This episode is bought to you by Quell — to help support rebuilding healthy skin from the outside-in + inside-out!
Take $10 off your next order! Use promo code QUELL10 at check out — Get started HERE!
– – –
Ever feel like your metabolism is broken, especially in your late 30s and 40s? Then you know the steep and frustrating challenge that is perimenopause weight loss.
Hormonal shifts during perimenopause can flip the script on what used to work. Suddenly your body reacts differently to calories, carbs, or fasting — leaving many women feeling stuck and frustrated.
Combine perimenopause weight gain with significant losses in muscle mass (starting as early as age 30), you’ve got the perfect storm brewing that can tank everything from metabolism to energy.
And because of conflicting diet culture advice, it’s no wonder that most women end up jumping from low-carb to keto to fasting, always chasing results — and ultimately not getting any.
So let’s talk about perimenopause weight loss, diet strategies (including fasting and counting macros), and more with Amber Brueseke. Amber is a mom of four, former RN, and founder of Biceps After Babies. She started sharing her fitness journey on Instagram and now helps women reach their goals through counting macros and weightlifting.
Her signature program, MACROS 101, has guided over 10,000 women to create effective, flexible nutrition plans. Amber’s all about lifting heavy, eating chocolate and peanut butter, and proving that motherhood doesn’t mean your fittest days are over.
Or, listen on your favorite app: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | Subscribe on Android
In This Episode:
- What happens to your muscle mass once you turn 30 (YIKES!)
- Specific diet tweaks that boost energy, satiety + perimenopause weight loss
- Why resistance training is essential (especially for perimenopause weight gain)
- How cutting calories can cause you to gain weight
- What is a macro (and is counting macros worth trying)?
- Where people go wrong counting macros
- One thing you need to STOP saying when it comes to your diet + lifestyle
- How macro-tracking can reduce guilt and shame around food
- How nutrition + mindset changes extend beyond body composition
Quotes
“Muscle mass is one of the biggest drivers in terms of your metabolism.”
“Our muscle mass starts to naturally decline once you hit age 30. If your muscle mass decreases, the amount of calories you burn in a day is going to decrease.”
Links
JOIN AMBER’S DIET REBELLION VIDEO SERIES → SIGN UP HERE!
Find Amber online | Instagram | Facebook | Biceps After Babies Radio
Healthy Skin Show ep. 281: Why Protein Intake Is So Important For Skin Health w/ Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
395: Perimenopause Weight Loss + Counting Macros: What You’re Doing Wrong w/ Amber Brueseke {FULL TRANSCRIPT}
Jennifer Fugo (00:15.278)
Amber, I am so excited to have you here at the Healthy Skin Show to discuss perimenopause weight loss and counting macros. Thanks for joining me.
Amber Brueseke (00:19.98)
Hey thanks, good to be here.
Jennifer Fugo (00:45.178)
So I will say this, I really look up to you so much because you have been one of the most consistent, inspiring, non-judgmental people in this space of, I don't wanna say necessarily like fat loss per se, because you do so much and you encourage people, especially women, in a way that I think I just don't get from other people in this space. But I love how, because I've gotten to know you, especially over the last year, and I've done some of your events and learned so much from you about how to eat and how to “diet” for perimenopause weight loss. Which is entirely frustrating, because as a perimenopausal woman, I watch my husband cut a little bit of food out of his diet and lose five pounds in a week. And I'm like, huh?
So tell me, what is it about changing your diet when dealing with perimenopausal weight gain? Like number one, a lot of people are really frustrated with this. And this is not for those people who are like diet-phobic or have had issues with diet, and I'm sure you can speak to that too. But what happens when, especially women specifically, feel like they've been backed into the wall and they're trying to do all the things, or maybe they're doing some of the things, and they feel like nothing's working?
Amber Brueseke (01:44.11)
Yes. Yeah, this is a complaint that I hear from so, so many women, especially as you enter that perimenopausal space. And as we get older, it can sometimes feel like all the things that used to work stop working. And all of a sudden it's like, you wake up and you're like, I don't even know this body, I don't know what's going on, I look so different, I feel so different. And those hormone changes really do drive a lot of physical changes. And it can make women feel like they're behind, or like they're having to figure out a whole new set of reality for themselves. And it can be really, really hard and really, really frustrating. And to compound that, a lot of people have a lot of history in terms of dietin,g and their body, and their relationship with their body, and their relationship with food, and how you grew up as a child, and all of those things kind of compound to make changing your body feel really, really hard sometimes.
One of the frameworks that I like to kind of talk with women about as they're getting started to try and make changes to their nutrition, to their workout plan, to whatever it is, is how you're approaching this really, really, really matters. Because a lot of women have come from a history of what I like to call compliance, where somebody tells them what to do, eat low fat, cut out carbs, do 30 minutes of cardio a day, or whatever it is, we're bombarded with all these messages of all the things that you're supposed to be doing. And they're really conflicting as well, which is a whole other story. But we're bombarded with all of these things, and then we feel like we have to comply to those things that people are telling us to do. So it's like, this person said that I'm supposed to eat low carb, so now I have to go and figure out and eat low carb. And then I hate it, but I have to comply and I have to do it. And it brings out this rebellion in a lot of women where it's like, someone else is telling me I have to do this, I have to comply, and now this part of you wakes up and is like, but I don't wanna do that. And so you have, then, you swing from compliance to defiance where you're like, okay, I hate doing this, I don't wanna do it. And then we swing the other way.
Amber Brueseke (04:02.562)
And so I see a whole lot of women with their diet and their exercise where it's like they're either on, and they're following the diet, and they're eating the foods, and they're not eating the sugar, and they're super on the diet, they're complying. And then they swing the whole other way, and then they throw it all in the air, and like the rebellion comes out and they stop doing whatever it is that they're doing because it's hard to like keep doing something that you're not really bought into, or that you're not in control of, or you're not deciding. Somebody else is telling you what to do and you're just following through.
Jennifer Fugo (04:25.968)
Yeah.
Amber Brueseke (04:29.684)
So I see a lot of women stuck in this pendulum of compliance and defiance when it comes to their diet and their exercise. And one of the first things I like to help them to do is to move out of that framework. Because if you stay stuck in that pendulum, which a lot of women are very, very familiar with, you're never going to be successful. It doesn't matter how good you think you are at, oh, I'm just going to comply better, I'm just going to hold fast to that diet better, I'm just going to do better at not eating sugar. Staying in that compliance, defiance framework is never gonna work in the long run. So one of the things that I like to help women do is to start to move out of that compliance and defiance framework, and really start to define and make decisions for yourself about what is going to be healthiest and best for you and your body.
Jennifer Fugo (05:13.404)
And I wanna underscore what you just said about being healthy.
Amber Brueseke (05:14.381)
Yes.
Jennifer Fugo (05:15.332)
This isn't necessarily about doing a bodybuilding championship or trying to, I don't know, do a crash diet. I tried intermittent fasting, I stopped doing that about five years ago because it actually was making my blood sugar balance worse. I've tried doing low carb, I've tried doing super high protein, which is just not sustainable. And then, you know, it's like, well, maybe you're just eating too many calories. But then I'm like, well, flip side, what if I'm eating too few calories?
Amber Brueseke (05:50.574)
Or am I eating too little calories? Right.
Jennifer Fugo (06:04.462)
Right? You're not eating enough and your body's like, no, no, no, I'm in starvation mode, I gotta save. And that's really challenging because then I'm like, is it just me? Like, am I broken, that nothing seems to work? Like these things used to work when I was in my, I would say 20s until about 36 to 38, something started to change. And I think a lot of women don't realize that that's when you start to see things not work as effectively anymore. They think it's only when you get to like 45 and above. Nope, it starts before that. I can tell you that.
Amber Brueseke (06:28.866)
Yeah. Well, perimenopause is usually around like 10 years, right? So like, it starts 10 years before your last menstrual period. So yeah, it starts a lot earlier than a lot of women assume.
Jennifer Fugo (06:38.947)
And so am I alone in that? Like feeling like these things?
Amber Brueseke (06:42.774)
No. No, this is the thing that I hear from so, so, so many women is exactly what you're expressing, is the frustration of, again, it's like waking up to like a new body, a new person. Like you just don't feel like yourself anymore.
Jennifer Fugo (06:57.903)
Yeah.
Amber Brueseke (07:07.746)
And then we go around and around because the things that used to work don't work anymore. And then everybody's telling us a million different things and a lot of them are conflicting. It's like, am I eating too much or too little? Am I doing enough cardio, or now cardio’s super bad and it spikes cortisol and I shouldn't be doing cardio, right? You have this conflicting advice out there. And so you're left with a lot of women who are experiencing a stage of life where things are changing, what used to work doesn't work anymore, the industry is super crowded and it's super conflicting.
And what I find with this experience is that when you don't really know what to do, all of your attempts are a little half-hearted. Because it's like, you don't really know if this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Am I supposed to be eating more food or less food? And you're like, well, I guess I'm gonna eat less food. But then in the back of your mind, it's like, but maybe I should be eating more food. So your attempt to eat less food is actually like half-hearted, because there's a part of you that thinks you should be doing something different. And so I get a lot of women who are just spinning their wheels, kind of trying a little bit of everything but not actually committing fully to any one thing because they don't know what to do. They just feel really confused.
Jennifer Fugo (07:44.72)
Yeah.
Amber Brueseke (08:05.964)
So no, you're not alone in that. That is a very common experience of women who come to me and are just like, help me figure out my body. And that's really what I help you do. Again, going back to that compliance and defiance framework, my goal is not to just give you a new plan and be like, here, follow this plan. Because again, that goes back to just, you now have to comply with what I tell you to do. That's never gonna work long term.
Instead, what I love to help clients do is help them to figure out their bodies, give them some direction. But what I want you to do is I always tell my clients, I want you to become a scientist. I want you to learn and understand your own unique body, because it's unique and it's different from anybody else.
Jennifer Fugo (09:01.594)
Yeah.
Amber Brueseke (09:05.277)
And so when women come to me and learn about their bodies and then leave my program, they know themselves and that's the most valuable thing. It doesn't really matter what works for Susie or Jodie or you know, anybody else, it matters what works for you. And so I help women to be able to become scientists, have some direction, get some, obviously the science, there's science there that we need to learn from and have backing. But at the end of the day, I want to get you to know your body, even as it's changing.
Jennifer Fugo (09:22.778)
Yeah.
Amber Brueseke (09:33.366)
Even as hormone fluctuations are happening or aging is happening. But the more you get to know your body, the more successful you're going to be. And then now you get out of that compliance defiance, because who's making the rules, who's setting the goals, who's making the decisions? You are, you're totally in control. It's not coming from me, it's not coming from anybody else on social media, it's like, you're in control of your journey.
Jennifer Fugo (09:43.644)
You're talking about teaching people how to fish.
Amber Brueseke (09:47.404)
Yes! Oh, yes.
Jennifer Fugo (09:49.449)
That's exactly what you're doing, which I think is a much more powerful lifelong framework.
Amber Brueseke (09:55.224)
Totally.
Jennifer Fugo (10:05.051)
Rather than, as you said, just being told to follow these specific set of instructions that may or may not work, because it's based off of this small group of, like, maybe this person only worked with 100 clients and this seemed to work for 55% of them. So that must work for everybody, but never really figuring out what was going on with the rest, the remaining 45. So it's just super interesting in that it's just a different way to approach things. I did want, I don't know if people realize this about you, but you're a former nurse.
Amber Brueseke (10:12.952)
Yes.
Jennifer Fugo (10:34.359)
So you have this sort of like conventional side, like you were in conventional medicine.
Amber Brueseke (10:36.942)
Totally.
Jennifer Fugo (10:38.529)
What do you think conventional medicine is getting wrong when it comes to this? Because like I go to my doctor and she's like, oh, you're working out, they don't even ask me, I'm like, I weight lift three to four times a week, and she's like, oh, okay. She doesn't even ask me if I'm pushing myself, she doesn't ask me any more details about it. I kind of wonder, a lot of us who, especially those who listen to the show, feel really frustrated by the directions or the lack thereof coming from the more conventional side. Is there something that you can just kind of, that you've reflected upon in this transitional journey of yours? Where you've now empowered all of these women to really make massive changes that just don't seem possible a lot of times when your doctor's like, oh, I need you to lose weight.
Amber Brueseke (11:21.506)
Yeah. So I'm a former RN, I got my bachelor's degree in nursing and worked as a neurosurgical ICU nurse for years, and my husband is a physician. So in terms of conventional medicine, we are very, I mean, I got married to him three months before he took the MCAT. So I was there through med school, residency fellowship.
Jennifer Fugo (11:40.069)
Wow, everything.
Amber Brueseke (11:50.872)
Attending like every, like I've been through the medical system, both in my nursing school and then watching my husband, and what I think is really important is medicine is amazing. And obviously what my husband does is very necessary and needed. He's a surgeon, he has a very technical skill, not very many people in the world can do what he does. But I think the thing that a lot of people are looking for from the medical field is not what the medical field was set up to do. And so I think of in terms of specialization, like my husband is specialized in doing this like one certain surgery that he's really, really great at. And that's what you want. You want a surgeon who that's what they do all day long. But as he was going through his medical training, he wasn't a dietician. He wasn't a weight loss specialist. He was very trained in one unique subspecialty. My training was in a very unique subspecialty. And I think we're asking the medical field to do something it was never set up to do.
And instead, I love to help people think about how can I set up, like, my health directors, right? Yeah, your physician is a part of that team, but there are other professionals who have a better concept of nutrition, who have a better concept of exercise, who have a better concept of skin health, right? Like we're asking physicians and nurses and medical professionals to do things that they were never trained to do. And so instead I would encourage people to think about who is on my team in terms of helping me to be the healthiest, and going and getting people on that team who were trained to do the thing that you want them to do. Your doctor is never gonna be the person who's gonna give you weightlifting advice or nutrition advice, honestly.
Jennifer Fugo (13:26.94)
And frankly, I kind of feel like they shouldn't.
Amber Brueseke (13:29.812)
Yeah, You know, the number of physicians, I actually have quite a few physicians who have messaged me on Instagram, because they don't want to talk about nutrition with their clients, they’re like, I don't know. And so they say that they send people to my podcast and they're happy to have people that they can like refer out.
Jennifer Fugo (13:39.536)
Right, yeah.
Amber Brueseke (13:52.555)
Because they're like, this is not my wheelhouse. It's really important, obviously, but they want people to be able to refer out to. So I think the more that we can build relationships with medical providers and professionals, and we can all refer out and we know our lane, and I stay in my lane, right?
Jennifer Fugo (14:02.523)
Correct. Correct.
Amber Brueseke (14:20.726)
I'm not a dietician, right? Like I stay in my lane, I do what I'm really good at, and then I refer people out. If you have an eating disorder, I'm referring you out. I am not going to create a meal plan for you, I'm going to refer you out. So I stay in my lane. And I think if all the professionals stay in their lane and then create relationships where we can refer to one another, that's the best way to get the best medical advice or help in all of the different areas.
Jennifer Fugo (14:27.001)
Yeah, I agree. I wish that, I will say this, so my dad was a surgeon as like your husband. Different field, my dad did ophthalmic surgery. So I got to see firsthand because we had a practice that we owned that he obviously oversaw and saw patients under. And he flat out told me, he's like, I have very little training in nutrition. And when patients come in and start asking me even about supplements, he's like, I have no training in any of this.
Amber Brueseke (14:33.408)
Right.
Jennifer Fugo (14:55.631)
And I understand that they have this expectation that I'm supposed to know all of this, but I don't. What I know, if I know anything, it's from my own self research. And even that, I'm not 100% sure is probably the most up to date because I am reading older things and this isn't something I'm actively working within.
Amber Brueseke (15:04.44)
Yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (15:24.591)
And so the expectation of us as a whole to hold, like you said, providers who might admittedly not have that training responsible, to tell us and advise us what to do in those areas, is on some, and we all have to take responsibility for that because we all play a role in this, whether we're a patient or whether we're a provider and vice versa. We need to have a sobering view of who, like you're saying, who is appropriate for what particular situation? And when is the time to say, you know, I don't have an answer for you. I do know that if you were to lose some of this body fat, and improve your body composition, this would drastically improve your inflammatory markers, your blood pressure, your lipids, your heart health, all those other things. And here's where I want you to go, or here's a potential resource. And maybe even just telling someone I don't know might be better than going, well, go look at a keto book.
Amber Brueseke (16:11.0)
Yeah, right.
Jennifer Fugo (16:20.665)
Go do keto, go do the AIP, go do this. So I think it's important that we just be clear that not everyone has the same training, that it is different. And that's one reason, well, to be honest with you, I mean, I'm a clinical nutritionist and the concept of doing all this stuff with like counting macros and all this stuff, is like, that's not, A, I was not trained in that. I could probably train myself and figure it out, but like that's not what I need to do to help my clients with skin issues. And yet I have plenty of people in my audience like me, who are in perimenopause or kind of transitioning that way and trying to figure things out, or are menopausal, trying to figure out what their next best thing is. And that's why I look to you because you have a lot of experience with perimenopause weight loss.
So I wanted to ask you for those especially who are like, what the heck exactly is a macro? Because I think that's an important part of this perimenopause weight loss conversation about how do we start to up-level our knowledge base about like you said, what we can do to actually impact certain things within our fat loss journey, et cetera, even despite having these hormonal fluctuations.
Amber Brueseke (17:29.634)
Yeah. So starting at the very basics, I do think having a general understanding of this, it leads into, again, having an understanding about your body and what's necessary in terms of fueling your body. Most people are very familiar with calories, and we know that there are calories in our food and that those calories give our body energy. What most people don't know is that those calories come from very unique and distinct places, mainly our carbohydrates, our fats and our protein. Those are known as our macronutrients because they are needed in large amounts, macro meaning large. And so you can count calories and you could say, and this was, you know, big in the nineties, it's like, you just gotta count calories and you just gotta eat lower calories.
Jennifer Fugo (18:11.793)
Yeah.
Amber Brueseke (18:27.34)
And that's all fine and well, but when you are just blindly cutting calories and you're not paying attention to where those calories are coming from, you may see the scale go down. But a lot of times what we're seeing is women and men are losing muscle mass, not fat, because you're not actually paying attention to what calories you're cutting. So our diet is made up of calories coming from carbs, calories coming from protein, and calories coming from fat. And those three different nutrients do three very different things in our body. So if you're cutting fat, your body is going to respond differently than if you're cutting carbs, than if you're cutting protein.
And so when people just blindly cut calories and they don't pay attention to what they're cutting, the results of your body composition are drastically different. I always say if you just want to lose weight and you don't really care where it comes from, you can just cut calories blindly, but you're probably going to lose a lot of water weight, you're probably going to lose a lot of muscle, and maybe you'll lose a little bit of fat.
Jennifer Fugo (19:08.774)
Can I ask you really quickly, just so people can hear this, if you start losing muscle mass.
Amber Brueseke (19:14.284)
Yeah, bad news bears.
Jennifer Fugo (19:17.474)
Right, that's bad news bears, but why? For somebody who doesn't understand that, especially for women and men who are aging, what's the problem with that?
Amber Brueseke (19:24.162)
Totally. Yeah. So our muscle mass on our body starts to just naturally decline once you hit age 30. Not even like 40 or 50 years, like 30 is when we see muscle mass just naturally start to decline.
Jennifer Fugo (19:40.318)
Oh, wow.
Amber Brueseke (19:53.857)
And it's just a part of getting older, it's part of aging. But the problem with that is multifaceted, but a couple of the biggest problems are that muscle mass is one of the biggest drivers in terms of your metabolism. Muscle is very metabolically active, meaning it needs a lot of calories to be able to be maintained. And so a lot of people are like, I'm getting older, I can't eat as much food because I'm older. And I always kind of gently remind them that age has nothing to do with it. What does have something to do with it is your muscle mass. If your muscle mass decreases, the amount of calories you burn in a day is going to decrease. So it's not that you're getting older, it's that you're losing muscle mass. So whatever we can do to help maintain your muscle mass is going to help keep that metabolic rate higher.
The other piece that's really, really important is longevity and overall health throughout your lifespan. My husband, I didn't really say what my husband does, but he is a urogynecologist. So he's an OBGYN who sub-specializes in pelvic floor surgery. And one of his defining moments during his fellowship training was he had a woman who came in who was in her early 60s, she wasn't super, super old. And he needed to do a pelvic exam on her, and so they needed to get her legs up in the stirrups. And she was so weak that she wasn't even able to put her own legs up in the stirrups, the nurses had to come in and lift her legs up onto the stirrups. My husband deals with a lot of older patients. And so he sees a wide range of 60, 70, and 80-year-olds, some that are active and are able to do all the things for themselves, and other people who are just frail and fragile. And that has a ton to do with muscle mass.
And so the long story short is that the more muscle mass that you have on your body, the healthier you're going to be, the longer your lifespan is going to be, the more you're going to be able to continue doing the things that you need to do. I said that muscle mass starts to decrease at age 30, but there is a lot that we can do to slow down, reverse, or even gain more muscle. And the two biggest things you can do is eat a high protein diet and resistance training. The biggest population who needs to be resistance training the most are our perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. Because with those hormone fluctuations, your body is losing muscle mass and it's harder for you to put on muscle mass, which means it needs to be more of a priority. Which is why most of the research that's coming out around perimenopause and postmenopause is that we really need to be, you need to be eating more protein than even those 20 year olds.
You need to be eating more protein, one, because your body doesn't digest it and process it as efficiently as it did when you were younger. So you actually need to eat more of it in order to have your body have the same amount of protein amino acids be taken from the food. And then also because we need to be able to be building that muscle mass. And that's why resistance training is so incredibly important. So anybody who's listening to this, if you are in those perimenopausal years and you are not resistance training, that is the number one thing that you can be doing to improve your health, improve your lifespan and improve your metabolic capacity.
Jennifer Fugo (22:54.361)
And for somebody who's hearing that resistance training, so I'll give you a scenario. I have clients, I'll ask them what they're doing and they're like, I have some weights at home, like hand weights, and they're like three pounds, five pounds, maybe 10 pounds, and they follow like a video tape or somebody on YouTube. And they've literally never transitioned beyond those weights and doing maybe some body weight. Okay, I first of all don't want to say that that's bad, because I think that we all start someplace.
Amber Brueseke (23:27.436)
Right. I applaud the effort. You're like setting aside the time, we're at least having the habit of like doing something, right? So applaud the effort. Well done.
Jennifer Fugo (23:37.318)
Exactly. 100%. Correct. And like I started there, like two years ago, that was me, body weight and very low weights because I was so deconditioned. Now it's a different story for me. So does it matter if you continue with just these light weights and body weights like unendingly for years? Or when we talk about resistance training, do we get a better result if we actually are pushing towards higher weights?
Amber Brueseke (24:04.14)
Yeah. Well, the hard part about the body is, I remember my pathophysiology teacher in college saying this, is like the body doesn't actually want anything and it doesn't really care what you want. It responds to like processes, right? So just because you want to build muscle doesn't mean your body's like, oh, okay, I got this. You actually have to stimulate the muscle growth through a physiological process.
So the formation of muscle goes through, and this is just a body process in general is the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle. The body only will adapt to things that it is forced to adapt to. You think about tanning. Your body only tans, what, when you're exposed to a stressor, when you're exposed to sunlight. And your body's like, oh shoot, I gotta do something to protect my skin, so it starts to tan. But you don't just tan spontaneously because you want to tan, you tan in response to a stressor. Your body then has an adaptation that says, okay, I need to do this thing so that the next time I go out in the sun, I'm a little bit more protected. It's the same thing with muscle growth. Your body doesn't grow muscle just because you touched a dumbbell. Your body grows muscle because it says, oh shoot, that was taking me to the end of my capacity to be able to lift that weight. I need to get a little stronger so next time we go back to pick up that weight, I'm more prepared and I can do it.
Now, that cycle never ends. Like, if you then go back and just pick up the same weight, your body's like, oh cool, I got this, I've already adapted to lifting that 10 pound dumbbell. And so then you just stay stuck in the cycle of you're not actually ever building muscle.
Jennifer Fugo (25:41.764)
Wow.
Amber Brueseke (25:42.875)
You're just maintaining the muscle mass that you already have. In order to build muscle, you have to tell your body, this is hard, you can't do it unless you adapt and build more muscle. So we have to be progressing with the weights that we're lifting.
Jennifer Fugo (25:53.862)
And it's mindful. I think it's important that everyone knows this. It's not going from like, I'm lifting 10 pounds to tomorrow I'm gonna do 50 pounds at the gym.
Amber Brueseke (26:01.258)
Oh no. Yeah. It is a consistent intentionality of doing a little bit more than you did last time. And a little bit more doesn't always have to be weight either. It can be better form. You have better form and you execute the exercise with better form than you did last time. It can be an extra rep. You did 10 reps last time, you do 11 reps at the same weight this time. It can be an extra set. You did three sets last time, you do four sets this time.
And then yes, of course, weight, you can increase, you did 10 reps at 10 pounds last time, now you do 10 reps at 11 pounds or 12 pounds. But the whole goal is I'm doing a little bit more today than I did the last time. And that's the signal to your body that says, hey, you got to get a little stronger so that the next time we come around, you're able to handle and this weight that I'm throwing at you.
Jennifer Fugo (26:52.923)
And that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be super duper sore the next day, right?
Amber Brueseke (26:58.358)
No, actually, soreness has no relationship to building muscle. The Venn diagram is not overlapping. You can be sore and build zero muscle.
Jennifer Fugo (27:11.247)
Really?
Amber Brueseke (27:12.548)
Yes. And you can build a ton of muscle and never ever be sore. So they're not, it is not synonymous. People get in their head that it's synonymous and it just isn't, sorry.
Jennifer Fugo (27:24.069)
Well, and you know what, I'll share this little tidbit, many of you know, I've been on this journey for the last two years. It's been really slow, totally deconditioned, thought I may need back surgery, saw three back surgeons. I mean, I was very, very debilitated physically for about four years. In and out of physical therapy, couldn't really get things moving beyond that, and I would keep getting hurt. I finally found a trainer and he was like, listen, you're never gonna feel, I never want you to feel sore the next day. And I was like, well, how am I gonna know that I did anything? And he's like, you don't need to feel sore. And I was like, okay, I don't know if this is true.
Amber Brueseke (27:59.151)
Junk science!
Jennifer Fugo (28:23.611)
But all right, you do you, all right, we'll try this. So one of the reasons I was so afraid to start working out was because the pain of muscle soreness in certain areas is confusing because sometimes I will get like neuralgia-type pain down my legs. So what happens if my quads, or my hamstring, or somewhere in my glutes, or my lower back, what is that pain coming from? Did I overdo it? Is it just muscle soreness? So it actually was the best thing. And I have gained so much strength. I am never sore after my workouts, ever. And I'm now like, I'm now squatting a hundred and I think thirty five pounds on a Smith rack.
Amber Brueseke (28:45.526)
Yes! Yes!
Jennifer Fugo (28:53.253)
Like I could do zero, right? I was doing lunges with no weight, and even doing five to ten lunges per leg was really hard. I'm now doing 25 pounds in each hand, lunges. I just want people to know this because I think this is one of the biggest things that prevents people from just getting started. They're afraid of, I'm not gonna be able to walk up the stairs. I'm not gonna be able to get up off the toilet.
Amber Brueseke (29:09.688)
Sit on the toilet. Yeah, that's always the one I hear.
Jennifer Fugo (29:20.089)
Exactly. So it sounds like these two things go a lot hand in hand. And I think, listen, I know this is podcast about skin, but we do talk about other health topics. And to be fair, there is a lot of metabolic implications for certain skin diagnoses like psoriasis, like hidradenitis suppurativa, eczema, et cetera. Like the more body fat we have, and the less muscle mass we have, makes it really difficult for the body to regulate its lipid levels, its blood pressure, it's glucose levels. There is a lot of overlap here.
So that being said, we've talked about macros and how to lose weight counting macros. So then if we go back to the food, right? And if somebody legit needs to just start with the food, maybe they're not quite ready to get to the weight. Now they know they're connected. What does that mean in terms of like, where do we start with thinking about how could we work on this macro piece of dieting?
Amber Brueseke (30:12.994)
Yeah. Well, I always tell clients that we have to have a clear idea of where you're starting from. And this is a piece that most people skip, because they come to me and they're like, I want to set my macros, I want to track my macros. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's a piece that we need to work on first, and that is just getting a clear understanding of where you're currently at with your diet, and how much you're eating, and where your protein is. Because then, from there, we can figure out where to go. And I think this is like going to your question of like, am I eating too much? Am I eating too little? Do I need to eat less protein or more protein? Do I need to eat more carbs or less carbs?
Jennifer Fugo (30:46.084)
Right.
Amber Brueseke (31:08.536)
Well, one of the reasons you have all those questions is because we don't have a really good understanding of what you're currently doing and the results that it's creating. So the first thing that I always, always, always have clients do is to start tracking your normal intake. I just want you to start to become aware of what it is that you're eating, how much you're eating, how little protein you're likely consuming, because people are just, we're just not even aware of what we're putting into our bodies. And one of the biggest things that I always teach my clients is awareness is the biggest piece, because when we're aware of something, we can change it. But so many of us are just walking around just putting things in our mouth and we're not even aware of it. So the first thing that I love to have clients do is to download some sort of tracking app, I use MacrosFirst, love it. And just start to track what it is that you're eating on a normal basis. Don't change your diet. If you ate three cookies at night, you track the three cookies at night, right?
Jennifer Fugo (31:35.173)
Be honest. Yeah.
Amber Brueseke (31:37.901)
Yeah, be honest. And I help clients move, because there's usually a lot of judgment. We often have a lot of judgment around food, which is why people don't track it. It's like, if I don't track those three cookies, then I don't have to look at it, and acknowledge it, and feel the shame that I feel about it. So I really help clients.
Jennifer Fugo (31:51.227)
Maybe that's why I don't like to track food. I don't know.
Amber Brueseke (32:05.772)
It's why most people don't, it's because there is a shame associated with it or a judgment. And so one of the things I love to help clients do is to put on what I call the scientist hat, where it's like when a scientist gathers data from their experiment, there's no judgment around it. It's just like, huh, that's interesting, I did X and I got Y and that's so interesting. I'm going to record that down. It's the same thing when it comes to tracking your food, we don't have to put judgment on it. You ate a brownie. There's no judgment, it’s just that's what you ate. It's just awareness.
And so when we can move from judgment to curiosity, we now have a really good understanding of like, here's what you've been doing. It's not bad, it's not good, it's not right, it's not wrong. It's just like, that's what you've been doing. And now we can objectively look at that and say, where are some places that we can make some really easy tweaks that would make a huge difference in your life? I'm not talking about overhauling your diet. I'm not talking about going from 40 grams of protein to 140 grams of protein. If you track your normal intake and you're eating 40 grams of protein, going from 40 to 60 grams of protein, huge difference, right?
Jennifer Fugo (32:57.455)
Huge, yeah.
Amber Brueseke (33:01.742)
Like the curve, it's like a curve that on the low end is very, very steep. And then as you get to like the difference between 140 and 160 grams of protein, it's not that different. But the difference between 40 and 60, giant.
Jennifer Fugo (33:10.989)
Yes, it is huge. I do encourage clients to eat higher amounts of protein because most are not eating enough.
Amber Brueseke (33:17.324)
Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (33:19.989)
And even just going from like you said, 40 to 60 to maybe even 80, within a couple of weeks, they're like, oh my gosh.
Amber Brueseke (33:25.42)
Energy levels, satiation.
Jennifer Fugo (33:39.259)
I actually feel, right, energy. My energy is so much better. Yep. 100%.
Amber Brueseke (33:53.975)
Not crashing and burning, cravings go down, right? So that's one of the biggest things that I tell people. When people come to me, they're often wanting to overhaul their life. And I'm like, that is not the way to go about it, my friend. The way to go about it is to figure out what you're doing. Let's look for the low hanging fruit, right? Increasing your protein from 40 to 60. Seeing how many grams of fiber you're eating and eating five more grams of fiber than you're currently eating. Just making little tweaks like that, but you can't do that if you don't know what you're already doing.
So people jump in, they want just to have a diet, they just want to follow something. And you are now trying to make way big changes when, if we could just make little tweaks that are going to net you big results, you don't have to overhaul your lifestyle. It's not going to be super hard. It's going to be sustainable and you're going to feel way better. And now what happens? You made a little change, you notice the results, you felt better. You're able to make another change, and then another change, and then another change. So anyway, in my opinion, a lot of people jump into tracking macros too quickly and they don't do the work to set themselves up for success. Track that normal intake first.
Jennifer Fugo (34:31.982)
Yeah, and can I ask you a couple of questions? So number one, I have this fear that if I go down this road, I'm gonna have to weigh my food forever. Is that true?
Amber Brueseke (34:43.158)
No, absolutely not. And that's always my goal is like, for me, tracking is a tool. And it is a tool that teaches you about your body, it teaches you about the food that you're eating, it teaches you about nutrition, it teaches you about portion sizes. Things that like, although we've been eating our whole lives, most people don't understand. You've been eating all your life, but most of us don't understand portion sizes. We can't eyeball portion sizes. We don't know, we can't look at a plate and be like, there's about this many carbs, this many fat, and this many protein in the plate that I'm eating. Those are skills that are necessary long-term.
Jennifer Fugo (35:17.752)
Yeah, learned.
Amber Brueseke (35:19.532)
Yeah, and you have to learn those skills. And so I always have clients use tracking as a tool to learn portion sizes.
Jennifer Fugo (35:26.656)
Learn how to fish.
Amber Brueseke (35:38.711)
Learn how to fish, like learn how to build a plate that is going to keep you full long-term and that is going to have a good mixture of macronutrients and micronutrients so that, in the long run, you can get rid of the tool, and now the tool is up here in your brain. And I can look at a plate, and it's not exact.
Jennifer Fugo (35:47.674)
Right.
Amber Brueseke (36:06.85)
I'm not like hyper thinking about it, but I can be like, ooh, this meal, I need to add a little bit more protein, it just probably doesn't have enough protein, or I need a fiber source for this meal, or you know, whatever. I can look at it and I can go throughout my day and I know about how much food my body needs, I know what it feels like to have enough fiber, I know what it feels like to have enough protein. And I don't have to track it all to be able to be healthy and have a healthy diet. But you're asking people who have never paid attention to their food, never understood portion sizes or nutrition, to somehow jump to this place where they're eating a really healthy diet, portion sizes are great, and you're just going to do that? Wake up and do that?
Jennifer Fugo (36:27.61)
We didn't learn that in high school gym class. Like we didn't, or in home ec.
Amber Brueseke (36:31.114)
Right. It's just unrealistic to ask people to jump from not understanding anything about nutrition to composing a healthy plate and eating nutritious food all the time. So in my view, tracking is a bridge, macro counting is a bridge, to be able to get you to a healthier relationship with food. This is something that I think a lot of people don't, they think tracking, they think obsessive.
Jennifer Fugo (36:56.899)
Right.
Amber Brueseke (36:59.842)
They think it's gonna like ruin my relationship with food. What I find is that in most women, it improves their relationship with food because it reduces the guilt and the shame that so many women have when they eat sugar, when they eat a brownie, when they eat ice cream. And they go into this shame and guilt cycle of like, I shouldn't have eaten that, that was bad. And then it just snowballs and then they just eat more of it. So for most women, it improves their relationship with food.
Jennifer Fugo (37:19.812)
So I do want to ask from like the flip side, because I do have people that have been in the functional, integrative medicine world, holistic health, and they have been put on massive amounts of elimination diets for years and years on end. They've had foods demonized to them repeatedly.
Amber Brueseke (37:41.12)
Yes, yes.
Jennifer Fugo (37:52.065)
And to be fair, there's also people who have dealt with eating disorders in their lives. So what would you say to somebody in that kind of camp? Or maybe they're two separate answers. I don't know, but they might be listening to this and being like, I don't even think I can engage with that. If it's not appropriate, that's totally fair, but I just think it's a good question to kind of ask.
Amber Brueseke (38:05.442)
Yeah. And I would never, ever say that this is the right tool for every single person, right, that would be so silly for me to say that. What I will say is that there are gradations of everything that we do. And for someone who has a background with an eating disorder, I would have you tread carefully, right? Like what you don't want to do is to tip back into that full blown eating disorder. So if I have a client who comes to me with a history of an eating disorder, we're doing some deeper dive. How long ago, what type of eating disorder, you know, how far out are you from that? Do you feel like we can start to tiptoe into this in a way that it's not going to bring that back? And for some women, that's a no go. And you know, that's totally fine. Again, it's not a tool for everybody.
For people with elimination diets, I would say, getting to know your body is one of the best things that you can do when you're trying to make a connection between food and how you feel, or food and your skin, or food and however it's impacting you. And so I think tracking macros can actually be a very helpful tool for you to feel like you can take a little bit more control back. A lot of people, I find, that are on elimination diets or celiacs or whatever it is, they fit it more into that compliance defiance framework where it's like, I have to do this. I don't really want to cut out X, Y, and Z, but I have to do it.
Jennifer Fugo (39:23.843)
Right.
Amber Brueseke (39:27.126)
And it allows you to take a little bit more control back of like, I can eat this and I know how I feel. And so I can choose, do I want to feel that way or do I not? And so I think macro counting can still be a really great tool for a lot of people who have been in that space. Macro counting doesn't tell you what to eat. You still get to make the decision about what to eat. It just gives you a framework and a structure to think about it and to be able to have a little bit of like bumpers, almost. Like when you're going bowling, like a little bit of bumpers to make sure you don't go way off the rails of staying within like, this is a healthy framework in terms of how many calories to be eating, how much protein to be eating, how much fiber to be eating.
Jennifer Fugo (40:01.859)
I love that. Again, frameworks. I think frameworks are really helpful and I think too, you know, we have clients who have been told you need to eat a certain way. You need to avoid, like, I have psoriasis, I need to avoid red meat, I need to avoid nightshades and all these other things. And I'm like, well, do you? Beause we have some clients, actually, that can tolerate these things. And again, like what you're saying, is we have a framework, and then we start to figure out what works for you as an individual, and then you know how to input these things in a way that makes sense.
Amber Brueseke (40:36.94)
Yeah. And I would even say the key word there is I need to avoid, right? The need is a compliance defiance framework.
Jennifer Fugo (40:44.197)
Oh, interesting.
Amber Brueseke (41:04.642)
It's like, I need to avoid this, versus I'm choosing, I want to avoid this, right? It's just a completely different experience of like, my skin breaks out when I eat milk or dairy, so I choose to avoid it or I want to avoid it. There's not a, like, I need to avoid it, that's an externalization of the compliance. So again, it's subtle, but it makes such a big difference when it comes to how we're speaking to ourselves about the decisions that we make around food. I choose to avoid nightshades is a very different experience. And maybe you can test it out and try it out, and you can see how your body responds. That's really, really helpful information. But at end of the day, you get to choose, do I want that or do I not? It's internal versus an external compliance.
Jennifer Fugo (41:27.461)
Well, I think what might also be helpful for people, like you've obviously worked with like, I think you've had what 10,000 women go through?
Amber Brueseke (41:35.244)
Like over 10,000 people. Yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (41:51.929)
My gosh. Okay, so you have a lot of experience with this. For the women who've gone through your programs, and I know just from us having gotten to know one another and whatnot, that you really do invite them to track and share different wins and improvements and shifts that they experience. Can you share with everybody listening, what are some of the most interesting or biggest, most common, or maybe even an oddball win that women have experienced from making this macros focus change?
Amber Brueseke (42:11.705)
Yeah. I mean, so the concept of what I teach my clients is one that can be extrapolated to so many different areas of life. I always say that I play in the playground of macros and health, but it's about so much more than that. Because as I'm teaching you to step into this place of ownership, as I'm teaching you to make decisions about your food and then own those decisions and see how it impacts you and how it affects you, women are able to take that same technique and apply it to other areas of their life. So a great example, and really start to have ownership around what they want to create in their life and then go ahead and create it.
So one of my favorite stories is about a client who, she had had this idea for a book in the back of her head for like years and years and years. Went through Macros 101, really had a transformation, not only physically, but just mentally about her capacity, about what she could do when she put her mind to something. And she went out and she decided to write that book and she got it published. And she came back and she told me she's like, Amber, I would never have done that had I not gone through this macro counting class. To me, that is the epiphany of realizing the power that you have to be able to make a decision, make a change, decide from inside of yourself that you want to own that change, and then go out and create it in the world.
A second story that I just love is a client that, I worked with her for probably two or three years. She had a lot of weight to lose. She had a lot of internal struggle with that, she had a lot of history with seeing herself as a bigger woman and really trying to make herself a lot smaller in life. And she lost some weight, but more than that, she learned to like take up space and own her greatness. And she went and asked for a raise that she had been thinking about for two to three years, and finally felt enough in herself, confident in herself enough to go in and ask for that raise. And she came back and she became a manager in that company and started managing people.
Jennifer Fugo (44:11.77)
Wow.
Amber Brueseke (44:25.485)
Again, it's about macros, but it's like not about macros. It's about taking ownership of your life. It's about getting out of the compliance and defiance framework and listening to everybody else and what everybody else is saying that you should do, and tapping into that inner wisdom of like, no, no, no, this is my body, it's my life, I'm gonna make decisions and I'm gonna learn how to do that for myself. That's really what I teach women. We start with the playground of food and nutrition, but it bleeds into all of these other areas of life.
Jennifer Fugo (44:42.682)
And do you find, too, that some of the clients who've gone through this program, like their doctors are really happy with maybe even any changes that they'll see in like their lab work, or blood pressure, or anything like that?
Amber Brueseke (44:53.655)
Yeah, we have women, blood pressure, cholesterol is a huge one that we see go down, A1c is a big one that we see go down. And I think this is where a lot of doctors learn about me is because their clients go in and they're like, wait, what are you doing? Like, how did you make these changes? And then they tell their doctors about me, and then they kind of get turned onto that because yes, it impacts your overall health. When you are making choices that are supporting your health and you're doing it from a place of I'm already enough, I don't have to lose weight, right? This is something I work with my clients about. You don't need to lose weight. You want to. And those are very different frameworks. And you show up very differently when it's like, I need to lose weight, I have to do this, my doctor says I have to. It's like, no, no, no, you're choosing to do this, you want to do it. You're doing it because you want to do it, not because your doctor wants you to do it. Again, external compliance versus internal compliance, it's such a game changer.
Jennifer Fugo (45:49.893)
And I wanna just, I think, underscore that. One of the things I've had to sit with is do I really want to lose weight, or do I need to focus on shifting the fat into muscle?
Amber Brueseke (46:05.837)
Yes, recomposition.
Jennifer Fugo (46:06.485)
Right, recomposition. That might, am I wrong in thinking that that might not result in a weight change?
Amber Brueseke (46:13.199)
Totally. Well, I mean, this is a huge thing, is weight loss is not the same thing as fat loss. Remember back to that conversation about calories, is you can lose weight on the scale, but if it's coming from muscle loss, which a lot of times it is, if you're not eating a sufficient amount of protein and you're not lifting weights, that's actually more detrimental to your health. So the scale can be going down and you're actually getting less healthy by losing muscle mass.
Jennifer Fugo (46:35.884)
Yeah. And bone mass too.
Amber Brueseke (46:36.851)
And bone mass, yes.
Jennifer Fugo (46:39.638)
Yeah, this is like a big piece for women, and men, because both are subject, both. Both genders can end up.
Amber Brueseke (46:46.479)
Osteopenic.
Jennifer Fugo (46:47.739)
Exactly. Both can end up with osteoporosis and that's not good.
Amber Brueseke (46:52.269)
Yes, and resistance training and muscle mass is so interwoven with bone density as well.
Jennifer Fugo (46:59.756)
I just love, so I love talking to you. I feel like we could have a three hour conversation. So I had done some of the events that you hosted last year. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is you're hosting a free live virtual training, coming up in the next week.
Amber Brueseke (47:19.139)
Yes.
Jennifer Fugo (47:21.454)
That I think, for anyone, whether you're my client, or whether you're just in the community and you're hearing this, and you've been struggling with any of these issues and you're not really sure what to do, I really think that this could be helpful for you. Because I really, Amber, I love the fact that you have personal experience in this area because you went through this yourself.
Amber Brueseke (47:42.723)
Yep, yep.
Jennifer Fugo (47:50.863)
You aren't like just like, I was a trainer my entire life and I was always in shape. You didn't have that. Plus you have the RN background. So you know what it's like, you understand this whole weird paradigm of people trying to navigate through the healthcare system and not really being able to get better, and understanding the mental piece, the mindset piece that is keeping us from stopping. Like you said, just sometimes I'm like, I can't, it's too much. I know I need to do it, but it feels so hard.
Amber Brueseke (48:10.627)
Yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (48:19.564)
And a lot of the things that I have learned, and a lot of the shifts that I've made over the last year, have been due to the messaging and the content and the ideas that you have shared and I've had the blessing of partaking in and getting access to. And so I wanted to share that with everybody. Can you tell everybody a little bit about what they could expect from this event?
Amber Brueseke (48:37.069)
Yeah, so starting next week, we have a three part live series coming up. And if you have been thinking, I want to improve my nutrition, I want to help my body to be able to be fueled a little bit better, I want to lose weight or I, again, that operative word I want, I want to have a little bit more energy or whatever it is. Nutrition plays such a huge role in that.
Jennifer Fugo (48:59.598)
It does.
Amber Brueseke (49:05.869)
And so over the three part series, we'll be talking a lot about nutrition and how you can uplevel your nutrition, and in addition, we'll be talking about a lot of the mental mindset piece as well, because I think this is where I differ from a lot of other coaches out there. Whereas, yes, I'm going to teach you the science, I'm going to teach you about nutrition. I know a lot about that and I can help you with that. But if we don't pair that with how you're approaching this, coming from a want framework versus a need framework, moving out of compliance defiance, moving into a place of ownership. If we don't pair those two together, you're never going to have the long-term changes.
And that's why most people go on diets and then they go off diets, because they're not approaching it with, hey, I'm going to pair the nutrition with the mindset work. And so that's really what I'm going to help you do over those three days, is we're going to blend those two together and you're going to see what a change that can make in your health and fitness journey, in just how you feel about yourself and your body. And that's going to change how you show up in your life in so many ways. So yeah, come to the event if this is something that you're wanting to improve your health, improve your nutrition, improve your body composition. That's my jam and that's what I love to help people do.
Jennifer Fugo (50:08.547)
Yeah, and I think it's important for everyone listening to know it doesn't matter if you have a current weight lifting routine or this is, maybe just walking right now is all you can physically do.
Amber Brueseke (50:19.279)
Totally.
Jennifer Fugo (50:27.513)
Because sometimes with certain skin issues, some people have psoriatic arthritis, maybe you have issues with your feet or your hands, whatever. There may be some physical impediment, but I think this is a great place to start regardless of the sort of what are you doing with your fitness piece.
Amber Brueseke (50:35.535)
Totally.
Jennifer Fugo (50:53.423)
I don't want somebody to duck out and go, well, it sounds like I must be working out, or I'm gonna have to work out, in order for this to even work and be helpful. I feel like sometimes our runway on to the journey can look different, and this can be a really great runway to help get you to a place where you could start moving, right? As things shift.
Amber Brueseke (50:56.835)
Yeah, I would actually say, I would say probably half of our clients don't work out when they come and join the program. Like a large majority of people. And I always say, like, if you're going to pick one or the other, let's start with nutrition and we can add the workout later. And that is because you eat every day all your life. Right. And so like, if we're going to change one thing, that's going to have the biggest transformation for you, changing your eating habits and making that a healthier pattern.
Jennifer Fugo (51:01.957)
Oh wow!
Amber Brueseke (51:02.926)
Like a large majority of people. And I always say, if you're going to pick one or the other, let's start with nutrition and we can add the workout later. And that is because you eat every day all your life.
Jennifer Fugo (51:09.092)
Agreed. Exactly.
Amber Brueseke (51:23.931)
And so if we're going to change one thing that's going to have the biggest transformation for you, changing your eating habits and making that a healthier pattern and being able to make decisions around food, since you make decisions around food three to four to five to six times a day, let's get that in line. And then when you, you know, we can always layer on the workouts later. So yeah, I definitely echo that.
Jennifer Fugo (51:35.291)
Absolutely. Awesome. Well, here’s the link to your video series event. That way everybody can join.
Amber Brueseke (51:43.449)
Yeah, come hang out.
Jennifer Fugo (51:44.397)
And again, you can join wherever you live because this is a virtual event, which I love. I love that we are able to do this to connect no matter the distance, right, and get access to this.
Amber Brueseke (51:53.059)
Yes.
Jennifer Fugo (51:54.982)
So Amber, thank you so much. How can people find you, learn more about you, connect with you?
Amber Brueseke (52:01.219)
Yes, Biceps After Babies is where I am everywhere. I have a podcast called Biceps After Babies Radio, Biceps After Babies on Instagram, on Facebook, on TikTok, Biceps After Babies, and you will find me.
Jennifer Fugo (52:15.588)
I love it. Super simple. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you being here.
Amber Brueseke (52:16.547)
Yes. Thanks, Jen.
