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New Era Of Women's Health: Honoring Your Body & Becoming Unbreakable
“You are worth taking up some space. You are worth being strong.” – Vonda Wright, M.D.
As we close out Women's Health Month, one message rang loud and clear at mindbodygreen's 2025 Revitalize event: Strength isn't just a fitness goal—it's your birthright.
With inspiring conversations from leading voices in medicine, movement, and longevity, the day was a powerful reminder that women are not fragile—they are unbreakable. And mindbodygreen is proud to bring together trailblazers redefining what women's health can and should look like.
1. The unbreakable framework: Building strength from the ground up
Vonda Wright, M.D., a double board-certified orthopedic surgeon and author of the upcoming book Unbreakable, opened the event with a powerful conversation on resilience, aging, and what it truly means to be strong.
At the start of her talk, mindbodygreen founder and CEO Jason Wachob set the tone by reading a sentence that resonated deeply with our community:
"After a lifetime of being told to eat less, stick to cardio, and shrink ourselves, we're seeing women fill up their plates, pick up the weights, and step into their power."
It was a fitting introduction to Wright's message: that women deserve to claim strength—not just physically but mentally and emotionally too. To help women do just that, Wright introduced her FACE framework—a simple yet powerful acronym for cultivating resilience:
- F – Flexibility: Stretch and move your muscles through their full range daily to maintain effectiveness and prevent injury.
- A – Aerobic exercise: Engage in two ends of the cardio spectrum: walk daily (especially post-meal to stabilize glucose) and sprint twice a week to stimulate VO2 max and mitochondrial health.
- C – Carrying load: Strength training isn't limited to barbells—carrying groceries, rucking, or using any form of resistance counts. The key is making it a consistent part of your routine.
- E – Equilibrium: Balance training is essential. As Wright said, "We don't break and then fall—we fall and then break." Maintaining balance helps prevent injury and loss of independence later in life.
2. Train your VO2 max
Wright emphasized a rarely discussed but crucial marker for women's long-term health: VO2 max, a measure of your body's ability to use oxygen during exercise. She explained the concept of the fragility line—a VO2 max of 18 for women. Fall below it, and even simple acts like standing up from a chair become impossible without assistance.
"If you're at 50 at age 50, you'll decline by 10% per decade, but you'll never hit the fragility line," she said. "But if you start at 30, you will."
This isn't about elite athleticism. It's about protecting your independence. "I don't know about you, but I want to do what I want, when I want, for as long as I can," Wright added.
3. Don't skip base camp: Master the fundamentals first
Mobility expert Juliet Starrett issued a wake-up call to the biohacking crowd: Don't skip the basics. In longevity, she said, people are "skipping base camp and going straight to the Kumbu Icefall," referencing the dangerous climb to Everest's summit.
What does this look like in real life? Chasing wellness trends and diving deep into biohacking while skipping the basics: walking, eating enough protein, strength training, and sleeping.
That foundation, or what she calls base camp, includes:
- Walking 8,000 steps per day (linked to a 51% lower risk of mortality)
- Sitting on the floor for 30 minutes daily to improve hip mobility and fall prevention
- Strength training 4–5x per week
- Eating plenty of protein (Her sweet spot is 0.8g of protein per pound of body weight, but we often recommend upwards of 1 gram per pound).
- Consuming 800g of fruits and vegetables
- Sleeping 8 hours each night
These habits aren't flashy, but they are effective.
4. Women's health needs are unique
Jamie Seeman, M.D., board-certified OB/GYN and Integrative Medicine Fellow, brought critical nuance to the conversation: Women's biology is different, and our health practices must reflect that.
Her key message? Stress isn't the enemy—poor adaptation is. Hormetic stressors like cold plunges, saunas, and fasting can improve resilience, but they must be adapted to the female cycle and physiology.
"Women are reproductive creatures," Seeman said. "We're constantly reading the environment—how safe, nourished, and supported we are."
In practice, this means:
- Cold therapy: Women feel cold faster and take longer to warm up. Seeman recommends starting at 50°F for 2–3 minutes, 3x/week. "More is not better."
- Cycle syncing: Increased estrogen during the follicular phase boosts tolerance to heat and cold, while increased progesterone in the luteal phase decreases resilience. Keep this in mind for training and recovery practices.
- Sauna use: An hour per week, broken into 20- to 45-minute session,s is effective, but listen to your body—women often overheat more quickly and sweat less efficiently than men.
Importantly, these practices should complement, not replace, your foundational health habits.
5. Redefining strength, nourishment & healthspan
Wright sees the consequences of neglecting strength every day in her orthopedic practice. One in two women over 50 will experience an osteoporotic fracture. One in three will end up in a nursing home. "You can build all the muscles you want, but if you have weak bones, you will still fall and break," she warned.
Yet far too many women are undernourished. "When I question women in my clinic and I add up their calories, it's usually about a thousand calories a day," Wright shared. "Most women's basal metabolic rates—even on the low side—are about 1,200. A really healthy one is 1,500 to 2,000. So we're underfeeding."
She stressed that eating enough—especially protein—is critical to maintain muscle and bone as we age. "We need high-quality protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis via the mTOR pathway," Wright explained. "The most powerful stimulant is leucine, and you need at least 2.5 grams to start the process."
Animal proteins are naturally high in leucine—roughly 10% of their total protein content. "So, if you're getting 25 grams of protein from chicken or fish, you're hitting that leucine threshold," she said.
The cultural shift away from restriction and toward nourishment is not only welcome—it's vital. "We've done a 180," Wright said. "No, you don't need to do a detox or a cleanse. You need to eat more—and eat quality food."
Seeman echoed this message through the lens of longevity: "It's not about living longer. It's about living well longer." That includes managing stress, training your resilience, and choosing habits that fuel recovery, not deplete it.
Strength and nourishment are not aesthetic pursuits—they are lifesaving strategies that preserve autonomy, energy, and brain health as we age. The foundation is simple: eat enough, move with purpose, and build your health from the inside out.
The takeaway
Women's health in 2025 isn't about shrinking, restricting, or overtraining. It's about honoring your biology, investing in your future, and building an unbreakable life—physically, mentally, and emotionally.
As Wright concluded, "Aging is a natural process—but we are not the victims of the passage of time."