The Stress-Free Secret To Getting Into The Best Shape Of Your Life

With all the cult-like hype around popular workouts, choosing one to try feels more exhausting than sweating through an actual class. But benefitting your body without damaging your hormones might be easier than you think. 

We tapped experts in high- and lower-impact training to weigh in on the best body-balancing strategies for your routine. Whether you’re into the shaky holds of reformer Pilates, or the sweaty lifts behind CrossFit, nutrition makes a huge impact on results, too. 

You’ve probably discovered that your body changes as you age. But even though new phases of life can create challenges in staying fit, it’s not an impossible task.

Dedicated to my craft — and perimenopause-curious — I committed to trying these two styles of workouts myself. As a CrossFit girlie, I’m used to doing deadlifts, box jumps, and wall walks until I can barely breathe — and balancing macros to fuel it. Pilates, at least for me, was the cool girl I was intimidated to talk to. Until now, when I entered my first reformer class ever.

“It’s not what you think it’ll be. It’s so hard, but it’s also so … boring,” jokes a “Saturday Night Live” sketch about studio Pilates. “Usually there are eight gorgeous women, one gay man not wearing underwear, and sometimes Kaia Gerber.”

“I’ve been doing Pilates for 20 years now,” Reese Witherspoon’s character says in “You’re Cordially Invited.” “And my core is a solid-*ss rock.”

I had to find out if this hot gym gossip was true, so I stopped by SESSION Pilates in Nashville, along with my Daily Wire colleague and Pilates princess, Lynden Blake. She kindly brought me “sticky socks” so I wouldn’t slip and face-plant on the reformer. These socks would be tasked beyond their intended capabilities.

The soothing studio space instantly calmed my skittering heart (hopefully I didn’t have to know what those rings in the corner were for). A front desk host peeked around a stunning flower arrangement to say hello in buttery tones. Were we also getting massages?

“Moving your body is already intimidating enough. So our goal is to take down those walls from the moment that you book your class,” SESSION Pilates Nashville operating partner and instructor Liza Myers Barnes explains. “Everyone feels safe, everyone feels comfortable, everyone feels welcome. Centering for 50 minutes, yes, your muscles are fatigued, but you’re also rejuvenated within the space between your ears.”

Having come from a spin background, Myers Barnes noticed an improvement in muscle tone once she got into Pilates. “There’s literally nothing else you can do when you’re trying to hold your body in a pose. Some clients will notice that they sleep better and they can regulate their stress better.”

It all felt like a total contrast to the “box” membership I have with CrossFit PRVN, just minutes from me and the mermaid pose I would struggle to hold. There, you’re welcomed by a blacked-out warehouse boasting climbing ropes like jungle vines, and rows of dumbbells, assault bikes, and rowers lining the floor in military ranks. 

Unlike the serenity of the Pilates aesthetic, CrossFit rolls in dirty, getting popular for overexerted vomiting and bloodied shins, followed by shotgunned beers and arctic cold-plunges. Less coffee klatsch, more “Survivor” season one.

PRVN is also home to eight-time CrossFit Games winner and the “Fittest Woman on Earth,” Tia-Clair Toomey, who just welcomed her second baby and could kick anyone’s butt in her sleep. 

“Hard WOD, hard bod. I just did 6,000 burpees and I feel great,” a CrossFitter on the “Hot Date” sketch show says just before puking. (A semi-joke. I’ve seen it IRL.) 

But is one workout style better than the other? If you’re deciding between high-intensity or lower-impact workouts, just look to your hormones. 

“Honestly, any way someone chooses to move their body is the best way,” says Sarah Radford, general manager and head coach at PRVN HQ. Noting CrossFit’s misunderstood rep for destroying hormones, spiking cortisol, and messing with women’s cycles, she says, “Fitness does put our bodies into a state of stress, but it’s a healthy stress that causes positive adaptations as long as we’re recovering properly.” 

Lightly touching on the benefits of maintaining muscle as we age (especially in a culture of GLP-1s), Radford adds, “Menstrual disruption is about energy availability, not intensity. A woman doing CrossFit four times a week who eats enough, sleeps enough, and takes rest days is at much lower risk than a woman chronically exercising (regardless of fitness type) and under-eating.”

That’s where diet and lifestyle enter the conversation. “The right nutrition can really give us a leg up on performance, whether that’s a run, a CrossFit workout, or a Pilates class,” registered dietitian and functional nutrition expert Erica Giovinazzo explains. “Getting the right balance of macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats), along with enough hydration … can impact energy, hormone balance, body composition (gaining muscle and/or losing fat) and recovery.”

Easy-to-digest carbs get you through high-intensity workouts while a carb-and-protein snack easily powers lower-intensity movement such as Pilates. But if you’re thinking about going in with an empty stomach, Giovinazzo adds, “There’s no activity where people perform better completely fasted. Just make sure you eat with enough time for your body to digest.”

“We’ve been so conditioned (especially women) to want to be as small as possible. But the ‘calories in, calories out’ theory is not entirely accurate. One of the biggest things that helps us look and feel its best is actually eating enough to support it.”

“When we under-eat for long periods of time, the body adapts by slowing metabolism, reducing sex hormone production, increasing stress hormones like cortisol, and conserving energy. So what we see is: less strength, more belly fat, waking up in the middle of the night, and feeling ‘tired but wired.’ So if someone wants not only better performance and body composition, but also better hormone balance, recovery, sleep, mood, and energy, they need to eat enough.”

“One of the best things you can do for hormone balance is to eat a high protein breakfast,” she notes. “One of the worst things you can do hormonally is stay in a large calorie deficit for a long period of time, especially if you are trying to get hard workouts in. For most active people, a good protein target is around 0.8 to 1.0 gram of protein per pound of body weight.”

I can report that I feel my best when I’m eating well and enjoying a variety of workouts. Especially when I can share a few jokes, a meal, or develop real friendships with the people in my workout class. 

“Creating a community around you that you enjoy seeing and socializing with makes fitness enjoyable and sustainable,” Radford says. “That community piece matters more than people give it credit for.” 

But no workout is complete without rest days. (They’re real and they’re spectacular.) Recovery means counting your sheep and regulating your nervous system, not continuously overworking it. “That’s where our bodies start to live in a chronic state of stress,” Radford notes. “Acute cortisol is normal and actually necessary for adaptation in the body. The problem isn’t cortisol — it’s chronic cortisol dysregulation from under-recovery, under-fueling, or under-sleeping.”

Break a sweat, not your spirit. I think this sounds like a good excuse to fill up that Stanley and go (mindfully) crush those goals.