While there still is nowhere near enough research about athletic women at all phases of life, more and more studies are showing that we need to adjust our eating as we age.
Protein in particular is something that women need more of as our hormones shift during perimenopause (approximately 5 years before menopause), menopause (after one year of no period), and then the rest of our lives post-menopause.
What does protein do?
After training hard — high intensity or heavy lifting — getting a suitable protein dose stops your body from breaking down and promotes muscle repair and development. Training is a stress on the body, which elevates cortisol. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone. Eating protein drops your cortisol levels and brings your body out of a catabolic state and promotes lean muscle mass development. So basically, eat protein post-training to get the benefit from training!
What is a suitable dose? It depends.
The amount of protein you need depends on several factors including intensity and duration of training, your age, where you are in your monthly cycle, where you are in your life cycle, and what you ate before training.
I have learned a lot of general and specific guidelines through Dr. Stacy Simms’ courses, Women Are Not Small Men and Menopause for Athletes. While there is quite a bit of nuance that goes beyond what I’m sharing here, these general guidelines are eye-opening and valuable and can really make a difference to the outcome of your training sessions.
Protein pre- and post-training
>Before hard workouts: 15-20g protein (unless you ate a full meal within 2 hours pre-training)
>After hard workouts: 15-25g protein
>Menopausal women: 30-40g protein after hard training sessions.
Daily protein requirement for women athletes
>Between 1.6-2.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight every day
(1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds)
>Menopausal women training hard are at the higher end and need closer to 2.3g/kg per day
>Pre-menopausal women not trying to change their body composition can be closer to 1.6g/kg
In addition to the daily protein requirement, the other important takeaway here is that women have that small window of 30-45 minutes post-training where we can get enough protein to promote gains.
What does this look like for women paddlers? We need to be organized.
By the time you’ve gotten off the water, washed your canoe, loaded it on your car or put it away in the boat house and changed out of your wet clothes it’s very possible that 30 minutes has already gone by!
I have a few different ways I address this using either protein powder, amino acid supplements, or a real food protein source. I can pack a water bottle with ice water in it and a shaker bottle if I’m mixing a drink, or a cooler to keep my chicken fresh. Getting one of these things in my body right away fits within that window that I have to repair my body after training.
This may sound like a lot of hassle, or maybe you still believe that waiting to eat will help you lose weight. If you aren’t sure if eating before and after training is suitable for you then one thing you can do is really start listening to your body and identify what recovery feels like.
What does listening to your body look like?
Pay attention to the way you feel depending on how you eat. When you skip eating after training, how does that feel? Try consistently eating protein after your training, and see if that feels different.
I know through my own experiences that training fasted and not fueling after training do not work for me. I know this because I have tried it both ways and have listened to how my body felt, what my moods were like and what I was able to do day after day with different approaches to food.
I know I have to fuel aggressively for the activity that I am doing, within the right time frame, and that this is what allows my body to do its glorious job of taking me on awesome athletic adventures.