Debra Atkinson is a Functional Health Coach and Hormone Balancing Fitness Expert. She joins me today to discuss the importance of individualizing your exercise program. We dive into the best hormone balancing exercise program, fitness in menopause, and ways to improve bone and muscle health for strength and aging. Debra’s formula for the types of exercise perimenopausal women should engage in: Two full-body strength-training to total muscle fatigue sessions per week Two high-intensity interval training sessions per week   Guest Bio: Debra Atkinson is a Functional Health Coach, Hormone Balancing Fitness Expert, and Flipping 50 founder. Debra Atkinson has helped over 250,000 women “flip” their second half with the vitality and energy they want.  She’s the bestselling author of You Still Got It, Girl: The After 50 Fitness Formula for Women; Navigating Fitness After 50: Your GPS For Choosing Programs and Professionals You Can Trust; and Hot, Not Bothered.  Debra hosts Flipping 50 TV and the Flipping 50 podcast, an AARP top podcast for 50+.  She is a frequent speaker, and TEDx presenter of Everything Women in Menopause Learned About Exercise May Be a Lie.  She has 38 years of full-time fitness experience and is an International fitness presenter for associations including International Council on Active Aging, IDEA, NSCA, Athletic Business, and CanFitPro.  She’s an American Council on Exercise Subject Matter Expert, and prior Senior Lecturer in Kinesiology at Iowa State University. Debra is also the founder of Flippingfifty.com and creator of the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist program for fitness professionals. She’s a frequent contributor at HuffPost, ShareCare, and other featured outlets and on the Education Advisory Board for Medfit.org.  In this episode: How the physical results Debra experienced after a year of doing fewer and shorter workouts flew in the face of all she had ever learned in kinesiology. (4:13) Why you need to ask if your exercise program was built on research on women like you. (4:50) How hormone balance fitness differs from conventional training. (7:37) A blueprint for the type of exercises perimenopausal women should participate in. (9:22) What you will gain from doing a total-body workout twice a week. (10:17) Why exercising different parts of the body every day does not add up to the same as a total-body workout twice a week. (11:01) Why you should only do two total-body strength training sessions per week. (11:56) How to get started with high-intensity interval training sessions. (13:02) Why it’s better to do strength and high-intensity training on alternate days. (14:00) Debra defines strength training and emphasizes its importance. (18:43) What is muscular fatigue, and why is it important? (21:28) Some important things for women to consider when starting an exercise program. (24:10) Some common exercise mistakes women tend to make. (25:07) Tips for building bone and muscle. (29:52) Some exercise advice for busy women. (36:58) Quotes: “Most of the research is on young athletic males who are in the prime of their peak of muscle mass. So they are really in fat-burning. And women in mid-life are much more easily storing fat.” “We get eight times the metabolism boost from doing a total body workout as we do if we say I’m only going to work my chest and my arms today.” “The point of exercise is to get better at life. We’re supposed to feel good having done it. We’re supposed to have more energy having done it. We’re not supposed to be exhausted and sore and tired.” “We need to increase our lean muscle tissue by reaching muscular fatigue, and we need to get breathless.” “We need pulling exercises much more than we need pushing.” “Often, women are hearing “go walk, you need weight-bearing exercise”. But actually, you need weight-resistance exercise.” “We need to be putting the breaks on the losses and/or trying to rebuild bone density.” Links and resources: Debra’s website  Get Debra’s gift of a Five Day Fl