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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
Navigating Peri Menopause: From Doom and Gloom to Empowered Living
Episode 59
This episode focuses on empowering women as they navigate their hormonal health. By exploring practical steps to manage hormonal changes, we aim to transform feelings of doom and gloom into a proactive approach.
• Importance of acknowledging symptoms of hormonal shifts
• Proactive steps to improve hormonal health
• The value of nutrition, hydration, and sleep
• Assessing lifestyle habits through a personal wheel of life
• Strategies to manage stress effectively
• Encouragement to foster community and support
• Key takeaways on self-awareness and empowerment
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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 wellbeing. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. You're laughing already again, aren't you? I've tried to be more jolly and you're laughing at me. Hello, hello, did I say. Did I say, is that like a policeman, you? Need to be like bobbing up and down that was my posh telephone voice I tried to use then that was good Was that your radio voice.
Speaker 2:That is my radio voice.
Speaker 1:What are we doing today, julie? Okay, so we have been doing this series on hormones. It's a very serious series, yes indeed, and we have gone over what the hormones do, the symptoms, and now we're going to start to tell you what you can do to help yourself.
Speaker 2:That sounds like fun actually, because I I mean, we did keep saying all the way through lots of these episodes that it sounded a bit doom and gloom, and we don't want it to sound like that. We want you to just be aware of what is going on and I mean, let's face it, some of these symptoms are shit and it is a bit doom and gloom and it feels a little bit doom and gloom.
Speaker 1:So hopefully this is the light for you, that you're going to feel empowered to be able to do something yeah, and I think it's going to depend on where you are in your journey of your hormones changing, because if you're already into your 50s or even 60s or beyond and you're on hrt, then there may be different things that you do versus someone who is in their early 40s and is just starting to think maybe, oh, am I perimenopausal?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a really good differentiation between those two.
Speaker 2:I'm just really pleased I got that whole word out.
Speaker 2:Anyway, carry on very, very good, because you'll do different things and and hopefully, if you're in sort of my stage of life I, my neighbor, asked me how old I was and it took me at least a minute for me to actually count on my fingers from 1979 to work out how old it was if you're around 45 years old and you're in that sort of beginning stages of perimenopause, to be able to implement what we're talking about before any of the symptoms really ramp up is going to be so valuable.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know, I'm aware, fully aware, that I'm talking to female human beings that will basically not do anything until they are crawling along the floor half dead. I appreciate that and I am one of you. However, if we could be a little bit proactive and implement some of this, that would be absolutely amazing. Versus, yeah, someone that might be in the thick of symptoms and you might need to do something slightly different or appreciate that it might take a little bit of time for what you're going to do to kick in yeah, so on this episode we are going to go through the foundations really.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't necessarily matter what phase that you're at. You've you've got to come at it from your basic needs. Didn't we do an episode about your basic needs?
Speaker 2:I don't do. We talk about that every now and again?
Speaker 1:I think we might do I think it's called the legs of a chair. Yeah, we're going to talk about that again. We are going to talk about legs for chair again, but we also did one about your basic needs, I'm sure, which probably relates to that as well, but it doesn't necessarily matter whether you're, you know, in your early 40s or you're in your 50s or beyond. There are some key things that we all need to do in order to help support our body and its hormone systems. Really, and regardless of what you build on top of that nutrition, your hydration, your sleep and your movement, and just almost give yourself a little bit of a score out of 10, I think how am I doing in this area? Do I need to focus on this? You could do it like you. You know you have that wheel of life. I was thinking about that as I was saying that wheel of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all separated up, isn't it? And you're you're looking at your work life and your social life and all that sort of things. So, to draw a circle, split it into quarters. Zero is the middle, isn't it? Tens the top, yeah, and you score yourself out of 10 as to how well you're doing, zero being you're not doing very well.
Speaker 2:And then, 10 being, you've absolutely nailed it and you get to just draw. You can colour it in, you can have fun with it if you want to. I often end up doing that and then it gives you an idea of where you're at right now, and then maybe you aim to do that at the end of every month and just see how you're improving yeah, I think it's a really good visual tool because you can see it straight away, especially when you color it in and things.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing that I would tend to advise people do is to make a note of the symptoms that they're experiencing, especially if they're still having their periods. Well, not especially you can do it if you haven't, but if you tie it into your monthly cycle if you're still having periods and you score that on a one to 10 as well, and then you start to be able to pick out what is really the key driver here.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting because it gives you something to focus on as we go through things that you can do. You'll find that when you implement one thing, even if it's like just hydration say, we're talking headaches and you think, right, I'm going to tackle this with hydration, it will help with that, but it's going to help with everything.
Speaker 1:Everything, because we banged on about hydration, because it's so important. So, yeah, get your. So, yeah, get your symptoms. Get your symptoms list or just note anything that's going on. You know whether it's. Oh, we've changed seasons now and I haven't done anything different from last spring, but now my spring clothes are actually a bit tight and I don't know why that's happened.
Speaker 2:No, and I mean, that's a big indicator that drives people to seek change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you don't. That's a horrible feeling when you get your clothes out of the storage and then you think, hang a minute. I was wearing these shorts last year and now they're too bloody small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a suitcase up in the loft with all of my sort of spring and summer clothes and then I swap it for my winter clothes and there is a a small percentage of that suitcase that never, ever leaves the suitcase. I'm not the only one that that still mutters I'll fit into that one day. But the ridiculous thing is that and we were just having this conversation I am a different shape and size. Yeah, me too, and I mean some of these, oh yeah, some of these are very, very old. Some of them I wore god when I was probably about I was probably about 20 I was still deluding myself that I'm going to be able to fit into them. Gotta, let them go, catherine. Gotta, let them go.
Speaker 2:The annoying thing is the thing that is always in the back of my head is there is actually, I mean, there's no reason why I couldn't get into back into a lot of these clothes if I was really, really driven. There is no reason why I couldn't have the body maybe not of a 16 or 20 year old. That's quite ridiculous. And would I want it? That's what makes me hold on to it. It's I don't, I don't. I think I actually have the motivation within me to be that dedicated for it. But that's what makes me hold on to it is that there. There is no reason why I could not get that body back again if I really dedicated myself to it. But I probably have to give up, you know, being a parent or a business owner or anything else, and just fully dedicate myself to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's not the answer and at the end of the day, it's. It makes me a little bit annoyed that we have so much focus on that size of clothes and that being able to go back to where we were before. We want to really focus on being strong and healthy, which we both advocate, but because of the conditioning and it's so hard, isn't it to just let that go?
Speaker 2:it's really hard I do flick between. I'm going to dress for my body and know that I'm fabulous and know that my body is amazing to. I'd really like to wear a little crop top once in a while. And then there's the whole thing. Well, why the hell shouldn't I? Even if there is a little bit of fat rolling over the top, why shouldn't I do that? And again, yeah, that's that, that conditioning that we've had for forever, in a day yeah, that is another subject altogether, isn't it?
Speaker 1:oh, my goodness me so. But just noticing anything that's starting to change. You know we've gone through a lot of symptoms that can be related to hormonal changes. But don't forget that your hormones when we're talking hormones, we're talking about the sex hormones are part of that massive orchestra that the adrenal hormones are involved in, the thyroid hormones are involved in, the blood sugar regulation hormones are involved in. So when we're looking at you know symptoms around oh, could it be that my progesterone is starting to go low? Could it be that my estrogen is starting to go crazy? It's part of that big orchestra. So the answer especially from my perspective, I think, is not just to go oh, I need some hrt like we said earlier, create those really strong foundations.
Speaker 2:So we were discussing earlier on before we recorded about you. Use the example of estrogen. What we're talking about, remind me raising or plummeting, and usually your body has that support of that hormone and then suddenly it's totally gone and your body needs the other things around it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember to to support it. This is such a key one because there's never just one thing that your body does. It has backup plans, it has other mechanisms. So if we're looking at, for example, you've suddenly started experiencing anxiety. We know that progesterone is involved in those neurotransmitters, but we also know that those transmitters are reliant on the initial ingredient being a protein. We know that it's. It needs certain vitamins, like b6 or a mineral magnesium. There are other things that the body needs in order to get down that pathway, to get down that road. So when progesterone is taken out of the picture, you can look and see what other support you can give your body and put those in place, and then the body's like, okay, great, you know, we haven't got that ingredient now, but we've got these other ones, so we can still get down this pathway. Therefore, we don't need to create anxiety because we've got our dopamine and our serotonin and the neurotransmitters balanced, yeah, and that's I mean, and it's empowering to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:I do appreciate that when anxiety rears its ugly head, it's scary, and I appreciate that the instant reaction might be to go and seek some sort of medical help, because it's it's a horrible, weird feeling and you'll be like what on earth is going on. And I mean, actually I'm glad that we we have that support available and I'm glad that we're all having these conversations much, much more, so that people don't think that they are just losing their minds. It's yeah, it's exciting to be able to support ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that you know. If you have got symptoms that especially out of the blue, and you've never had them before and you don't know what's going on, then of course go to the doctor and find out, speak through the symptoms, get any checks done. Ok, well, we've diagnosed it as anxiety. It may be due to progesterone starting to decline. It may be due to the hormones starting to change. Here's some HRT, here's some anti-anxiety medication. Off you go Then.
Speaker 1:From my perspective, I would be. I usually go to the doctor to get some help with confirming what I already know most of the time and just making sure that there's nothing sinister going on. That's normally the reason I would go. Then I get a diagnosis and then I see what medication that they suggest I take. I usually look and see what is this medication acting on, and then I'll do it in a natural way. Of course, it's easier for me because I've got the knowledge of how to do that, but for a person that's starting to experience some of these symptoms they're making a note of them.
Speaker 1:If something is suddenly out of the blue, especially symptoms like you suddenly get flooding in your period, that should be checked out. Definitely, definitely for sure. But then, once you've kind of made a note of it, you've gone to the doctor. If that's needed, then you can take a step back and say, right, what do I now need to do? Because I've just done my will, looking at my hydration, my movement, my nutrition, my sleep, and I am not doing well, I thought you said I've just done my will.
Speaker 2:I was like it's not that bad yet no, not yet your wheel.
Speaker 1:The wheel, yes, I need to check that pronunciation, don't I? The wheel with your things in? Yeah, and then that's so funny because that's gonna sound like that, isn't it? Yeah, I've done my way. What?
Speaker 2:you know, it's not that bad, yeah, yeah, see you later guys bye.
Speaker 1:And this is why we do the podcast together, catherine, so you can pick me up on these things when I say them, and I know what I'm saying in my head. We know what you're saying but yeah. So, anyway, going back to that, yeah, you're looking at those four things and I would say that the vast majority of people, when they look at that, will see something obviously out of balance yeah, again, we were talking earlier on there could be other things causing anxiety.
Speaker 2:You've just used the the example of anxiety, but there could be something else causing anxiety, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, so a lot of the symptoms that you will get from having a hormone imbalance, where your sex hormones are starting to change, are very, very similar or also involved with the same hormones that your body's producing when under stress stress.
Speaker 2:No one's under stress, julia, I don't know what you're talking about. Why would we know what that felt like?
Speaker 1:stress. Oh, it's such a difficult one, isn't it? Again it comes back to we've all got stress right. We live in a in a world where there are stresses. There's always been stresses. Even when we were living in a cave, there was stress I imagine that was probably more stressful, right?
Speaker 2:because I mean that was literally life-threatening, yeah, life and death survival.
Speaker 1:So we we can't get rid of stress and in fact some of those stress hormones are really beneficial. So we don't want to just eradicate stress completely, because stress can be good for us. But the vast majority of people are living in constant stress that's having implications in the background of everything going on in their body. So we've got to address the stress there, because that is a major part of the orchestra and it's like that part of the orchestra has gone completely off on its own. It's playing a different it's jazz, it's all.
Speaker 1:It's all doing whatever it wants, all of the time, yeah, and if you think about it like that, if that is the root cause, and I don't know, the strings section has gone completely crazy, because that is your adrenals, your stress response. There is no way that adding more wind instruments into that orchestra is going to help.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, that is the best example. Come on, yes, yeah, exactly, and as you're talking there, so I'm now thinking so what do we do for stress and guess what? It's the same things, the same same things. And it's because so from my point of view, it's because.
Speaker 2:So, from my point of view, it's because we are not working through this kind of modern version of stress, whereas if we were stressed because we were being chased by a saber-toothed tiger or a bear or what have you, then we would be. We'd be using all these hormones that have been pumped into our body to run, we'd be using them up. And then been pumped into our body to run, we'd be using them up.
Speaker 1:And then there's a definitive end to it. That's the thing. That's what the body's looking for. It's looking for that that threat has gone away now and so I can kind of go back to normal and regulate things, but the way that we live our lives now, we don't have that definitive end, so it just carries on. It's like the tiger is always in the room and just constantly, just pumping that into your body.
Speaker 2:It's just constantly flowing through your body and there's no, there's no release of it. Literally, imagine it sat in your body, rotting, which is what stress does, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does so, because we can't get rid of stress completely. It's another one where there are stresses in our life that we can't control, but we can control our reaction to it. That's the first thing, and I've done this exercise many times in my life where I've written down everything that stresses me out and then I've actually crossed off all the things that I cannot control. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:And then I've actually crossed off all the things that I cannot control I love that, and then you end up with a list of things that you can control or you can control your reaction to, and those are the things that you work on. And sometimes that stress might be you're not getting enough sleep because you are using that time in the evening for your downtime, because you've had a busy day and then you've got to get kids to sleep, and then it's 11 o'clock and then you've got stuff to do. We've spoken about this before. Go to bed and then you'll be able to function much better the next day. But it's just it's.
Speaker 2:It seems like they're little things, but they make a huge difference when you're looking at that orchestra again I love that and I imagine I really like that as a as a method, actually as a tool, and I imagine, as you write some of those things down that you're feeling stressed about, I imagine some of them are almost laughable. Yeah, they are, yeah right. When you actually write it down and go, look, that's, that's ridiculous, let's just, let's just cross that one off straight away, yeah there are things that I will write down everything.
Speaker 1:You know, if you sit quietly and you do that writing, where you just continuously just write everything down, you can put things on that are like in my house there is only one toilet roll fairy and that seems to be me, and I will put that on my list, you know, yeah, but you are right, it's laughable in a way.
Speaker 1:It's like you've complained to somebody. I've written it down, yeah, and then I cross it off because I just go look, it don't take me that long to go and put the toilet rolls around and it's not even worth the time of day of worrying about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah for the time of day of worrying about it. Yeah, yeah, I love that you need to maybe get another toilet roll fairy.
Speaker 1:I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Yeah, so there'd be lots of things, but there'd be big things on there that maybe you can't do anything about at the moment and you just cross them off and then, or you decide that you react differently. Yeah, turn the news off.
Speaker 2:You can't do turn the news off. You can't do turn the news off. You can't do anything. Mostly can't do anything about everything that's going on around the world. Try and make your. If you, what? If you feel like you need to make a difference, make it locally yeah, just a funny thing about not having the news on.
Speaker 1:You know that we generally don't listen to the news and stuff. We were going for a dog walk the other morning and we were walking quite a way. So we were walking from where I live into town, which is quite a reasonable walk between eight and nine o'clock in the morning, and we didn't see anyone right, which is really weird, isn't it? We're walking a dog in an area where you would normally see lots of people. What do they all know?
Speaker 1:that we don't know we had that conversation, with my husband going oh, I wonder if something's going on. You know, yeah, but we don't listen to it, so we don't know. We're clueless, yeah how do?
Speaker 2:how do we know when they've evacuated whitstable?
Speaker 1:so bizarre, so bizarre. And then we were going to a cafe for breakfast actually very indulgent, because we haven't got any kids for half time and it's quite different and also pretty cool. So we were going for breakfast and even when we arrived at the cafe there was no one there in a cafe that's normally busy on a Wednesday morning and we walked in and we just had a bit of a laugh about that. Yeah, what's going on that we don't know?
Speaker 2:that's so funny, how weird. Funny how half term makes the whole world react differently yeah, so where were we with our discussions?
Speaker 1:so we were talking about stress and just making a note of avoiding the news, I think, because it's so negative. And do you need to hear that? I mean, this is. Another laughable thing is that I had the radio on and it's been EastEnders, like 40th anniversary or something oh, is that why I'm seeing loads of adverts recently?
Speaker 1:yes, eastenders yeah, and they were doing they. You know it's all going kicking off, apparently, but I listened, by accident really, to the you know the preview, the clip that they run on the radio, and I listened to it and I thought why on earth would I want to subject myself to that? It sounded horrendous. Even listening to that clip was sounded stressful. People were in pain, people were shouting, there was stuff going on. I thought why on earth would you watch that when it, your brain, doesn't know the difference between, in terms of its signaling, what's real and what isn't?
Speaker 2:yeah, I agree, I appreciate that they cover some subjects that people will relate to and it's nice for people to see that, but no, I completely agree. Then normally it's absolutely miserable or horrific and I don't have time or space for that in my life although we've just offended, all the people listening to us see what she said that's not the case.
Speaker 1:But, just like you know, I think we all know or we've experienced how we feel if we've watched something disturbing whether that's a fictional program before going to bed. It plays on your mind and you can't sleep. I've had that quite a few times with things and so I just I avoid them, yeah mikey confided in me the other day that he watched something I think it was.
Speaker 2:I've got a horrible feeling it was something like it and that he was affected by it for for like weeks afterwards I was like well, thank you, thanks for telling me that years afterwards now I can't do anything about it. Yeah, it really. It affects you and you, like your conscious mind knows that these things are not real, or, if we're listening to the, to the news or stuff, that you're not in imminent danger, although sometimes, sometimes I wonder about that. But you, just you absorb it all into your subconscious and then you make decisions based on what's been absorbed into your subconscious mind and that could affect you in all sorts of ways. So really be very fiercely protective of of what you soak into you yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you're looking at your symptoms and you're relating it back to that orchestra and you're thinking to yourself, yeah, I am really having an issue with the stress section of that orchestra, then working on that is going to have a knock-on effect of everything else, because it's it's little things like when you're stressed, because these are connected. When you're stressed, your body will not make testosterone. It will move that into it's called an aromatase. That happens. It will move that into estrogen. So you'll get excess estrogen and it will send half of it down that way and the other half will go to those cortisol and those adrenaline and the adrenal hormones that are triggered from a stress response.
Speaker 1:So already a stress response is going to cause an imbalance in the sex hormone. It's going to cause an imbalance in how your body regulates blood sugars. So now your percussion has gone down because your body is now flooding whatever sugar it can find into your bloodstream to fuel the fight and flight, which doesn't often happen, because then we're not running or fighting are we. We're just stewing over at our desk or sat in the car or whatever. And so therefore you've got a. You've got an impact there. It has an impact on the thyroid. The thyroid will slow down naturally when you're under stress to conserve nutrients and to manage how much fuel you're kind of utilizing. It's really clever system but if you've got that constant stress it's having a knock-on effect there, but it can have the effect the other way. So it could be that your stress response is actually fine and you're not stressed, but it is your thyroid and the thyroid will feed back to the adrenals. It could be your blood sugar.
Speaker 2:So I think, understanding where your symptoms are at and seeing like what is the actual dominant one, I suppose, and being a bit of a detective of yourself, yeah, and again, as I'm listening to you talk about all of the symptoms and then how your body reacts, loads of that is what's going on in perimenopause as well. They just, yeah, totally mirror each other. Menopause as well they just, yeah, totally mirror each other.
Speaker 1:and so, again, lots of what we're going to talk about with regards to being proactive is going to fix it all, hopefully, yeah, yeah. So putting the foundations in place. So, whatever stage you're at, first of all look at your nutrition and you can be honest with yourself. Again, writing a food diary is very, very telling oh, my goodness, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it's like the writing down of what's stressing you out. Yeah, you're like, oh, in black and white it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really, if you if you've written a food diary, you will know this to be true, and I know that you've written a food diary, catherine. When you have to write down everything, you eat everything. You have this moment where you might decide not to eat that thing because you've got to write it down yeah, absolutely, and thinking about the amount that you're eating of it.
Speaker 2:So, rather than so, if you're going to write crackers down, you're actually going to write four crackers. Oh, five crackers. Oh, hang on, I've come back six crackers. The portion sizes and things like that are really important to be able to look at as well and it's really telling.
Speaker 1:And this and this is not, at this stage, about going on a diet or what's best should I go, you know, a keto diet? Should I go paleo? Should I go vegan? It's not about that. It's looking at what you're currently doing and noticing that, okay, yeah, I need to go back to basics, and basics are making sure that you've got sufficient protein. I mean, we have been saying this a few times about protein. It's definitely going to come up once we get into that perimenopausal phase. We've got to up our protein because that's the building blocks for everything, and we need to make sure that we're eating enough colorful fruits and vegetables and that we've got good quality carbs in there and good fats. That's the place to start. Get the processed foods out, go back to basics and I think we all really know inside what the basics are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah don't we absolutely?
Speaker 1:and it's not going from a our current diet to oh, I'm gonna go vegan now because that's gonna help me, and then I'm gonna go and buy a load of processed vegan food. That is not the answer.
Speaker 2:No, I so the awareness as we we say this. We've been saying this for the whole time.
Speaker 2:The awareness part of it is really, really crucial. And then, once you are aware, putting a plan in place, getting a little bit organized so that you can make the right choices. Because in our crazy society and we are so busy I was thinking the other day I wanted to. What was I doing? I was going down to get my nails done and I was trying to work out a way that I had time and I know this sounds insane that I had time to be able to walk down to the salon, have my nails done and then come back again and I just couldn't fit it all in. And it made me really aware of like.
Speaker 2:Where, where things like are added, bits of exercise and movement disappear is when we're so short on time. So I want to be able to create a life where I can walk down to choir rather than have to leap in the car because I've totally run out of time and I'm flying down the hill, walk down and get my nails done, not have to just sort of run around the block with the dog going what is that?
Speaker 2:it that sort of thing, because it's always those things that seem to get taken, taken out. And so being able to form a plan with your food that keeps it simple because, I mean, that's why we grab the convenient stuff, isn't it? Because we're we're short on time, maybe we're so stressed we actually can't think outside the box and make something, so we just grab something that's already pre-prepared. So being able to plan what you're going to do and when you're going to do it just takes that thought away. When you're stood in the middle of the supermarket, you're like I don't know especially if you're hungry, right then.
Speaker 1:I actually had a moment in the supermarket a few days ago where I hadn't done a plan and I literally was like an idiot in the supermarket I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1:It was actually. I found that quite stressful because I was thinking what, what am I getting? I don't know what I'm getting, and it was mainly because the kids aren't here. Like I've said, I've got two Japanese students with me who are on a bit of a limited diet and I thought I just need to pop up to the supermarket to get a few bits to get me by. And because I always have a plan when I go to the supermarket and I didn't have one, I literally couldn't function. I tell you it was actually ridiculous.
Speaker 2:A limited diet is that what you're going to call it. I'm going to call it a limited diet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very just going to leave it there. Incorrect. I was talking about on another episode. But we're saying about not wanting people to see you in the supermarket because I've got these two students that are on their limited diet. I'm gonna call it. I was just buying what I would call the most crappiest food, thinking please don't let anybody see me buying this crappy food because I need that sign now on my head that says it's not for me.
Speaker 2:I've got students, so if you ever see a person in aldi shopping with a blanket over themselves as a trolley, you'll know it's Julie shopping for her students every time.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the food, because once you've written that food diary and it's really telling and, like I said, this is not about going on a diet you will be able to obviously see from your food diary are you overeating in one portion of food? Is it carbohydrates? Is it too much? Is there too much snacking going on in there? Is there too much alcohol? Is there not enough colourful vegetables? Is there too much processed food? And just pick one thing and do that first. Don't overhaul the whole thing because you won't stick with it.
Speaker 2:No, we spoke about that for New Year's resolutions.
Speaker 1:All or nothing. All or nothing, all or nothing doesn't work for most people.
Speaker 2:Look for the winning bits, like the alcohol. The alcohol is a really sneaky one the amount of empty calories and the knock-on effect it has as to what you want to eat at the time and then what you want to eat the next day so that's a really, really simple one, and especially the effect that it has on our changing female bodies, is we can't process it and it's not anything we can do about it.
Speaker 2:There's no shame, there's nothing. We just don't process it the same as we used to and it's a poison. So being able to reduce or just take that out of the equation, even if it's just for a bit, we're not saying go to total for the rest of your life, no, and give yourself an easy like win, and then you're like, yeah, okay, I can do, I can do that. So now look what next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then just from my perspective dealing with food all the time and nutrition is that you can make huge changes in as little as five days. I mean, we've done five day plans that have been even given our fairly good foundation here. If we really target something for five days, we've seen dramatic changes. So if you focus on that for a month having maybe been to the doctor if you needed to, but before you go down the route of okay, I need to add a whole load of violins into my orchestra, before you go down that route, do some focus on the basics, that's, your food intake for a month, and check in with those symptoms that you wrote down and see how much has changed, what's going on. So, as we've said many times, awareness is key. So if you do write those symptoms down, you've written your stress down, you've done your food diary and you just go back to the basics and start to make changes. And the same goes for drinking water, for getting to bed on time and for movement.
Speaker 2:I'll let you bang on about movement, katherine like I was saying that we need to try and set our lives up so that it is part of our lives. I obviously will advocate movement in any way, shape or form that I can get you to do it, but it's much more efficient if you're doing your walking, doing your steps, doing your weightlifting with your shopping bags, rather than your poor old Ocado driver shuffling in for you. It's much better to be able to get these extra bits of movement and strength and exercise and energy from your everyday life. You do need to do extra. Particularly the group of women that we are talking to now need to be doing lots of extra stuff, and I think we're going to go a bit deeper into that in the next episode of this series. It's very important. Yeah, kind of just just fit again, just make it easy, try and play on easy.
Speaker 1:I think the exercise movement situation is very interesting because there are a lot of people, the way their life's set up like you said about wanting to walk to choir and factor that in and things is that they are sat at a desk all day and then think that just doing three hour exercise classes a week is going to cut it. Yeah, and it's just not, is it?
Speaker 2:and that. But, that said, if you have been sat at your desk all day, I know that the last thing you feel like doing is going and doing a class or going and doing a run or whatever it is. It is so important. Just think about the amount of saber-toothed tigers you've encountered whilst you've been sat on your bottom for 12 hours. You need to go and run those off. You need to go and box those off. You need to go and stretch those off. It's really important to be able to get that movement in every day.
Speaker 2:I am, as I'm saying this, I am currently thinking about one of my clients who, if she listens to this, I am just celebrating you. She's having such a busy, busy time at work. She's getting up at the before the crack of dawn. She is sat at her desk, she's and I know that it's stressful and she's absolutely plowing away and what she does is messages on the membership group, our facebook group, and says I'm going to be at this class at 6 30 and, pretty much without fail, she has been on my screen at 6 30 boxing away all of those saber-toothed tigers that she's been fighting, sat in her chair, all day she scheduled it in, and then she made herself accountable by posting about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's written.
Speaker 2:Do you know what else she's doing? She's bringing people with her. Everybody's looking and seeing what she's. Yeah, and it's. And you know what else she's doing? She's bringing people with her. Everybody's looking and seeing what she's doing and she's being a shining example and other people are doing it, which is amazing, and that's the ripple effect that we get to have on all of the women around us. So the women that are experiencing the same things that we are experiencing, and the younger women our daughters, our nieces that are around and looking at how we are behaving. So we're a generation that has just started to talk about menopause. Whilst we are going through it, hopefully, our daughters generation are going to be already keyed up and pre-prepared for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're going to be able to be proactive, aren't they? It's, um, I think that we've got to a stage now where, because of this constant stress, we do need to put things in place, that we are telling our bodies that the stress has got an end, or we're saying to our bodies we need to switch out of sympathetic nervous system now, and we can do that by doing an exercise class, by walking in nature, by doing meditation, by laughing, by doing the things that bring us joy, because you can't be in sympathetic nervous system and laughing. So once you're aware again, actually my stress is a major factor. It's impacting across the orchestra. What can I manage, what can't I manage? Cross off the things that you can't do anything about, look at the what's remaining and then give your body instructions on how to switch off the stress. And I've said this before and I'm going to say it again if you are on a poor diet and you're not getting enough nutrition, you are stressing your body. Stress, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:yeah, so using that good stress when you're thinking about exercise and all that sort of thing and don't add the bad stress Really really important. Another thing that we spoke about that was really really important was mindset, and.
Speaker 1:But we can influence our mind, I think. Sometimes we think that we can't control our emotions and our reactions, but actually we can. We are in charge of that to a great degree. So if we are starting to have symptoms and then we've gone, oh no, it's the menopause. Blah, blah, doom and gloom. This is the end of it. But you know, then we put ourselves in that cycle of destruction, really, don't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and notice that we are in a society that does not appreciate the older person, does not value the older person, and that really plays into when you start to notice menopause symptoms that you think, oh, that this is this is it, this is the decline, this is the end, my friend, I'm all right, I've written my will remember yeah, no need to run for the world, although it's a very good thing to have.
Speaker 2:So please do that. Yes, please do that too, whereas in many, many societies around the world, the aging people in that community are so valued, not just for their knowledge but for their physical work like contribution, yeah, huge, absolutely they're the ones that are maybe looking after other children.
Speaker 2:If the, if the parents have got small babies, they're looking after the grandchildren, they're still going out and doing the physical work that maybe the child bearing age of people. They're looking after the kids. So, yeah, it's just, they're so valued and it's such a shame that that is not in our society any longer no, it really, it really isn't.
Speaker 1:And so you could understand why, once you get to this kind of age and you're having these transitions with your hormones, that you can feel a bit doom and gloom about it. But, like we said, the body will follow the mind. So if you're going in with a positive outlook on it and you're being proactive and you're empowered because you're looking at okay, this is what's going on, here's what I can do it makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even if it's just the uh, the thought that you're not gonna have a period anymore, that's got a big thing right. You're not going to have a period anymore, that's got to be a good thing, right. You don't have to deal with that anymore. And actually, statistically, these are the best years of our lives, certainly, for so I know we're not talking about men, but for men, their prime earning years are in their 50s, so it's going to be be similar for for working women. Now I imagine it's probably a harder thing to uh, to try and quantify, but these are the yeah, these are the times when maybe we've got a little bit more money, maybe we've got a little bit more time to be able to, like, spend time with ourselves and money on ourselves. So, yes, not doom and gloom, no.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think mindset is really important and we probably end up talking a bit more about that in future episodes as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic so it's been some really great practical tips. So we're talking about writing down what's stressing you, we're talking about doing those four parts of that wheel and really monitoring it. A food diary is a really, really awesome thing to do and, yes, some practical tips for you to to get going with yeah, as ever, you can continue the conversation in the far too fabulous facebook group.
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