced anxiety. I mean, the benefits are astronomical. So not doing it is almost stupid, right? Because the benefits are so great. Am I calling anyone stupid? No, mostly myself, because I have a gym 30 feet for me, and my husband consistently is telling me you need to, you know, get in here and do something. And really, just this past weekend, what did I lean into it? And I plan to continue because the benefits are just tremendous. Now, the other part of here that I was looking at was how much muscle mass and bone mass do women start to lose in their 40s. So women in their 40s begin to lose muscle mass at a rate of roughly three to eight percent per decade. So it's about a half to one percent annually. Bone density begins to decrease as the remodeling process slows, significantly up to 20% of loss in the initial five years following menopause. This is a big deal. So a lot of us are not educated on this beyond the fact that I'm vain and want to look good, right? There are these other factors. Now, I've complained a lot about perimenopause over the past like a couple years on this podcast, but it is something that's pretty significant. It is something that's important to pay attention to because once you do start to go into menopause, like for real into menopause, you do start to rapidly lose the bone mass at or bone density. And what does that say for us? I mean, that means that should anything happen to you, you're not gonna heal the same way you are gonna have a lot of pain. And it's not gonna be something that you're able to live your life the way you want to live your life because of this. So the preventative measures are incredibly important for you to even just be able to survive, survive and really thrive into your 50s and 60s. Like this is a big deal. Now, one of the other pieces that I did look up here too was well, what are the supplements that you can take to help increase your muscle mass or you know, just to help with your bone density? For women in their 40s, aiming to build muscle, the most effective supplements are creatine, monohydrate for strength and muscle volume, weyer plant protein to combat to combat anabolic resistance, and vitamin D with magnesium to support bone density and muscle function. I actually take vitamin D. I do take magnesium supplements, I take fish oil supplements as well. It's good for your heart health. If you have um high cholesterol, you cannot take fish oil because you're gonna give yourself higher cholesterol. I don't happen to have high cholesterol, that's why I take it. Um, but it's good for your heart health, it's good for your joints. Like there, there's like a whole, it's good for your brain. Like, you know, uh omega's is massive. Fish oil is massive. And then I do take creatine daily now. And then one of the other things that I just most recently got too, it was um a mix that was um not creatine, it was a mix that had collagen powder, superfoods, greens, spirlina. Like there was a whole mix in it. Probably tastes horrible. I'm sure it tastes like trash. But nevertheless, I'm weaving that into maybe not daily, but into my week where I'm consuming it because the supplements are really going to help. Now, people are I've heard people say, like, oh, you know, supplements are a waste, you just pee everything out. You are gonna pee a lot of it out. You absolutely are. You're absolutely right. You are gonna pee some of it out. But some of it's not gonna get peed out. Some of it's gonna stick. And that's the part that's gonna be most important to you. So doing all these things as early as you can afford to do them is critical. Now, I had um an aunt actually had said to me at some point, because she was a really avid vitamin taker and really into um like holistic health and healing. And she had actually had said at one point, you know, if she had started taking the vitamins that she took in her, you know, 40s, 50s, and 60s, if she had started taking them when she was in her 20s, she probably would have been in a tremendous, you know, in a much better spot. And so I encourage you, no matter what age range you're in right now, take a look at some supplements that might help benefit you. One of a supplement that I love taking and actually ran out, so I have to get more. B complex is is great. Like that's like a wonderful wellness supplement to take, you know, early on to help maintain yourself. And there's lots of supplements out there that you have to do the research, please. But there's a lot of products out there that are really, you know, they're sustainable and they're built with compounds that are really gonna benefit you and they're not gonna hurt you. So it really is important to you as an individual, getting older, making sure that you are maintaining yourself. Because if you're not, you are gonna lose it. I have family members that unfortunately haven't paid attention to their health, don't pay attention to their physical state. And yes, they're living their lives, but they're not truly living their lives because there's physical ailments that are pulling them back. And it is my goal to be able to surpass these ailments. And it's my goal to be able to make sure that I can thrive when I get older and that I can go on vacations and go hiking and kayaking and do like do all these great activities because you spend your whole life working, you want to be able to thrive at some point. And that's really the goal here, right? Is making sure that we are entering our 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, thriving and living our best lives. So I wanted to just pass that, run that through all of you, even if it's something small and you're just starting with honestly, just body weight exercises. You could literally just look up body weight exercises. You don't need machines because if you're using the force of your own body weight and you're just trying to lift yourself up or do planks or push-ups or whatever, that's really that that is it. Like you can just start there. You don't need to join the gym. You could do stuff at home. I mean, there's so many people on, you know, social media now that have tutorials and videos. I mean, YouTube has free exercise videos on there that don't require any kind of, they don't require any weights and you can just go for it. I mean, the possibilities and the ease at which all this information is at our fingertips is really endless. So I think it's important to make sure that you take that leap, not just for vanity, but for your health overall. Ultimately, we want to make sure that we're living our lives to the best of our ability. Taking care of our bodies is really the biggest best step you could possibly take. Let's see how I feel at the end of the week with maintaining workouts during the week. Workouts during the week is usually where I slip up because I have the combination of my job during the day and then having to do all my other things in the in the in between hours. That's my biggest challenge. That's always my challenge is Monday through Friday, just not having, in my opinion, the time that I need to be able to focus on something purely for myself. Um, so let's see how I do this week. I I'm hoping for the best. And um, you know, we'll take it from there. Um, thank you all again for being here with me today. Um, I encourage you guys to do research, look things up, see if you can find something that will help you, even if something small you can do for yourself at home. Just get started. The the hardest step is the first step, and then it gets easier from there. Again, thank you for being with me. I hope um I hope you've found this episode informative. Um, I appreciate all of you so much. And I will catch you on the next one. Take care.