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Far 2 Fabulous
Join Catherine & Julie, your feisty hosts at Far 2 Fabulous, as they lead you on a wellness revolution to embrace your fabulousness.
Julie, a Registered Nutritional Therapist with over 20 years of expertise, and Catherine, a former nurse turned Pilates Instructor and Vitality Coach, blend wisdom and laughter seamlessly.
Off the air, catch them harmonising in their local choir and dancing to 80's hits in superhero attire. Catherine braves the sea for year-round swims, while Julie flips and tumbles in ongoing gymnastics escapades.
With a shared passion for women's health and well-being, they bring you an engaging exploration of health, life, and laughter. Join us on this adventure toward a more fabulous and empowered you!
Far 2 Fabulous
Unlocking Hormonal Vitality: The Essential Role of Testosterone in Women's Health
What if the key to unlocking women's vitality lies in a hormone often labeled as masculine? This episode flips the script on testosterone, revealing its essential role in women's hormonal symphony. We promise you'll gain insights into how testosterone impacts everything from libido to mood, with its peak just before ovulation infusing confidence and satisfaction. We break down the science behind testosterone production in the ovaries and adrenal glands, and the surprising hero in this story: LDL cholesterol. Join us as we explore how understanding testosterone's influence can transform your approach to well-being, especially during perimenopause and menopause.
The conversation takes a deep dive into the historical and genetic factors influencing our hormonal balance. You'll learn how reconnecting with our bodies, through methods like body scan meditation, can unlock greater self-awareness and resilience. We tackle the complexities of maintaining muscle mass and vitality post-menopause, stressing the significance of hormones like testosterone and progesterone. Athletes and those with low body fat, listen closely as we discuss the unique challenges you face in keeping those hormones in check. Our bodies are remarkably interconnected systems, and this episode unveils the keys to maintaining balance through life's stages.
Finally, discover practical strategies for nurturing hormonal health as we age. The synergy between testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone is crucial for maintaining muscle mass, bone density, and a positive outlook. We delve into how testosterone influences dopamine production, metabolism, and fat distribution, offering actionable tips to harness these effects. From Pilates for bone strength to managing stress for adrenal health, we provide a holistic approach to maneuvering through menopause and beyond. Join our mission to empower women through knowledge and community—subscribe, share, and help us reach a thousand women, one episode at a time.
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We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.
Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine.
Speaker 2:Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered well-being. Let's dive in. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Far Too Fabulous podcast. Yay, hello, and welcome back to the Far Too Fabulous podcast Yay, you always start like that.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 2:Muppet Show the Muppets. That's exactly what I was thinking, then. We do. We look like a pair of Muppets as well. Sat here, Speak for yourself Like those two old Muppets that are sat up when they're in the theatre, you know, up in the box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the grumpy guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the grumpy guys. We're not grumpy guys, though are we Occasionally. You've just given us a microphone. Anyway, we digress already. Funnily enough, look, we haven't even told you what the topic is and we've gone completely off it. So you know that we're doing this hormone series and we had an episode about how our normal cycle works, and then we went into detail the next time about oestrogen, and then last week we went deep into progesterone. So you don't get any prizes now for guessing that we're talking about testosterone well, they might.
Speaker 1:They might not realize, because not everybody realizes that women have testosterone.
Speaker 2:This is true. Actually, this is true, and as much as it is probably maybe a smaller part of the orchestra that julie talks about, yes, it is yeah, it's still absolutely vital a vital member.
Speaker 1:Even that triangle in the orchestra is important, right?
Speaker 1:Oh it is, it is so I think testosterone is known for being a dominant male hormone which is right, they are run off their testosterone, but they also have the other hormones and I have these conversations with my male clients about this. They don't often realise, especially when their test results come back and show that they're estrogen dominant. Yeah, they're like what, where have I got the estrogen from? Yeah, it's quite funny. They think their wife's been sneaking the pill into their coffee. Yeah, so although it is a dominant male hormone, we do have testosterone in our hormone orchestra and it's a key one. It really is, even though we have smaller amounts. So testosterone works closely with estrogenestrogen I think is the best description. It rises in that first half of the cycle again and it peaks just before ovulation.
Speaker 2:So oestrogen will peak around ovulation, but testosterone will peak just before, because there's a huge link with our libido absolutely you'll know that it's present when you're feeling like well you're, when you're feeling vital, when you're feeling flushed, when you're shall we say it when you're feeling you're on it where's she going with this?
Speaker 2:yeah, exactly, we talked about that last week. When you're feeling like your skin look, feels great and your hair looks good and everything, just, and you're just, I don't know, you feel happy with your body and I mean, ridiculously, nothing really has changed other than the fact that you've got a raise in these hormones yeah, that's so true, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, you're still the same person, so that just tells you.
Speaker 2:Mindset wise, you can decide these things like all of the time, because your body literally doesn't change shape at like day 12 of your cycle. It's this we're pretty much the same shape all the way through. It's just you've got a nice injection of these hormones making you feel fine yeah, it's all down to how we feel, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, this is such an important one, but that's that's a another topic for discussion, isn't it that that whole self image thing going on? So, yeah, it rises in the first half of the cycle, peaks before ovulation, and then it declines. For women, it's mostly produced in the ovaries, so this is why we tend to get that decline happen around perimenopause and menopause, a bit like the situation with progesterone. Yeah, our levels start to decline at the same time and then that impacts lots of things. We also produce it via the adrenal glands.
Speaker 1:So one of the biggest causes of low testosterone is stress, because when we look at the pathways for hormones in fact fact I was looking at these this morning because I was looking at something specific, but just to understand how hormones are produced in the body the first ingredient is actually cholesterol, and not many people know that having very low cholesterol is actually damaging. And on the last episode, I had a bit of a thing about cholesterol, didn't I? But I didn't go into it. But one of the things that annoys me about this high cholesterol situation, especially in women, is that, again, when we look at the reference range, it was based on men. Yeah, and women, I think, naturally have a higher cholesterol because of the difference in hormone production compared to a man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but all hormones that's adrenal hormones as well start with cholesterol, and then they get converted to pregnenolone, and then it's pregnenolone that is then used in the adrenals, in the ovaries, in the testes. That's the thing. That, then, is the next ingredient for producing everything, whether it's cortisol, adrenaline, estrogen, progesterone. All of it comes from that, but it starts with cholesterol has to get yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:I think. When you start to look at it, you have cholesterol circulating in the blood and it's actually the ldl cholesterol. That is the, the ingredient. Now, we often give LDL cholesterol a bad rap, don't we? Yeah, but we need some of it, otherwise we haven't got the, the first ingredient. So we have LDL circulating in the blood and it gets converted to pregnenolone, which then, well, actually the cholesterol goes into the. It's getting complicated now, but it it goes into the mitochondria and it has to have key like co-factors to get it into the mitochondria, yeah, then it gets converted to pregnenolone and then it goes to where it needs to, uh, to make these hormones so interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, first I've got three things I think to say to that one thank goodness you stuck your teeth in today, because pregnenolone, or it's quite hard to say that it's quite a word yeah, two, that makes more sense when we were reading the bottle of mct oil, not nct which is what it reminds me of mct oil.
Speaker 2:It has the sort of quote unquote bad cholesterol in it we were reading on the back of it and so that makes makes more sense now that that has it in it. We will tell you more about why we are adding mct oil.
Speaker 1:Yes, to come to follow.
Speaker 2:Yes, so just to leave you on the edge of your seats for that, and it really is beyond exciting. So we'll just we'll leave that just hanging there. And what was the third thing? The third thing was and we kind of we were talking about this just before we started recording is that balance? And so when you talk about testosterone and stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can't have one and the other, both existing together. You either have testosterone production or you have stress, vice versa, and there have been a few things that we've talked about where you can't have one and the other. You can't have both. You have to have one or the other.
Speaker 1:And it's just really interesting this like you talk about the orchestra that balance within the body yeah, I mean, the body knows what it's doing and it's got these mechanisms in place and it's got all these different pathways for things and it gets to a junction and, depending on what's going on at that time, it will either go left at that junction or right at that junction, or maybe straight down the middle. It depends on what's going on. So if your pregnenolone arrives at the junction and you're stressed, it's going to go down the pathway to produce your cortisol. It's then not going to go down the pathway to produce your testosterone yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:That makes that really, really clear. I love it when you describe, like when you were talking about when I'd had the genetics done and you'd said you know that normally the body would go down this path, but yours doesn't do that, so you need almost like the bridge to take you down the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so when going back to that pregnenolone arriving at the junction, let's just see how many times we can make you that pregnenolone arriving at the junction, let's just see how many times we can make you say yeah, until I start like I haven't got my teeth in, and then it all goes wrong and I come up with a different name for it, but it arrives at that junction. What you can do is if it's going left because that's going down the stress pathway, if you know, then you can put a block in. You can put a rose block in there or you can make it more favourable to go the other way. And this is where, with genetics, we can really look at the pathways for you as an individual and see what will push it down that favourable pathway, and then you can put things in place, which is the, for me as a nutritionist, that's the most exciting thing, because you can start to influence things and then see what happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think I'm really tempted to pick apart what you've just said, but I think that it will be more useful to talk about that when we talk about what we can do, about any of the signs and symptoms that we quote unquote suffer from within menopause. So I will, we'll put a pin in that one. Yeah, let's do that for the time being. We'll come back to that in a few more episodes. So, obviously, or the obvious things that it helps with for women, is your sexual health and libido, but it also does, like oestrogen, like progesterone does. It also helps lots of other systems in the body and I think an obvious one probably is energy and vitality. Yeah, definitely Associated again with that kind of just before you're ovulating, that your energy picks up. You know that within your cycle. For me, it's a good time to be able to, if you're training with somebody, to really run with some of the weight lifting things and just really.
Speaker 2:This is the opportunity to really, when you feel like it, like go with it yeah, you can really push yourself at that at that stage, can't you?
Speaker 1:when you've got your testosterone kicked in. But I think with energy and vitality, I mean we are both about energy and vitality. I mean your business is called vitality and my key word, my top value, is energy. Yeah, and so lots of things I do. I think you can't have your health if you don't have your energy. End of right. So if this is a key component of that, it's rather important and I think it just gets forgotten and it's not accounted for, especially for women, especially because it's all about the other hormones and how many women know what their testosterone levels are.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, absolutely not. And it's not until it's a problem that you will then go and find out. And I have heard many stories of women seeking medical help for this, help for this and again, testosterone being almost pushed to the side, as if, especially once you're past that magical 365 days after your last period, there's an assumption that you don't need it because you don't need it for ovulation. You don't need it to, you know, get pregnant. So why? You know? What else do you need it for?
Speaker 1:yeah, you don't need that, you don't need the energy, you don't need the muscle mass, you don't need the mood, you don't you know all of that? Yeah, it's, yeah, it's completely ignored, I think. So energy and vitality, I think, is really important, and also that it comes in with, like, the motivation and those kind of things as well, because, again, a lot of women in perimenopause or menopause often get that feeling of just can't be bothered, yeah, they totally lose their motivation and get up and go, don't they? Yeah, yeah, it's because testosterone's got up and gone, yeah, yeah, and some of the other ones, or they're going, you know, erratic again. So sometimes you get in a low when you're not expecting a low, um, and that can cause the same sort of issues as well with energy drops and things yeah, and I mean, if you know your cycle then you can.
Speaker 2:You can plan when you're, when you want to do energetic, exciting things, but obviously when your cycle gets a bit, erratic yeah, it makes it a lot more difficult, and so then it is about kind of holding it really loosely and perhaps going with the flow and so being very forgiving of yourself when you are feeling you know low and low motivation, with no energy, and then when it picks up again, you know going for it if you're, if you're able to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an awareness thing again, isn't it? Because if you, even if your cycle is a bit all over the place like mine is a little bit at the moment if you have a good understanding of your body and you're tuned in, yeah, you can tell these things without necessarily having all the testing done. Yeah, you can tell, but you need to be tuned in in the first place, and lots of people aren't tuned in, are they?
Speaker 2:well, I actually and I think we are programmed to not tune into it. We're almost. We're almost sent the other way. No-transcript be tuned into your body and you don't have to be some floaty I don't know feather wearing hippie to be connected to your body and to your moods and how you're feeling and and to express that and to react from that. I think we're just like you know we're. I think we're still fearful that we're going to be burnt at the stake if we, if we express any rise or fall in our emotions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know what I'm going on? A tangent.
Speaker 2:Here we go.
Speaker 1:But I was watching that BBC programme with Lucy something I can't remember her name, where she looks. Uh, if it was with the knowledge that we've got today, would we consider that accurate or would that person have been found guilty? And she did the witches, the witch hunt in scotland, and she looked at what had happened and so, yeah, that that fear of being burnt at the stake has come through generations and generations and generations, yeah, yeah and just and know that that's not again.
Speaker 2:It's not just like voodoo mumbo jumbo it it genuinely is in your dna, it's, it is in your cells it is within your cells.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do. We carry these blueprints right through. Yeah, it's very interesting, but one of the exercises I get my clients to do often and you will probably relate to this is because people are so disconnected. The body scan meditation is so incredible. Yeah, it does make you start to become aware because, yeah, so many times I have conversations with people and they don't feel anything or they don't. They just don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they don't know what, then you also don't know what to do with it. So if you imagine, if someone's very disconnected and then suddenly they, they do feel something. They're like, oh, what do I, what do I do with this? I don't know. Quick close that box again. Whoa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I find that that's such a simple meditation to do, isn't it? Body scan meditation.
Speaker 2:I mean, I subscribe to the Calm app and they've got a body scan one on there which is really really easy to do. Yeah, it is a really really beautiful meditation.
Speaker 1:Hey, let's talk muscle mass. Let's get into your realm now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Again, it's in relation to this sort of energy and vitality building up. This is the time when testosterone is present that you can start to build your muscle mass, and so, again, it's that we need to champion that you still need these hormones about in later life, after menopause, because we still need to grow this like, or at least maintain, this muscle mass. It is so important for again, again, like all of these, all of these hormones, it's so important for so many systems of our body, making sure you're a lean, mean fat burning machine. Yeah, if you don't have and maintain your muscle mass, you can't do that no, and and I think it's amazing that the body has a backup plan.
Speaker 1:For I can't say it now because I've been saying pregnenolone, progesterone, there we go. Which one is it? Oh, it's so funny. Progesterone and testosterone can be made by the adrenals as a backup plan. So if those hormones were only for making babies, then, once the ovaries shut down, you wouldn't need it. That would be it. But that's not the case and the body has a backup plan. Then, once the ovaries shut down, you wouldn't need it. That would be it. But that's not the case and the body has a backup plan. The body can produce these hormones from fat cells as well. So if your body is struggling because it's not producing them from the ovaries now and your backup plan is not working because your adrenals are dealing with stress, what do you think your body's going to do to help you? It's going to make you fat, yeah. To give you that ability, yeah. So it's all linked, which is really interesting again.
Speaker 2:So that balance. So if you are, I'm imagining your fat levels are too low, that's detrimental to that hugely detrimental.
Speaker 2:This is why young athletes or marathon runners, in particular when they're really lean gymnasts is another one will not have a regular cycle, won't have any cycle, no periods, because they haven't got enough fat on them to do that, yeah, that's really interesting, and it's things like this would support all your muscles and your joints, and your ligaments as well, which, as we're getting older I am I am sure that I am not telling you anything new here um need all the support they can get yeah, so again when we've been talking about these things, it sounds very negative.
Speaker 1:This is a natural decline in the body. Again, for testosterone it's naturally declining, but we want to maintain good levels at a lower level, just so that we can keep things like our muscle mass and our tone and and all of those kind of things. There are things that we can do to support that.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely, absolutely. And again, within this, your bone health, your bone density really, really important, particularly for women.
Speaker 1:Calcium, it's about the co-factors, but testosterone is also involved here. So where oestrogen go because progesterone and testosterone work together they're all going there. They're all in the same place trying to work together to help support our bone density.
Speaker 2:So it's never about just taking a load of calcium no, absolutely, and that we can do stuff wrap around to help it. Can I say like Pilates?
Speaker 1:really important because in you know, as we, as, we age, we want to be able to bounce back from things like falls. This is so significant and so important and this is playing a key role. We don't want to fall over and break something. We don't want to fall over and it causes us massive issues with our health. So bone density is really key, and testosterone is there too yeah.
Speaker 2:So stick your wellies on, go and jump around in muddy puddles like pepper pig.
Speaker 1:Have some fun jumping off the bottom step remember oh yeah, that's it, but not not to the point of injuring yourself. You know, take it easy if you've never done this before. Absolutely yeah, embrace that pelvic floor I think the most important message here is that, although we're explaining some of the issues, when these hormones start to decrease, there is it's so much that you can do, and it's not all. It's not the end of the world, and it doesn't matter at what age you are. No absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's about the understanding of how these hormones are playing a part in your body, and also I mean releasing any kind of negative things like it's your fault that you are feeling this way. It's your fault that you are. I don't know if you're not happy with the way that you look, that you're looking this way that there is you're not happy with the way that you look, but you're looking this way that there is a lot that is going on in your body that might feel like it's out of your control and so hopefully, with this bit of knowledge and with the episodes that are upcoming, there'll be things that you can do so you feel a bit more in control with it. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So testosterone is also involved in mood regulation? No, it's not. It actually impacts the pathway for dopamine, and dopamine is one that gives you that sense of achievement and motivation. Yeah, so if we've got low testosterone, then it's going to directly impact the dopamine production and then that can impact mood. That can give us low mood. Anxiety will also be involved here because of the relationship with progesterone, and we spoke about that on the progesterone episode. So it's all again, it's the. It's the same types of symptoms that the hormones are all having an impact on, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it is just so clever, that balancing act of everything. So, and again, when we're talking about all these things, it probably is now no surprise that it's involved in fat distribution and metabolism, which I find really, really interesting. So again, part of that orchestra you're thinking about, like muscle mass, really plays a a part in in the fat and the metabolism, and I love this. It's just so great to know. And it talks about promoting fat burning and reducing fat storage, particularly around the abdomen, and we talked about this in the oestrogen episode, I think yeah, because oestrogen is that growth hormone.
Speaker 1:So it gives us that womanly shape which we want when we're moving from being a young girl into a young woman. But we don't necessarily want that growth happening when we're already a mature woman.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah. And laying down that fat all around those areas is is not great for our health. You also add the things like the stress factor into it that makes you pack down that that fat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cortisol will directly protect your internal organs, so we'll increase fat storage around the middle to do that job and, as we just found out, it turns off that testosterone.
Speaker 2:So then your body is less able to burn fat or store it with like where you, where you want it or not store fat yeah, if you think about what bodybuilders do when they're, you know, really going for that extra build, they take testosterone, don't they?
Speaker 1:in order to get rid of the fat and to increase muscle mass. Yeah, that's a well-known fact. So, if you think about it in that term, you only need a little bit in order to switch off that fat storing mode and to build your lean muscle, which is what you want, and then back almost to the beginning, when I was joking about having lovely skin and hair.
Speaker 2:It's obviously. You can see that it helps with that. Oh good Lord, no, I can't do it Elasticity.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Julie's got her words back and I've lost them today. That's so funny.
Speaker 1:And again we were talking about that with progesterone and estrogen, yeah, so yeah, estrogen is very much involved in hydration and elasticity, and progesterone is is along for the ride again, because they're working together. And guess what? Testosterone also improves skin and hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it says contributes to hair growth and may impact hair thickness. Well, I mean, we're all up for a bit of that right, okay.
Speaker 1:So we know that we're going to get changes in testosterone levels when we hit that perimenopausal stage and definitely in menopause, when we've got you know, our ovaries are not producing it anymore. We know that the adrenals will pick up the slack, but not if they're doing other things. So you know what. What's going to happen.
Speaker 2:So true, the adrenals are busy because you, you think that your imaginary saber-toothed tiger's going to attack you, when really it's just you stuck in a traffic jam. Or Zoom won't work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean talk about stress. You know, this week you know I've had a lot of stress. Yeah, my youngest was sick in the middle of the night everywhere. Then I had a hard drive fail on my computer. I had to reschedule all my clients without my computer for a couple of days. Some other stresses coming in and yeah, you think to yourself you can't control those things, of course. But then if that's your life all the time, because you're someone that gets up and they're on their phone all the time and they're not getting adequate sleep and they're not getting out in the fresh air and they're not eating right, all of those are also a stress. So your stress bucket can handle those things that come at you from out of the blue to a to a level. Yeah, I mean, I think that was quite a reasonable amount of stress for me.
Speaker 1:This I think that was enough yeah, yeah, but if you put all those other things in that bucket, this is where you start to put the pressure on the adrenals. Can't do what they. What they, what they're meant to do, is to be the backup plan.
Speaker 2:They can't be the backup plan, end of story yeah, and if you've not got things that will empty that stress bucket, yep. Or if, yeah, these stresses are unavoidable, you have ways of coping with them, decreasing that stress within your body. If you don't have that already set up, it makes it really difficult yeah.
Speaker 1:So when the testosterone levels are beginning to decline, which they will do from your 30s actually, yeah, into your 40s, and then it's going to accelerate during. You know, once you get to that, ovarian reserve is really starting to decrease, you're going to get low, low levels at menopause that's really interesting.
Speaker 2:I'd never thought about the association with testosterone reducing and your muscle mass reducing, because that's about around 30, 35 that your muscle mass starts to reduce, and so if you are not maintaining or building, you're losing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then you get some of the symptoms that you would experience with low testosterone. Of course it is going to be a decrease in libido that's a common one and then muscle weakness and fatigue. Of course, yeah, because we've already mentioned the impact there mood swings yeah, that's a.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a classic one isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, and then changes in your body composition because you've lost that ability to have more of a lean physique.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because your muscle mass is decreasing. Your body just storing fat left, right and centre. Thanks very much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the fat storing thing is huge and that's a metabolic issue and so when you're looking to make changes, you've really got to hit that metabolic process in the body.
Speaker 2:It's definitely not about all that. Exercise calories in, calories out, bullshit no, indeed sorry, mum. So once you have passed the magical 365 days, who? I was talking to somebody this week who had gone 11 months without a period and then had a period, and she was actually quite irritated because you feel like you're still almost starting, but you're like you've gone through all of this. You've got to nine well, no, 11 months in and then suddenly you've had a period.
Speaker 1:And I mean that may be your that may be the final one, the last trial.
Speaker 2:That does sometimes happen, yeah that does sometimes happen.
Speaker 1:It's like the body's having a clear out. Yeah, you know, the period is is a really good detoxification route as well. So often if you, if you're someone that has heavy periods and you have lots of issues with them, that can be the body's way of using that as a major detoxification route. So, once a month, stuff is coming out. Yeah, why don't we throw out everything? Yeah, you know why the bin men are coming yeah sort of thing. You know, yeah, get everything out.
Speaker 2:So it might have been that final clear out for her, and then she might be home and dry yeah, but again, the annoying thing is for the way that everything's been very medicalized is that, in theory, they've now got to wait another 365 days before they can say that they are officially in menopause, which is totally bonkers. Yeah, it is a bit, isn't it, but anyway? So we were talking about, uh, all the benefits that testosterone have, and then we talked about basically the opposites, didn't we? So it's an increase in all of those things that loss of libido, that physical weakness, loss of muscle mass increase in body fat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, energy down absolutely and we would like to again reiterate the effect that it has on your bone density and the increased risk of osteoporosis, because you were just talking about falls and things yeah, we used to talk about yeah we've had the falls clinic in the unit that I used to work in at chelsea and westminster. It wasn't necessarily just about putting handrails out for people. It was about making them resilient against falls within their body, not just yeah, not just handrails and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the falls thing is such a big thing. The stats on it are really quite shocking when you look at that. So we definitely want to protect that. And the other thing we want to protect is our brain. Yeah, it's another one that's awful Dementia, anything along. You know that brain health being diminished is absolutely terrible, so we want to protect that. And these hormones are playing a role as well, so we want to make sure that we've got good cognition. The brain fog side of menopause is a big thing, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's a really big thing and I think before we were talking about this subject a lot more which thankfully we are I think women genuinely thought they were going mad yeah and I know that there's lots of jokes about it with that brain fog or completely forgetting what you were saying, or even when you're at work and you've lost that mental alertness. You know a lot of my clients will be professional women, yeah, and they've got jobs like they're lawyers or they're teachers, and when you start to lose that ability to fire off those signals in the brain quickly, it's really disturbing.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, really takes away your self-confidence it does.
Speaker 1:I think it really rocks you when you suddenly can't remember what your friend's name is, or you can't think of what you're doing, or you know you put the plate in the bin instead of the dishwasher exactly, although I mean I don't think I'm coming from a great place because I can, mind you, I might have been pregnant at this point.
Speaker 2:But I remember again back at chelsea, westminster, in the lovely medical day unit which I just adored working in and I was seeing to a patient and I didn't. I had needed to go and get something. So I went marching off to the storeroom, walked into the storeroom, looked around, totally forgot what I'd gone in there for and then so then had to go back into the day room where my patient and lots of other patients were sat and I just looked totally dumbfounded. I like I was going back. I was like what was I looking for? They reminded me and off I went again and I mean it's, it wouldn't have been uncommon that probably I'd have to come back again. Mikey's always at me going. I just told you that and I'm aware that he's just told me and I've completely forgotten. I'm literally like a goldfish.
Speaker 1:So the benefits of supporting our testosterone levels. It's so important. Yes, we want to make sure that we've got our libido there. I mean, it's not over for us in our 40s, 50s, is it no? Or beyond. We want to make sure that we've got enough energy. We definitely want to have good levels of mood. You know we don't want to be feeling flat or not motivated. That's a horrible place to be?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely. We want to continue to support that muscle mass, that strength again, that bone density so so important and again all part of that helping regulate fat distribution and your body composition yeah, so we can't discount testosterone, so we have to do an episode on it, having covered progesterone and estrogen.
Speaker 1:So funny. So yeah again, if you want to speak to us and continue the conversation, then come into the far too fabulous facebook group and maybe you've got an experience with low testosterone or you've, you know, looked at this, looked into this yourself. Maybe even the gps helped you.
Speaker 2:It'd be so interesting tonight if anybody's had any experience with this yeah, because, again, this conversation it you know menopause is is up and coming as a conversation, thankfully, but I think that testosterone is definitely the less spoken about thing and it would be yeah, it'd be great to, and I think from what we've been talking about today, it will have a big impact. So it'd be really great to know your experiences. So, yeah, please do come and join us in the Facebook group and you can enlighten us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review your support helps us on our mission to reach a thousand women in our first year so share with your friends and family. You might just change your life.
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