Fertility over 40
Expert advice for women who want to have children later in life
exercise is good for you. As registered biokineticist Hlalefo Senoamali says, it improves your muscle strength, allowing you to move and perform daily activities more easily. It boosts your circulatory system’s ability to deliver oxygen and nutrients to your brain, heart and active muscles, which in turn makes it easier for them to function.
So, if you exercise regularly, you’ll find you’re more mentally alert and have more energy. When your heart works more effectively, it can deliver blood and oxygen to your external organs optimally. That lowers your risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDS) such as autoimmune diseases, strokes, most heart diseases, most cancers, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and others.
Combining high-intensity exercise with low-to-moderate cardio and resistance training helps you build lean muscle mass. You also improve your metabolic rate meaning you burn fat more easily, even when you’re resting.
But, he cautions, these adaptations can only happen if you rest enough. “If you don’t allow your muscles to repair the degeneration that initially happens after exercise, it’ll increase your risk of muscle-related injuries such as spasms, cramps, tears and strains.
“Your heart rate becomes elevated during exercise, and if you don’t allow it to return to normal, it impairs its ability to pump blood and oxygen to your brain. That leads to fatigue, decreased mental alertness, and a lowered mood state because you can’t think clearly.”
It also affects your immune system. “After high-intensity exercise, your body goes into an ‘open window’ period, where you’re at increased risk of getting respiratory infections in your pulmonary system, which includes your nose, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi and lungs. If you don’t rest, it predisposes you to contract respiratory diseases such as flu and colds.”
How to rest
1. Stretch: It facilitates improvements in your circulatory system because it allows better blood flow to your muscles and tissues.
2. Foam roll: It helps with the contraction and relaxation of your muscles to improve oxygen flow.
3. move: Rest doesn’t necessarily mean you should stop exercising altogether. A light exercise session helps to prevent muscle cramping and soreness.
4. Swim: Water has a soothing effect on muscles and exerts pressure on your body, giving your circulatory system a boost and allowing better blood flow throughout your entire body.
5. Sleep: Seven to nine hours’ shut-eye allows your body to repair degeneration caused by exercise.
Your diet
Your diet, macronutrient distribution (the amounts of carbohydrates, proteins and fats), food choices and recovery nutrition should depend on what your specific goals are.
Registered dietician Shelly Meltzer explains that the general goals of recovery nutrition are to rehydrate, refuel and restore. But how you apply it and integrate it in terms of what and how much you eat, and when you eat it, depends on factors including your overall goals and desired training adaptations, specific training sessions, personal preferences and appetite.
If you’re underweight and want to gain muscle mass, you should eat more calories than you use up during exercise.
Eat a post-exercise recovery snack or meal with adequate amounts of protein and carbs within 30 to 60 minutes of having exercised, especially if you’ll be training again in less than eight hours.
But if you want to lose weight, you must create an energy deficit by eating fewer calories than you burn in a day – so, you could skip the recovery snack but shift your next meal closer to your training session so as not to blow your energy budget. Make sure it’s nutritious. It could be, for example, a stir fry with chicken or tofu, rice and veg.
“Protein builds adaptations to the specific exercise stress of training, helps with muscle repair and supports the formation of new muscle tissue,” she says. “Carbs will, besides replenishing and refuelling muscle stores (which may be more taxed during a high-intensity workout), induce the release of insulin (a building hormone). That halts the muscle-protein breakdown exercise induces. Post-exercise, your muscle cells are more sensitive to insulin, so this is the best time to eat your recovery meal or snack.”
Rehydrating is also important postexercise. Milk provides fluid, protein, carbohydrate, electrolytes and other nutrients. But if you haven’t sweated much, your energy budget is lower, meaning water, together with a salty
“If you don’t allow your muscles to repair, it’ll increase your risk of injury ”
snack such as biltong with a few dates, will do the job. Your choice of fluid with these snacks or meals depends on your nutrient and calorie needs.
Adequate rest is vital for your recovery from exercise. But when it comes to your diet, there’s no one-sizefits-all, and you should customise your strategy to your needs.
“Seeking the help of a registered dietician will help you figure out how to do that, and, ultimately, allow you to get the most out of what you’re spending your time and money on,” concludes Shelly.