Episode 2 · Bone Health & Strength Training

Listen to the Wellness AF Club Podcast, Episode 2 | By Jen Stanley

In your 30s, the most useful thing you can do for your long-term health is to build bone density now so your skeleton can carry you through the next 50 years without fracturing every time you trip over your dog.

The short answer: lift heavy twice a week, eat enough protein, and cover your calcium and vitamin D. The rest of this article is why that works, what the studies say, and how to start safely.

Short on time? Jump to the TLDR or the FAQ.

Bone health is one of those topics that sounds boring until it becomes urgent, usually around the time someone’s mom breaks a hip and suddenly everyone’s Googling “how to prevent osteoporosis.” I don’t want that to be you. Or your mom. So let’s get into it.

First: your bones are living tissue that rebuilds itself constantly

Most of us picture bones as static structures, like a wooden frame inside your body. In reality, your skeleton is a living, constantly remodeling tissue. Right now, approximately 2 million cellular work crews are simultaneously tearing down old bone and building new bone throughout your body. So your entire skeleton turns over roughly every 10 years.

Two types of cells run this operation. Osteoclasts handle demolition, while osteoblasts handle rebuilding. Embedded throughout the bone matrix, meanwhile, are sensor cells called osteocytes, these detect mechanical load and signal the builders to get to work.

Here’s the mechanic that matters for everything else in this post: bones respond to strain. An orthopedic surgeon named Harold Frost figured this out in 1987 and called it the mechanostat theory. Think of it like a thermostat for your skeleton. Below a certain strain threshold, your body lets bone go, it doesn’t need it if nothing’s challenging it. Above the threshold, however, it builds. The problem is that threshold is higher than most exercise programs take you.

Why walking isn’t enough

The liftmor trial: the study that changed everything

If you take nothing else from this post, take this study. The LIFTMOR trial (Watson et al., 2018, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research) is the one I keep coming back to because it is so simple and so decisive.

Then there’s the EFOPS study, the longest controlled exercise trial for osteoporosis ever run. Kemmler et al. followed 137 early-postmenopausal women for 16 years, combining heavy resistance work, high-impact aerobics, and balance training four times a week. After 16 years, they saw a 58% reduction in fractures. That’s real broken bones avoided, the outcome that actually matters. That’s the goal.

The 3-year window you don’t want to miss

This is what keeps me up at night. The SWAN study, one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies on women’s health ever conducted, tracking over 3,300 women for 20+ years, showed that bone loss doesn’t happen gradually or predictably. Instead, it happens in a cliff.

During early perimenopause, there is little to no measurable bone loss. Then, about one year before your final period, it starts. Losses accelerate through a 3-year window ending roughly 2 years after menopause. During that window, the SWAN data showed annual losses of 2.5% at the lumbar spine and 1.8% at the femoral neck. Over the full 3 years, that adds up to 7.4% of your spinal bone density gone. Roughly 25% of women are “fast bone losers” who can drop 10–20% in the 5–6 years surrounding menopause.

Importantly, SWAN researchers called this a “time-limited window of opportunity” for intervention. That 3-year window may account for nearly 40% of the total bone loss between menopause and age 80. After the rapid phase ends, loss slows to just 0.5–1% per year. But the damage from the cliff? You’re working with what’s left.

Dieting and bone loss: the thing nobody warns you about

If you listened to Episode 1, you know I’m a big proponent of a sustainable calorie deficit for fat loss. That approach is still solid, but there’s a piece of the picture I didn’t fully cover, and it connects directly to everything we’re talking about today.

Caloric restriction by itself reduces bone density. A meta-analysis by Soltani et al. (2016) confirmed that weight loss through caloric restriction alone causes measurable decreases in hip and lumbar spine BMD. Similarly, the CALERIE Phase 2 trial showed this even in relatively young, non-obese adults, just two years of moderate restriction caused significant bone losses at fracture-relevant sites.

And the more aggressive the deficit, the worse the damage. In people doing very-low-calorie diets or bariatric surgery, bone losses of 3–13% have been documented. One 2024 prospective study found 1-year BMD decreases of 3.5% at the spine, 5.2% at the femoral neck, and 8.1% at the total hip after bariatric surgery. So what’s the answer? Resistance training, specifically and consistently.

This is why in the framework from Episode 1, eat for weight loss, exercise for health, the strength training piece isn’t optional. It’s the thing that keeps your skeleton intact while the scale moves. So those two goals reinforce each other perfectly. That’s the system.

What about GLP-1 medications?

If you’re on semaglutide or tirzepatide, this section matters even more for you. A 2024 RCT found 52 weeks of semaglutide increased bone resorption and lowered BMD at multiple sites. In fact, the Wegovy FDA label includes an actual fracture warning. That said, a JAMA Network Open RCT showed that combining GLP-1 medication with structured exercise fully preserved BMD at the hip, spine, and forearm. Resistance training is doing the protecting. If you’re using these medications, lifting is not optional, it’s essential.

The nutrient lineup: beyond the calcium fairy tale

Everyone talks about calcium. And yes, you need it, 1,000 mg a day for most women under 50, and 1,200 after that. But calcium without the supporting cast is like building a house with only bricks and no mortar. Here’s what the research actually supports:

The protein myth I need to bust right now

You may have heard that eating too much protein leaches calcium from your bones. That’s the old “acid-ash hypothesis”, and it is thoroughly dead. A meta-analysis by Fenton et al. found zero relationship between acid excretion from protein and calcium balance (p=0.38, with 94% statistical power to detect an effect if one existed). As it turns out, the increased urinary calcium from higher protein comes from increased absorption in the gut, not from your bones releasing it. So eat your protein. Your bones will thank you.

DEXA scans: what your bone density numbers actually mean

A DEXA scan measures bone mineral density at your lumbar spine, femoral neck, and total hip. Practically speaking, it takes 10–20 minutes, is painless, and delivers about 1–15 microsieverts of radiation, equivalent to a few hours of background radiation just from being alive. Your results come back with two scores that matter very differently depending on where you are in life.

• T-score: Compares your BMD to a healthy 30-year-old woman. Normal is ≥ −1.0. Osteopenia falls between −1.0 and −2.5, while osteoporosis is ≤ −2.5. Notably, fracture risk roughly doubles with each 1 standard deviation decrease.
• Z-score: Compares you to other women your age, sex, and ethnicity. For premenopausal women, this is actually the more clinically relevant score. A Z-score of −2.0 or lower means you’re below the expected range and should investigate why.
• Always use the same machine. Measurement error between different DEXA machines can exceed actual biological change, so serial monitoring only means something when done on consistent equipment.
• Degenerative changes can inflate your numbers. Arthritis and bone spurs in the lumbar region can make your BMD look better than it actually is. Make sure your doctor is aware of these.

The USPSTF officially recommends routine DEXA screening starting at 65 (or earlier for postmenopausal women with risk factors). Some practitioners, however, recommend a baseline scan around age 35–40 to establish your personal reference point before perimenopause hits. That’s not yet standard guidance, but it makes a lot of sense, and it’s absolutely worth discussing with your doctor. Many imaging centers charge just $50–150 out of pocket.

What to actually do with all of this

Okay, you’ve got the science. Now let’s make it actionable. Here’s the framework that comes directly out of all this research:

• Lift heavy, at least twice a week. Compound movements, squat, deadlift, overhead press. Not light dumbbells. Not Pilates. Specifically, you want challenging loads where the last two reps feel genuinely hard.
• Add some impact work. Box jumps, skipping, and jump squats generate strain rates that lifting alone can’t replicate, and they’re specifically osteogenic for the hip.
• Eat enough protein. A minimum of 1.0–1.2 g per kg of bodyweight. Protein is literally the matrix that calcium mineralizes into, so you can’t build strong bone without it.
• Keep your deficit moderate. That means 500–750 calories below maintenance, not 1,200 and done. Aggressive restriction is bad for bone. (See Episode 1 for how to calculate yours.)
• Check your vitamin D. About 24% of US adults aged 40–59 are below 20 ng/mL. Because you can’t absorb calcium efficiently when you’re deficient, this matters more than most people realize. The 2024 Endocrine Society guidelines recommend 600 IU/day for most adults under 50, and more if you’re deficient.
• Consider a baseline DEXA in your late 30s or early 40s. You need to know where you’re starting before the perimenopause cliff hits.
• Don’t stop once you start seeing results. BMD gains reverse within months of stopping training. Consequently, this is a life habit, not a 12-week program.

Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before beginning a new exercise program or making changes to your supplement routine, especially if you have or suspect a bone health condition.

The post How to build bone density: what women need to know appeared first on Wellness AF Club.

If you’ve ever struggled to figure out how to lose weight and keep it off, I want to start by telling you something important: your body is not working against you. It’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do. Your body is doing exactly what it’s built to do. The real gap is almost always that you don’t have the right information, or the right framework, to work with how your biology actually operates.

That’s what this episode (and this post) is about. I’m giving you the full system: how your body actually burns energy, how to figure out the right calorie target for you, how to set up your macros, and how to track your progress without losing your mind. Let’s get into it.

Why body fat actually matters (beyond how you look)

Before we talk about losing weight, let’s talk about why excess body fat is a health issue, not a character flaw. This is physiology.

When fat cells expand beyond their capacity, they start running low on oxygen. When that happens, some of those cells die, and your immune system shows up to clean up the mess. That immune response creates chronic, low-grade inflammation throughout your body. This isn’t the kind of inflammation you can feel, like a swollen ankle. It’s systemic, silent, and it’s connected to cardiovascular strain, metabolic dysfunction, joint stress, and respiratory issues.

Here’s the encouraging part: research consistently shows that even a 5% loss of body weight, sometimes even 3%, produces meaningful clinical improvements. For a 200-pound person, that’s just 10 pounds. You don’t have to lose 50 pounds to start getting healthier. You just have to start.

Your metabolism isn’t broken (seriously)

One of the most persistent myths out there is that your metabolism tanks after 30 or 40. A landmark 2021 study by Pontzer and colleagues, published in Science, analyzed data from over 6,400 people and found that total daily energy expenditure stays remarkably stable from roughly age 20 to 60. The decline doesn’t really kick in until after 60, and even then, it’s only about 0.7% per year.

So why does it feel harder to stay lean as you get older? Two reasons. First, body composition shifts: as estrogen declines (especially heading into perimenopause), your body tends to store more fat centrally and you gradually lose muscle mass if you’re not strength training. Second, less muscle means a slightly lower basal metabolic rate, roughly 50 to 100 fewer calories burned per day. That’s real, but it’s not the metabolic catastrophe the internet makes it sound like.

How your body burns calories: understanding TDEE

Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is made up of four components:

• Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) , the calories your body burns just existing. Breathing, circulating blood, keeping your organs running. This is the biggest chunk, usually 60–70% of your total.
• Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) , everything you do that isn’t intentional exercise. Fidgeting, walking to your car, cooking dinner, chasing your kids. This can vary by 200 to 500 calories between people.
• Exercise , your intentional workouts. This is actually a relatively small piece of the pie for most people.
• Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) , the energy it takes to digest what you eat. Protein costs the most to digest, which is one reason higher protein diets are so effective.

To estimate your BMR, the Mifflin-St Jeor equation is the gold standard. Then you multiply by an activity factor (most people are “lightly active,” which is a multiplier of 1.375) to get your TDEE. I’ve pinned the formula in the show notes, or you can skip the math entirely and use the free calculator in the Wellness AF app.

→ Next: Setting your calorie target, your personal math, and the macro breakdown that makes it all sustainable.

Setting your deficit: how much to eat

Once you know your TDEE, weight loss comes down to eating less than that number consistently. Here’s the general framework:

• 250-calorie daily deficit → roughly half a pound per week
• 500-calorie daily deficit → roughly one pound per week
• 750-calorie daily deficit → roughly one and a half pounds per week

The recommended rate of loss is 0.5–1% of your body weight per week. Go faster than that and you risk losing more muscle, feeling terrible, and watching your body subconsciously dial down your NEAT to compensate (this is real, your body literally makes you move less without you noticing). Fast loss chips away at your bones, too. Here’s what dieting does to bone density and how to protect yours.

A classic approximation: one pound of body fat is roughly 3,500 calories. It’s not perfectly precise, but it’s a useful planning tool.

Putting it together: meet Susie

In the episode, I walk through a full example with a hypothetical woman named Susie: she’s 45, 5’6”, 200 pounds, lightly active, with a goal weight of 150. Here’s her math:

• BMR (Mifflin-St Jeor): approximately 1,580 calories
• TDEE (BMR × 1.375): approximately 2,170 calories
• Deficit target (500 cal/day): approximately 1,670 calories
• Estimated timeline to goal: 12–14 months

It’s not fast. But it’s sustainable, it protects muscle, and the science backs it. That’s the point.

Macros: what to eat (the simple version)

Protein comes first. Aim for 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of your goal body weight. Protein has 4 calories per gram, and it’s the single most important macro for preserving muscle during weight loss. If you lean on shakes or bars to hit it, here’s how protein powders compare with whole food. Without enough protein (and resistance training), up to 20–30% of the weight you lose can be muscle. With GLP-1 medications, that number can be even higher.

Here’s the “add a zero” trick: take the grams of protein in a serving and add a zero. That’s roughly the number of calories you’d need to eat from that food to get 100 grams of protein. A serving of chicken breast has about 25g of protein, so 250 calories to get 100g. Peanut butter has about 7g per serving, so you’d need 700 calories to reach 100g. That’s why peanut butter is a fat source, not a protein source.

Fat: set a floor of 25–30% of your total calories. Fat has 9 calories per gram and is essential for hormone production, brain function, and satiety.

Carbs: fill in whatever’s left after protein and fat. Carbs also have 4 calories per gram. The ratio between carbs and fats can flex day to day as long as your protein and total calories stay consistent.

→ Next: How to track without losing your mind, the secret calorie burner hiding in your daily routine, and your complete starting checklist.

Tracking without losing your mind

Remember that stat about people underestimating their intake by 20–50%? That’s why tracking matters, at least at first. You don’t have to do it forever, but you need to do it long enough to calibrate your intuition.

A few tracking principles that keep it sane:

• Use a digital tracker. MacroFactor is my current pick, it adapts to your actual data over time. MyFitnessPal is also solid and free.
• Weigh yourself daily but only look at weekly averages. Individual days are meaningless noise. Sodium, carbs, hormones, sleep, GI transit, and training inflammation all cause weight to bounce around.
• Take body measurements monthly as a supplement to the scale. Sometimes the scale stalls but inches are still coming off.
• Habit stack: attach your new tracking habit to something you already do. Pour your coffee, then log your breakfast. Make it automatic.

The secret calorie burner: NEAT

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis might be the most underappreciated factor in weight management. The difference between a low-NEAT person and a high-NEAT person can be 200 to 500 extra calories burned per day, without setting foot in a gym.

The tricky part: when you aggressively cut calories, your body subconsciously reduces your NEAT. You fidget less, you take fewer steps, you sit down more. This is one reason moderate deficits are more sustainable than extreme ones, they don’t trigger as big a compensatory response.

Simple ways to keep NEAT up: park farther away, take calls while walking, stand while you work, take the stairs. Small stuff, but it compounds.

The bottom line

Weight loss is a math problem wrapped in biology, not a character test. Here’s your starting checklist:

1. Calculate your TDEE (use the free calculator in the Wellness AF app)
2. Set a moderate deficit (250–500 calories below TDEE)
3. Prioritize protein (0.7–1g per pound of goal body weight)
4. Track your intake for at least a few weeks to calibrate
5. Weigh daily, evaluate weekly averages only
6. Keep moving throughout the day, protect your NEAT

If this framework resonated with you, the next step is Episode 2, where we get into strength training, bone health, and why lifting heavy is the most important thing women over 40 can do for their long-term health. And if you want the weekly research breakdown delivered to your inbox, join the free Wellness AF Club newsletter.

Resources & Sources

Tools Mentioned

• Free macro/deficit calculator: the Wellness AF app
• MacroFactor app (My current pick for tracking)
• MyFitnessPal app (free option)
• Mifflin-St Jeor equation (linked in show notes)

Studies Referenced

• Pontzer et al., 2021, “Daily energy expenditure through the human life course,” Science, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34385400/
• Mifflin & St Jeor, 1990, “A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2305711/
• Frankenfield et al., 2005, Systematic review confirming Mifflin-St Jeor as most accurate BMR equation, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15883556/
• Lichtman et al., 1992, “Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake,” New England Journal of Medicine, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1454084/
• Magkos et al., 2016, “Weight loss and improvement in comorbidity at 5%, 10%, 15%, and over”, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28455679/

The post How to lose weight and keep it off: the science + the system appeared first on Wellness AF Club.

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Welcome to The Wellness AF Club. I’m Jennifer, and I’m glad you’re here.

This space exists for one reason: wellness should not feel confusing, shame-filled, or impossible. I created this evidence-based wellness podcast to explain how your body actually works and how to build health in real life—without gimmicks, extremes, or fear-based messaging.

For years, health felt like a fight I couldn’t win

For years, my relationship with health felt frustrating and inconsistent. Like many women, I cycled through diets and trends, promised myself I’d “start Monday,” and chased the same five to ten pounds over and over. Sometimes I lost weight, but the pattern was almost always the same: gain it back, then gain a little more.

The turning point

About five years ago, after more than 20 years as a stay-at-home mom, I became a certified medical coder and spent my days reading medical charts. What I saw was hard to ignore: chronic disease, preventable complications, and quality of life declining over time. It became personal—I could see where my own trajectory could lead if I didn’t change.

Discovering the science

I went back to school and earned a degree in Health Science. In nutrition and wellness courses, everything started to click. The fundamentals weren’t flashy, but they were clear and evidence-based: balanced nutrition, regular movement, and consistency beat extremes every time.

Going deeper

I kept going because I wanted practical answers for real life. I completed additional education through NASM as a Certified Nutrition Coach, Fat Loss Specialist, and Wellness Coach, and I’ve kept studying anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, research methods, statistics, and behavioral health, and I start a master’s program in fall 2026.

The more I learned, the more obvious it became: the science is often clearer than it looks, but it gets buried under trends, noise, and bad messaging. That is exactly why The Wellness AF Club exists.

What you’ll find here

• Evidence-based wellness education
• Practical behavior-change strategies
• Clear explanations of weight, sleep, stress, and lifestyle factors
• Real-life application without overcomplication

What you won’t find

• Quick fixes
• Detox culture
• Extreme diet rules
• Shame-based messaging

What to expect next

Expect mostly solo podcast episodes with occasional guests. Topics will evolve as research evolves and as new trends pop up online, but the mission stays the same: clarity, evidence, and sustainable action.

If this resonates with you, the best next step is to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts — and join the free weekly email for research breakdowns and practical tools delivered straight to your inbox.

Listen to the podcast episode

The post Why I started the Wellness AF Club: evidence-based wellness, no fads, no BS appeared first on Wellness AF Club.