Women’s Fitness Expert: What You NEED To Know About Dieting & Exercise | Dr. Stephanie Estima

The societal narrative equating worth with a number on the scale or a dress size leads women to prioritize slimness at the expense of bone density, muscle mass, and overall health, resulting in issues like osteoporosis and hormonal imbalances.

The pursuit of skinny is a bad thing with devastating consequences... you're going to end up with bone disease like osteoporosis. We've been sold a lie that our worth is the number on the scale... you can't do that when you're starving yourself, when you're over exercising and you're not prioritizing your recovery. If you are 40 and you can fit into a size whatever dress, but when you're 65, you have osteoporosis, you haven't won. You've been tricked.

While temporary carb restriction can be beneficial for specific metabolic issues (e.g., Type 2 diabetes, PCOS), prolonged low-carb or ketogenic diets can negatively impact women's thyroid function, mood, sleep, and exercise performance. Symptoms of thyroid malfunction include being constantly cold, heavy menstrual bleeding, and hair shedding (especially the lateral third of the eyebrow).

We have to heal our relationship with carbohydrates... if you stay here too long, your thyroid [will be affected]. We need carbohydrates if not for the thyroid, but for our mood, our sleep, even performance at the gym.

Due to significantly lower testosterone levels (10-20x less than men), 97-98% of women lack the hormonal environment to develop a bodybuilder physique from progressive overload. Initial "thickness" is often temporary swelling or fat over muscle.

Women are still scared that if they're lifting heavy weights, that they're going to start looking like a bodybuilder. But, that's almost impossible. 97% of women don't have the hormonal environment to bulk. It's just almost impossible for... 97 to 98% of women don't have the hormonal environment to bulk.

The female body is highly sensitive to nutrient intake, constantly scanning the environment to determine if it's safe for reproduction. Prolonged fasting (20+ hours) can signal famine conditions, potentially disrupting menstrual cycles and making it difficult to consume sufficient calories and macronutrients in a restricted eating window.

The female body is just more sensitive to whether nutrients are coming in or not, so that we can figure out whether or not we want to direct our energy to... being able to get pregnant that month. If you are fasting all the time, you run the risk of sending a signal that it's not safe, that these are famine conditions, and that you should not be producing an egg.

The wider and shallower female pelvis results in a larger Q-angle, causing the femur to angle more medially and making women more "knock-kneed." This impacts movement patterns like walking, jumping, squatting, and lunging, increasing the risk of knee injuries (e.g., ACL tears) if not addressed with appropriate training, particularly strengthening hip stabilizer muscles (gluteus medius).

The female pelvis is wider and it's more shallow... this makes women when we compare women and men... more knock-kneed. This is going to impact literally every how we move. So, it's going to affect how we walk, how we jump, how we squat, how we lunge, how we run. You just need to know how to adapt your training so that you can support some of those sheer motions as you as you're moving. The gluteus medius... is actually going to help the femur or counteract the femur being pulled inwardly.

Sprinting significantly increases VO2 max (oxygen uptake capacity), which declines by 10% per decade without active work. Jumping and plyometrics are crucial for strengthening bones and connective tissues, preventing age-related decline in mobility and reducing fall risk. Studies show women in their late 50s can increase VO2 max by 10% in 2 months with sprinting protocols.

Sprinting 100%. I think that everybody should be sprinting... You will decline your VO2 max capacity 10% per decade if you're not actively working on it. In a period of 8 weeks, they were able to increase their VO2 max by 10% in 2 months. Jumping or hopping is a good way to strengthen your bones and knees, and you should not stop doing that as we age.