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Hi Sheconomist Insider 👋 It’s Thamina, Founder of The Sheconomist. This is your bi-weekly dose of celebrating the female economy where I help ambitious, purpose-driven women like yourself flip the script on money, career & wellbeing conventions so you can live life on your own terms.

TLDR:

• 🏋️‍♀️ Why women are not small men

• ✍️ A new 8-minute anti-procrastination planner I love

• 💰 Not just talking about, but playing with compound interest

• 💜 Meet Beatrice Karp, Founder of Bea Olive Oil

Friendly Ask: Do you love this newsletter? Do you want more in-depth resources such as courses, events, and a membership? Then please share The Sheconomist with your friends because I can only offer more transformation for YOU when the scale is there. Plus, you would make a dream come true. Thank you. 💜 

🧪 Freedom Formulas

“Women are not small men.”

A few weeks ago, I was listening to The Diary of a CEO, specifically a round table on women’s health, and one of the expert guests, Dr. Stacy Sims, stopped me in my tracks.

Dr. Stacy Sims is an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist from New Zealand who’s on the faculty at Stanford and the Auckland University of Technology who has also published over 100 peer-reviewed (!!!) academic papers (that is A LOT!), who’s been flipping the script and unapologetically shouting: “Women are different. We deserve different data.”

Because for decades, nearly every health and fitness recommendation - from when to eat, to how to train, to what to supplement - has been based on research done on men.

The episode I was referencing above was so compelling I featured it in a recent edition of this newsletter. Since then, I’ve been deep in the Dr. Sims rabbit hole: listening to more of her podcast appearances and reading her book ROAR, which has prompted me to completely rethinking how I approach movement, food, and recovery.

I’ve been implementing her advice for just a few weeks, and I’m already sleeping better, feeling more energized, gaining lean muscle, and losing fat - without burning myself out.

So I simply HAD to share this with all of you because this could honestly be so life-changing for many of you.

(also because a lot of my girl friends and some family members are subscribed here and I selfishly want them to join me on this journey - if you’re one of them and are reading this, text me so I know you read this and are on board so we can hold each other accountable 👀)

Here are just a few takeaways that I want every ambitious, self-aware woman to know about optimizing her workouts, diet, hormonal health and energy:

🛑 Skip breakfast before working out?

Dangerous. Dr. Sims explains that women’s cortisol levels are naturally higher in the morning. When we exercise fasted or don’t eat breakfast at all regardless of whether we’re exercising that day, we add fuel to that stress fire. Eating a little something - even just half a banana and a few spoons of yogurt - before morning workouts protects our hormones and boosts performance.

And I know, many of you are not hungry in the mornings, I get it. That used to be me for many years but if you care about your health, and I’m writing this with so much love, you need to reprogram yourself. I promise, once you give this a try for a few weeks, you will start craving food in the mornings.

🏋️ Ditch the 5-lb dumbbells.

Women thrive on heavy weights and low reps. This isn’t about getting bulky, it’s about building metabolic, skeletal, and emotional strength. That’s because women’s physiology (muscle fibre types, hormonal milieu) responds differently than the long, light‐rep paradigms often prescribed under the assumption “women want tone, men want mass.” The heavy load / low‐rep schema (for example 1–6 or up to 8 reps at a higher % of your max) produces greater mechanical tension per muscle fibre, and that mechanical tension is a key driver of strength and hypertrophic adaptations (even in women) rather than just metabolic fatigue.

In simpler terms: you get more “bang for your rep” when you lift heavier (with proper technique and safety) than doing thousands of tiny reps that burn out your fatigue system but don’t build the durable strength and lean mass you actually want

💓 Cardio? Short and strategic.

According to Dr. Sims, long, moderate‐steady‐state cardio (lots of running, long fasted cardio) often raises cortisol (a stress hormone) and may be counterproductive for women’s hormonal balance, recovery, metabolism and fat‐loss goals.

For women, intensive interval bursts (e.g., 30 seconds at high intensity) followed by sufficiently long recovery (2‑2.5 mins) create high stimulus and then give the body time to recover, which supports better adaptation, avoids chronic stress, and better preserves muscle mass while improving cardio/metabolic health. This interval model aligns with women’s higher fatigue resistance and more efficient recovery capacity relative to men in some contexts.

Also, from a fuel standpoint: women tend to rely more on fat oxidation and have fewer glycogen stores (relative to men), so the episodic‐interval model supports better fuel‐mixing, less over‐reliance on carbohydrate depletion, and less stress on the hormonal system

Action point: Rather than 45–60 min of steady cardio, try 30 seconds ON at max capacity (treadmill, bike, row, kettlebell swings), followed by 2-2.5 minutes full recovery for a total of 5 rounds max.

🥩 Protein is queen. 

Dr. Sims emphasizes that for women, the standard “minimum” protein guidelines (often derived from male‑norm data) are insufficient for optimizing recovery, lean mass, hormonal health, and bone health.

After strength training or high‑intensity work, muscle protein synthesis is elevated and to capitalize on it you need an adequate amount of quality protein. Without it, you risk losing muscle, compromising metabolism, and affecting recovery. This is especially true for women going through hormonal transitions.

Protein also plays roles beyond muscle: it supports immune function, hormone synthesis (including sex hormones), and helps maintain metabolic flexibility. When women are under‑eating or chronically doing cardio/fasting, protein often becomes the sacrifice, and that undermines long‑term health. If you’re not prioritizing 30g of protein post-workout, you’re missing a huge recovery opportunity.

Action point: Prioritize a post‐workout meal/snack with ~30g+ of high‑quality protein (e.g., Greek yogurt + berries, eggs + toast, protein shake), plus regular protein at each meal rather than treating protein as an afterthought. AND add creatine to the mix (yes, it’s female-friendly!), and you’ll amplify strength and cognition.

🔥 Heat helps. Cold? Not always.

Dr. Sims explains that for women, sauna/heat exposure triggers beneficial physiological mechanisms: increased blood plasma volume, better vascular function, heat shock protein activation, improved perfusion, improved recovery and hormonal resilience. In her view, women tend to adapt better to controlled heat stress than extreme cold stress.

On the flip side, cold plunging / ice‑baths (especially very cold) can lead to excessive sympathetic (stress) activation in women, may impair recovery or hormonal regulation if overdone, and the benefit for women is less clear because much of the research comes from men.

Incorporate a post‐workout sauna or 10‑20 min heat session (or very warm bath) into your routine rather than immediately heading for an ice plunge. Use cold exposures judiciously (and not excessively cold) if you enjoy them, but prioritize heat for recovery, circulation, and hormonal balance.

As a (former) cold plunge lover, this did sting a little bit, I’m not gonna lie. I’ve been switching to cold/cool showers after because cold (50+ degrees Fahrenheit/10+ Celsius) can still be somewhat beneficial as long as it’s not too cold (sub 50/55 degrees F or 10/13 C).

If you want to learn from Dr. Stacy Sims herself, here some resources:

• Her conversation with Mel Robbins

• Her solo conversation with Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO

• Women’s Health Round Table on Diary of a CEO Part 1

• Women’s Health Round Table on Diary of a CEO Part 2

• Dr. Stacy Sims’ book ROAR

❣️ Thamina’s Top Picks

🎙️ I enjoyed this conversation between Jay Shetty and business powerhouse Emma Grede who is the business brains behind a lot of the Kardashian/Jenner ventures including SKIMS and Good American

💍 My favorite fine jewelry brand has their biggest sale of the year - 30% off sitewide in case you want to treat yourself or send this link to a partner/family member

🏋️‍♀️ This is the creatine I just ordered because yes, Dr. Sims recommends it, AND because it is single-sourced from my home country of Germany (use code SIMS for a discount)

✍️ Been using Grace Beverley’s new 8-minute Anti-Procrastination planner for a few weeks now and genuinely love it; very straightforward and effective; could be a great affordable holiday/Secret Santa gift

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❓I want your feedback

Because I believe in full transparency and “building in public”, I wanted to share this with you: I’ve been playing around with ads (like the one right above ☝️) in the newsletter over the last few weeks, for two main reasons:

1) beehiiv (the platform I’m using to write and send this newsletter) continues to evolve its integrated ad marketplace and they’ve really been stepping up their game lately, so I’ve been very curious about what the process and experience looks like for both me the author and you the reader.

2) I do want to become a full-time entrepreneur eventually and to make that dream possible, monetization of my work is going to become increasingly important, especially heading into 2026. And yes, I will be launching something new in early 2026 and your support would mean the world to me - more on that soon.

Now, beehiiv lets you choose from a hand full of ad opportunities every week and I had previously indicated what type of topics and industries would resonate with this beautiful community to ensure that the opportunities presented to me are going to be relevant to most of you. That’s why I’m very intentional with which ad I end up choosing and no, I don’t always go for the opportunity that does offer the highest financial reward when I believe it would not resonate with you at all.

For example, many ad opportunities are - simply put - very “bro” coded and when the creative and language used features or is centered around the stereotypical white dude, I decline because that’s not what I want to promote in this very intentionally curated space.

With the PodPitch ad above for example, I felt it was relevant because a lot of our community members are either full-time or part-time entrepreneurs or people with a 9-5 who want to start building something more fulfilling on the side, which is why a platform that allows you to find podcast you’d be a great guest for felt like a value-aligned ad partner.

Now, that is MY thought process but I’d really love to hear from YOU about what your preference is moving forward, so if you could just take 5 seconds to participate in this really quick poll below, I’d so appreciate it.

Btw, the compensation operates on a CPC (cost-per-click) model so the more you click on the ad, the more $ for me (& my contractors), so if you can/don’t mind actually engaging with the ad, I’d so appreciate it.

Thank you so much!

✨ This week’s Moodboard

Post credits go to Advanteria, unile.selfcare, modestJournal, The Melae | Beauty, Hair care & Lifestyle

💸 Cooking up Wealth

Let’s get real: you’ve heard compound interest is powerful. Maybe even that Einstein called it the “8th wonder of the world.”

But here’s the problem: