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Wellness AF Club · Library · Goes with Lesson 16

Does it matter if your produce is organic?

Lesson 16 was blunt: just eat them, dammit. The second you actually commit to that, a new worry shows up at the grocery store. Do they have to be organic? Is organic worth it, or is that just clever marketing? Here’s the honest answer, the real science behind it, and what matters more than the little green label.

So you’ve decided to eat your five a day. Good. It’s one of the best things you can do for your health. Which leaves one nagging question at the store: is organic worth it?

Now you get to the produce aisle, and the conventional strawberries are $3, and the organic ones are $6, and a voice in your head says the cheap ones are basically poison. That voice is repeating a decade of marketing. The research will help calm that voice. Here’s what the studies actually found, because the truth is more useful (and more freeing) than the fear.

Quick promise before we start: nothing here is going to tell you to spend more money. The whole point of Lesson 16 stands no matter what you buy: EAT FRUITS AND VEGGIES!

What “organic” even means

Organic is a regulated legal standard with associated audits. In the US, the USDA Organic seal means the crop was grown without synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, or genetic engineering, and the farm got audited to prove it.

This is where it trips people up. Organic does not mean pesticide-free. Organic farmers absolutely use pesticides, they just use ones approved for organic systems (often plant- or mineral-derived). “Natural” pesticide and “no pesticide” are not the same thing, and a few organic-approved ones are no gentler than the synthetic versions.

So here’s the big question: are the differences that do exist big enough to matter for your body and your budget? Let’s find out.

Is organic actually more nutritious?

This is the claim that sells the $6 strawberries, so let’s test it.

Two of the largest reviews ever done showed the same thing. A 2009 systematic review in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition pooled data from 162 studies and found no meaningful differences in nutrient content between organic and conventional foods¹. A 2012 Stanford review in the Annals of Internal Medicine pooled 223 studies and found that the evidence doesn’t show organic foods are more nutritious².

The vitamin C, the potassium, the fiber, the folate, all the stuff that makes produce a powerhouse, comes through about the same whether the carrot was grown organically or not.

There’s one interesting wrinkle in those, though. A 2014 meta-analysis of 343 studies in the British Journal of Nutrition found that organic crops have higher levels of a class of plant compounds called polyphenols³.

Polyphenols, in plain English: antioxidant compounds plants make to defend themselves from stress, pests, and sun. They’re the pigments and slightly bitter notes in things like berries, red onion, and kale. In us, they’re linked to lower rates of heart disease and some cancers. The leading theory for why organic crops have more: plants fending off bugs without synthetic pesticides crank out more of these defense compounds themselves.

In that analysis, organic crops had higher levels of several polyphenol families, from about 19% more phenolic acids to nearly 69% more of a group called flavanones, and they had lower levels of cadmium, a toxic metal that accumulates in the body over time³.

Worth knowing. But hold your applause, because “more antioxidants measured in the food” and “more antioxidants doing something in you” are two very different things. We will get to more of this in a minute.

The pesticide question, where organic actually wins

This is the real, measurable difference.

Conventional produce is roughly four times more likely to carry detectable pesticide residues than organic³. The Stanford review put the same finding in a different way: the risk of a sample carrying detectable residue was about 30% lower for organic².

And it shows up in your body, fast. When researchers took families eating a conventional diet and simply switched them to an organic diet, pesticide breakdown products in their urine dropped within days. One study of US adults and kids saw a malathion marker fall about 95% and a chlorpyrifos marker fall about 61% after the swap⁴. An earlier study put children on organic food for five days and watched two common pesticide markers drop to nearly undetectable⁵.

So if your goal is to lower pesticide exposure, organic clearly does that. Real effect, measured in real people.

Now the honest caveat, because I’m not going to fearmonger you into the expensive aisle. The residues found on conventional produce are almost always well below the safety limits set by regulators². “Detectable” means the instruments are sensitive, not that the amount is dangerous. Lower exposure is a reasonable thing to want. It just isn’t the same as proven harm from the conventional stuff.

What buying organic actually changes, at a glance.

But does eating organic make you healthier?

This is the question that actually matters, and it’s where the marketing gets quiet.

Two large studies followed huge groups of people for years and came to opposite conclusions. A French study of nearly 69,000 adults found the people who ate the most organic food had about 25% lower cancer risk over the follow-up⁶. Encouraging. But a British study of 623,000 women found no drop in overall cancer for organic eaters at all, with a possible exception for one type of lymphoma⁷.

When two big studies disagree this hard, it usually means the honest answer is “we don’t know yet.” Both are observational, which means they watched people’s choices instead of assigning diets. And people who buy lots of organic food tend to also exercise more, smoke less, and eat more produce overall. Untangling the organic label from the healthy-person bundle around it is really hard.

The newest research backs that up without settling it. Two big systematic reviews came out in 2024, the most current ones we have. One found that across the long-term studies, eating organic lined up with lower rates of cardiometabolic trouble like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, alongside the usual drop in pesticide exposure⁸. The other pooled 50 studies and reached the same split as everything before it: a clear win on pesticide exposure, a thumbs-up for the polyphenols, and still no verdict on cancer or basic nutrition⁹.

Read that cardiometabolic signal with the same caution as before. The people buying the most organic are also the ones eating more produce and moving more, so the label keeps getting credit the lifestyle may have earned. (One of those 2024 reviews had authors from a dairy company, so it isn’t a neutral referee either.)

So I’m not going to tell you organic is a proven health upgrade. The strong, repeated, can’t-miss-it evidence is for eating produce at all, organic or not. That’s the finding behind Lesson 16, and it dwarfs anything the organic label adds on top.

The word that matters more than “organic”: bioavailability

Okay. Here’s a concept I want you to get because it can work in other areas where companies are trying to sell you the benefit of a supplement.

Bioavailability, in plain English: the share of a nutrient that your body actually absorbs and gets to use, versus the amount that’s technically in the food. A strawberry can be packed with antioxidants, but if most of them pass straight through you, the number on the lab report doesn’t help your cells.

This is where the “organic has more polyphenols” thing comes back down to earth. Those antioxidants are notoriously hard to absorb. A review of 97 human studies found polyphenol absorption ranges from under 1% to about 43% of what you eat, depending on the specific compound¹⁰. And the polyphenols you eat the most of often aren’t the ones your body absorbs best¹¹.

Translation: a modest bump in polyphenol content from buying organic can easily get swallowed by how little of it you absorb in the first place. The label gives you a slightly richer raw material. Your body decides how much actually counts.

So what does move the needle on absorption? How you prepare and pair your food. And the effects here are not small.

Adding avocado or its oil to salad raised carotenoid absorption up to 15-fold in a controlled human study.¹²

The reason is simple plumbing. Pigment antioxidants like beta-carotene and lycopene are fat-soluble, so they need a little dietary fat riding along to get ferried across your gut wall. No fat means poor pickup.

Cooking helps, too, for certain foods. When researchers fed people cooked versus raw cherry tomatoes, the cooked version raised blood levels of two tomato antioxidants that the raw version didn’t budge¹³. Heat breaks down tough plant cell walls and frees the compounds trapped inside. Your grandmother’s slow-simmered tomato sauce was quietly doing nutrition science.

Sit with the size of this for a second. Buying organic might get you maybe 20 to 50% more of certain antioxidants in the raw food. Adding a spoon of olive oil or roasting your vegetables can multiply how much you absorb several times over. The prep beats the label, and it’s basically free.

+

Add fat

Olive oil, avocado, nuts, or cheese with your veggies. Frees fat-soluble antioxidants for absorption.

♨

Cook some

Tomatoes, carrots, and spinach give up more when cooked. Eat others raw for vitamin C. Variety wins.

◠

Chop & chew

Cutting and actually chewing breaks cell walls so your gut can reach what’s inside.

Organic, the honest pros and cons

No spin. Here’s the whole ledger.

In favor

• Fewer pesticide residues, and measurably lower pesticide markers in your body within days.
• Lower cadmium, a toxic metal that accumulates slowly over a lifetime.
• Modestly higher antioxidant content on average.
• Organic meat carries fewer antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a real public-health plus.
• Often better for soil and farmworkers, if that is a value of yours.

Against

• Costs more, sometimes double.
• No proven advantage in vitamins or minerals.
• No settled proof it makes you healthier long-term.
• “Organic” does not mean pesticide-free, so the mental halo is bigger than the effect.
• Spoils faster, so more of it can end up in the trash.
• The worst case: the price tag talks you out of buying produce at all.

So, is organic worth it? Here’s what I’d do

Here’s how I’d play it, in order of how much each move is backed by evidence.

1. Eat the five servings. Organic or not. This is the only step with overwhelming, repeated evidence behind it, the kind Lesson 16 walked you through, roughly a third lower risk of dying early¹⁴. Conventional broccoli you’ll actually eat beats organic broccoli you skipped because it was pricey.
2. Add fat and cook for variety. Free, and it can multiply what you absorb. Olive oil on the salad, avocado on the toast, tomatoes into the sauce. This step might do more for your actual nutrition than the organic label ever will.
3. Wash everything. A good rinse and rub under running water removes a chunk of surface residue and dirt from any produce, including organic. Free, fast, worth doing.
4. If you have the budget and want lower exposure, prioritize organic for the stuff you eat skin and all. Berries, leafy greens, apples, grapes. You’re eating the surface, so residues have nowhere to hide. For thick-skinned things you peel, like bananas, avocados, and onions, conventional is an easy call. Spend the organic money where it does the most.

That’s the whole strategy, and it answers the question. Is organic worth it? As a nice-to-have, yes, sitting near the top of a pile of things that matter more. The flag Lesson 16 planted still stands: more produce, however you can get it onto your plate, is the win. Don’t let a $6 clamshell of strawberries make you forget that a $3 one is still one of the best things you’ll eat all week.

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Sources

Drawn from peer-reviewed research indexed on PubMed. Every figure above traces to one of these:

1. Dangour AD, et al. Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009. doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.28041
2. Smith-Spangler C, et al. Are organic foods safer or healthier than conventional alternatives? A systematic review. Ann Intern Med. 2012. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-157-5-201209040-00007
3. Baranski M, et al. Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops. Br J Nutr. 2014. doi:10.1017/S0007114514001366
4. Hyland C, et al. Organic diet intervention significantly reduces urinary pesticide levels in U.S. children and adults. Environ Res. 2019. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2019.01.024
5. Lu C, et al. Dietary intake and its contribution to longitudinal organophosphorus pesticide exposure in urban/suburban children. Environ Health Perspect. 2008. doi:10.1289/ehp.10912
6. Baudry J, et al. Association of frequency of organic food consumption with cancer risk: the NutriNet-Santé cohort. JAMA Intern Med. 2018. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.4357
7. Bradbury KE, et al. Organic food consumption and the incidence of cancer in a large prospective study of women in the UK. Br J Cancer. 2014. doi:10.1038/bjc.2014.148
8. Poulia KA, et al. Impact of organic foods on chronic diseases and health perception: a systematic review of the evidence. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2024. doi:10.1038/s41430-024-01505-w
9. Jiang B, et al. The effects of organic food on human health: a systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based studies. Nutr Rev. 2024. doi:10.1093/nutrit/nuad124
10. Manach C, et al. Bioavailability and bioefficacy of polyphenols in humans. I. Review of 97 bioavailability studies. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005. doi:10.1093/ajcn/81.1.230S
11. Manach C, et al. Polyphenols: food sources and bioavailability. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004. doi:10.1093/ajcn/79.5.727
12. Unlu NZ, et al. Carotenoid absorption from salad and salsa by humans is enhanced by the addition of avocado or avocado oil. J Nutr. 2005. doi:10.1093/jn/135.3.431
13. Bugianesi R, et al. Effect of domestic cooking on human bioavailability of naringenin, chlorogenic acid, lycopene and beta-carotene in cherry tomatoes. Eur J Nutr. 2004. doi:10.1007/s00394-004-0483-1
14. Aune D, et al. Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality. Int J Epidemiol. 2017. doi:10.1093/ije/dyw319

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Wellness AF Club · Library

How much protein do women actually need, and why

The daily lessons keep circling back to protein for a reason. It is the one number worth getting right while you lose weight. Here is the whole story, with the actual research behind it.

Most women I talk to are eating about half the protein they think they are. Not because they are careless. Because the official “recommended” number is low on purpose, and nobody ever told them it was a floor instead of a goal.

So let’s fix that. By the end of this you’ll know what protein does in your body, the real number to aim for, and how to actually hit it without choking down chicken breast at every meal.

What protein actually does in your body

Carbs and fat are mostly fuel. Protein is the construction material. Your muscle, skin, hair, hormones, enzymes, and the antibodies your immune system fires off are all built from it. You are, quite literally, made of the stuff.

Here is the part that matters when you’re losing weight. When you eat fewer calories than you burn, your body has to make up the difference from your own tissue. You want it pulling from fat. But if protein is short, it will happily strip your muscle for the amino acids instead, because staying alive beats keeping your biceps.

That’s the worst possible trade. Muscle is metabolically active, so the more you lose, the fewer calories you burn at rest, which makes the weight easier to regain later. Eating enough protein tells your body to keep the muscle and burn the fat. Think of it as the bodyguard standing in front of your hard-won muscle while you diet.

How much protein you actually need

You’ve probably seen the RDA: 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (about 46 grams a day for women). That number is real, but read what it’s for. The RDA is the minimum to keep a sedentary person from developing a deficiency (Trumbo et al., 2005). It was built around inactive reference bodies, and it says nothing about what’s best for holding onto muscle or losing fat.

Newer methods suggest even that floor has been undercounted by roughly 30 to 50% (Bandegan et al., 2017; Pencharz et al., 2016). And the moment you add activity, the target climbs. Here’s what the research actually supports, straight from NASM’s nutrition coaching curriculum:

Your activity	Protein (g per kg body weight)
Sedentary	0.8 to 1.2
Light to moderate (cardio)	1.2 to 1.6
Regular lifting	1.5 to 2.2

A real target while losing weight

about 1 gram per pound of your goal weight

It lands in the 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg range the research backs, and it’s easy to remember. If your goal weight is 150 lbs, aim for roughly 150 grams a day. The app calculates your exact number for you.

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That probably sounds like a lot. It is more than you’re eating now, almost guaranteed. That gap is the single most common thing standing between women and the results they want.

Wait, can you eat too much protein?

Short version: for a healthy person, no. NASM’s review puts the safe ceiling at 2.2 g/kg even for sedentary people, and notes that going over your needs has “few, if any” downsides (Pencharz et al., 2016).

The research goes further. Studies feeding trained people 3.0 to 4.4 grams per kilogram, which is wildly more than anyone needs, found no increase in body fat over time (Antonio et al., 2014; Antonio et al., 2015; Claesson et al., 2009). So when you’re deciding whether to round your protein up or down, round up. While we’re here: the claim that high protein leaches calcium from your bones is a myth. I bust it properly in how to build bone density: what women need to know.

Why it’s your best friend for fat loss

Two reasons, and they stack.

First, fullness. Of the three macros, protein triggers the strongest satiety response, and fat the weakest (Chambers, McCrickerd & Yeomans, 2015). It works through real mechanisms: it sits in your stomach, it nudges the gut hormone CCK, and it’s not very calorie-dense (Blundell et al., 2012). A breakfast built on protein keeps you full for hours. A breakfast built on a muffin has you foraging by 10:30.

Second, muscle. As we covered above, protein is what keeps your body burning fat instead of cannibalizing the tissue that keeps your metabolism humming.

A bonus you didn’t ask for

In a study of cyclists grinding through two weeks of brutal training, the higher-protein group (3 g/kg) reported fewer cold symptoms and kept better immune-cell function than the normal-protein group (Witard et al., 2014). Those antibodies are made of protein too.

The protein hack: add a zero

Here’s a five-second test for whether a food is really a protein source or just pretending. Take the grams of protein in one serving and add a zero. Then ask one question: is that number bigger than the calories?

If yes, it’s a strong protein source. If the calories run well ahead of that number, you’re looking at a fat or a carb that just happens to carry some protein.

This is more of a rough gauge than a hard line, so don’t get crazy about the exact numbers. The closer the add-a-zero number gets to the calories, the better that food is pulling its weight, and clearing them is better still. Take an egg: 70 calories and 6 grams of protein. Add a zero and you land at 60, sitting right up against the 70. It doesn’t quite clear the bar, but it’s close enough to tell you an egg is a respectable source of protein. The whole point is a fast read at a glance.

It works on anything with a label. Greek yogurt, chicken, cottage cheese, and white fish all sail through. Peanut butter, cheese, and most nuts do not, which is fine, just know you’re eating them as a fat.

How to actually hit it

Wondering whether a powder or a bar should do some of that work? Here’s how protein powders compare with whole food, and what the additives really do.

You don’t get there by eating one giant steak at dinner. You get there by anchoring every meal with a protein first, then building the rest around it.

• Pick the protein before anything else. Eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, chicken, fish, lean beef, tofu, tempeh, edamame, lentils. Decide that, then add the carbs and veggies.
• Spread it across the day. Roughly 30 to 40 grams per meal gets most women to target without a heroic dinner.
• Lean on the easy wins. A cup of Greek yogurt is about 20 grams. A scoop of whey is 20 to 25. Three eggs, about 18. These add up fast.
• Log it for a few days. Almost everyone is shocked by how low they actually are. You can’t close a gap you can’t see.

Your protein target is already calculated in the app, built from your goal weight. Open it, see your number, and start chasing that one before you worry about anything else on your plate.

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Sources

Drawn from the NASM Certified Nutrition Coach curriculum, which cites: Trumbo et al. (2005), Dietary Reference Intakes; Pencharz, Elango & Wolfe (2016); Bandegan et al. (2017); Antonio et al. (2014, 2015); Claesson et al. (2009); Chambers, McCrickerd & Yeomans (2015); Blundell et al. (2012); Witard et al. (2014).

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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.

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