The New Rules of Women's Fitness: Strength, Muscle & Training for Life | Liz Plosser | #183

Liz Plosser (0:00)

You have to earn muscle. No one can hand it to you. You have to put in the sets and reps yourself, which I think makes it so badass when you see a woman getting stronger. Girl, that takes work, and I see you, and that is awesome.

Dr. Vonda Wright (0:13)

Liz Plosser, founder of the Best Case Scenario, former editor-in-chief in Women's Health magazine.

Liz Plosser (0:19)

Being undernourished and underweight is as big of a health risk as being overweight. We need protein, especially as women in midlife, activate muscle protein, combine that with strength training. There is still the impression out there that picking up the heavier weight is going to make you bulky.

Dr. Vonda Wright (0:38)

Oh, sure. There is. It doesn't happen to mere mortal women like me. I get leaner and toner.

Liz Plosser (0:43)

Sometimes it's uncomfortable to start, and you're not great at it at the beginning. Just start. It gets easier. You get better.

Dr. Vonda Wright (0:49)

We weren't born knowing how to do this, so give yourself the grace to do it.

Liz Plosser (0:53)

There's so much magic and good stuff that happens when we pick up heavy weights. I'm on a mission to help women click with strength training. I want them to feel good in their bodies.

Dr. Vonda Wright (1:05)

You are not here by accident. You're here because you were done being told to slow down. This is a space for women who want real science, straight from a surgeon who's lived it too. Hit subscribe. You're one of us now.

So you know how you've known about somebody for years and years, and you've watched their work, but from afar. And then till something happens and you get to meet them in person and you're like, oh my God, I wish I would have known them years before because you're just so aligned on what you care about. Well, that is what happened when I finally met you, Liz Plosser, who is not only the recent founder of the Best Case Scenario, which is one of the top health and wellness substacks, but the reason I knew of your work so long ago, seven years ago, was because you were the former editor-in-chief in Women's Health magazine. And during your tenure, tell me if I've unanalyzed this wrong, but I really think the face of Women's Health and Fitness shifted. And the reason I say that is because in 2008, I wrote my first book, Fitness After 40, and I could not get midlife women to like the number 40 In fact, I had to rebrand my books and my equipment to thrive because somehow that midlife number was just too frightening.

But that's not what we see today. So I'm so glad to have you in because you're not as midlife as I am, but we're both over 30

Liz Plosser (2:41)

I'm 47

I'm 47 I am squarely and perimenopause. That's right. I'm in it.

Dr. Vonda Wright (2:48)

Well, I'm glad to have you here because for all these reasons. But you are at 47 where at my 47, I thought I was going to die. At 40, I was at that point the best shape in my life.

47, the wheels came off. I didn't know enough about it then. So when I say to you, I think in your tenure as editor, there has been a real shift. What do you think?

Liz Plosser (3:17)

I completely agree. I began my career in journalism 23 years ago. I was 24 when I had my first job in magazines, at Self Magazine. I was a fitness editor. I think one of my very first bylines was, and I have so much compassion for me and our readers, but it was called the big cost of little bites. It was about how having a forkful of your kids' mac and cheese when you were clearing their dinner plates, it's one of those charts, and next to it is like how many minutes on the treadmill. That's important because it was all cardio. Everything was cardio.

It has been wild watching the conversation change over the past couple of decades. I went on my own personal journey with strength training. I'm loving following yours. You are so inspiring showing yourself dead lifting at the gym and picking up heavier weights, which is what I went through in my early 40s. It became really important to me over the seven years, I was editor-in-chief of Women's Health to put that story out there, to stop the cover lines about lose 10 pounds in two weeks, and how to get a bikini body by Memorial Day, and this and that, which, you know, I'm not anti-aesthetics, which I know can sound controversial, because I believe feeling good and confident in your body and moving through the world with ease is a powerful motivator and a mental and emotional boost. And if you get the longevity benefits and the bone density benefits and the muscle benefits on top of it, which we need so crucially during midlife, all the better. But no, it was my mission at Women's Health to change the conversation.