Next Level- Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

Title: Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond

• by Stacy T. Sims, PhD, with Selene Yeager
• URL

About the Book

Stacy T. Sims holds an MSc and PhD in exercise physiology and nutrition science and has directed research programs at Stanford, AUT University, and the University of Waikato, with a career built around a single, pointed observation delivered in her widely-viewed TEDx talk: “women are not small men.” Her first book, ROAR, applied that lens to female athletes across the menstrual cycle; Next Level, published in 2022 and co-written with journalist Selene Yeager, extends it into perimenopause, menopause, and beyond.

The book arrives at a moment when menopause has finally become a mainstream health topic rather than a subject women were expected to quietly endure, and it’s aimed squarely at active women who notice their usual training and eating approach has stopped working and don’t know why.

The Central Argument

Sims’ thesis is that menopause isn’t just “getting older” — it’s a distinct physiological transition, driven by declining estrogen and progesterone, that changes how a woman’s body handles stress, fuel, and recovery. Because almost all foundational exercise and nutrition research was conducted on men (or on women’s bodies extrapolated from male data), the standard advice — fast before your workout, do more cardio, eat less — actively works against women in this life stage rather than for them.

Her prescription reverses much of the conventional wisdom: eat more protein, not less; lift heavier, not lighter; train harder and shorter, not longer and gentler; and stop fasting, because it raises the very stress hormone menopausal women are already fighting.

Key Ideas & Insights

Fasting Is the Wrong Tool for This Life Stage

Sims is blunt that “fasting, keto, low carb, all zone 2 all the time… those rules are not for us.” She explains that skipping breakfast or training in a fasted state raises cortisol in active women, and that without adequate fuel, women can’t reach the exercise intensities needed to trigger the growth hormone and testosterone response that actually lowers cortisol afterward. The popular fitness-influencer playbook of fasted morning workouts, she argues, backfires specifically for perimenopausal and menopausal women.

Protein Becomes Non-Negotiable

The book sets specific, higher-than-conventional targets: 1.8–2.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily, roughly 30 grams per meal, with an emphasis on getting 20 grams of protein within 60 minutes after strength training and hitting 3–3.5 grams of leucine per meal to trigger muscle protein synthesis. This matters because bone density can decline by as much as 20% during the menopause transition, and muscle mass drops in parallel — protein timing becomes a direct defense against both.

Lift Heavy, Not Light

Rather than the “toning” workouts often marketed to midlife women, Sims pushes heavy resistance training plus plyometrics (jumping) as the most effective tools for preserving bone density and body composition — more effective, she argues, than steady-state cardio. The recommended weekly template is concrete: 2–3 strength sessions plus regular jump-based work for bone loading.

Short, Hard Intervals Beat Long, Easy Cardio

Sims recommends sprint interval training (SIT) — short bursts of 1–4 minutes at roughly 80% effort — layered with 1–2 high-intensity interval sessions per week at 80–90% max effort. She frames this precisely as promoting glucose uptake, fighting inflammation, and supporting fat loss “without over-stressing your system,” positioning intensity, not duration, as the lever that works with a menopausal woman’s hormones rather than against them.

It’s a Toolkit, Not Just a Philosophy

Beyond the physiology, the book is built to be used: sample training plans, customizable meal plans, macronutrient charts, and case studies drawn from real women Sims has coached through the transition. The goal isn’t just to convince the reader that her body has changed — it’s to hand her a plan for that specific new body.

Memorable Takeaways

• Menopause is a distinct physiological event, not just “getting older” — your training and eating should change with it, not stay the same
• Skip the fasted workout — fasting raises cortisol in active menopausal women rather than helping them
• Protein needs go up, not down: aim for roughly 30g per meal, with 20g within an hour of strength training
• Heavy lifting and jumping protect bone density and muscle mass better than steady cardio does
• Short, hard intervals (sprint and high-intensity work) outperform long, easy cardio for this life stage
• Bone density can drop up to 20% during the menopause transition — treat that as a training priority, not an afterthought
• Advice extrapolated from research on men isn’t neutral — it can be the wrong advice for a woman’s actual physiology

Who Should Read This

This book is for active women — runners, lifters, cyclists, former athletes — who are perimenopausal or menopausal and have noticed their usual training and fueling approach no longer delivers the results or recovery it used to. It rewards readers willing to engage with sample meal plans, macronutrient math, and structured training templates rather than looking for a purely motivational read.

It’s a weaker fit for women who are sedentary or just beginning an exercise practice, since several reviewers note the book leans toward athletes and can read as intense or judgmental toward lower fitness levels; some have also flagged an undercurrent of fat-phobia that could be uncomfortable for readers with a history of disordered eating.

Final Verdict

Next Level’s greatest strength is that it takes women’s physiology seriously as a distinct research subject rather than a rounding error on male data, and it turns that seriousness into specific, actionable numbers — protein grams, interval lengths, effort percentages — that a reader can actually follow. Its real limitation is scope and tone: the advice sometimes extrapolates further than the cited evidence clearly supports, and its athlete-centric framing can alienate readers who aren’t already training seriously. Its lasting contribution is reframing menopause itself: not a decline to be endured quietly, but a physiological transition with its own rules, worth training for on purpose.