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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.
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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
Thrive Through Menopause: A Holistic Guide to Wellness
Episode 60
Our latest episode dives into how to manage hormonal changes during menopause by establishing a strong foundation for health. We discuss the interplay of stress, diet, and exercise, encouraging women to embrace lifestyle adjustments for wellness.
• Importance of understanding hormonal changes during menopause
• The role of stress in exacerbating hormonal symptoms
• Building basic foundations: diet, movement, hydration, and sleep
• Effects of oestrogen and its connection to various physical symptoms
• Strategies to monitor hormonal cycles and adjust lifestyle over time
• Emphasis on women's empowerment through exercise for hormone balance
• How to self-advocate and prioritise personal wellness during transition
• Community engagement to share experiences and support
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Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine, 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.
Speaker 1:Let's dive in. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Far Too Fabulous with me, Julie and me, Catherine. Yeah, I thought I'd come in with a different intro today. I like that one, Okay. So we are continuing on with our series on hormones and we are going to be going into a bit more detail about specifics around what to do when these hormones start to change. So we must emphasize that you need to have done the foundation work and looked at stress. Why is this important, katherine?
Speaker 2:because it messes it all up and the weird thing is like, if you've listened to, if you haven't listened to all of these episodes, go back to the very beginning and just listen to them one by one, because they do kind of follow on. They do there are a few meandering bits, but they do kind of follow on. But, like we were saying in the last episode, as well as stress kind of messing up all of these symptoms, it also mimics lots of the well-known symptoms of menopause. So being able to just deal with this thing first of all sets you on a like an even playing field yeah, I heard it.
Speaker 1:I heard it described as if you imagine that you are setting a fire. Stress is like putting a can of petrol on the fire rather than just using a fire, absolutely amplifies everything, everything, yeah yeah, because they're all interconnected.
Speaker 1:Like we said, we've got this big orchestra of hormones. Everything's interconnected. But first of all we've got to lay the foundations. Have we looked at our diet, just generally, overall, I think most of us know what a healthy, balanced diet is. And if we look at a food diary, just generally, overall, I think most of us know what a healthy, balanced diet is. And if we look at a food diary that we've written, we can be fairly honest with ourself whether that meets that criteria or not. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely so. Start off there. Then we've got to add on our movement, look at our sleep hygiene and make sure that we are drinking sufficient water. Those are the basic things, aren't they going back to the four legs of a chair scenario again? So we've done that and we've done that for a few weeks and we're monitoring our symptoms and we're seeing what's happening. Now hormones are actually on a cycle. Although we cycle ourselves over a 28 day ish period, the the actual maturity of those hormones coming through is actually over a three month period. So really to see any significant changes, if we're monitoring hormones, we need to do it over a three month period so that we know what's working, what isn't we got. You've got to give yourself time. This is not a magic wand.
Speaker 2:Take this pill situation yeah, and and I mean I appreciate that we want things to have happened yesterday. We're in that kind of society, aren't we, when we, you know, click on the amazon link and it arrives. Well, sometimes they arrive that day, that day, yeah, which is mind-blowing anyway. So it's really hard when you and especially if it, if you're dealing with unwanted symptoms that you want them to go away immediately, and you'll get frustrated that after, like I don't know, a week of quote, unquote being good, nothing has changed. You also have to appreciate that the things that you are changing you have probably been doing for year upon year upon year upon year, and so to expect that something that you maybe have been doing for like 15, 20, 30 years to change in two or three weeks is unrealistic. So give yourself a break.
Speaker 1:Give yourself a chance to make these changes and see the results yeah, the thing is is that when we, when we've got issues and we're thinking to ourselves, allow ourselves three months, we feel like that's such a long time. But actually we know how fast time goes and three months is nothing really, and although we're allowing that time for things to change in our body, things will be gradually changing over that time. So it's not you've got these horrible symptoms. You've got to do this work for three months and then suddenly it tips and everything's fine. It's not like that. Things will get better anyway, and I've seen people have dramatic changes in as little as five days by just reducing the sugar, removing the alcohol a bit or reducing that as well, and just minor little things. You probably see that with your clients when they move a bit more.
Speaker 2:Oh, just the first stretch and you just watch their body kind of wake up. You're like there it is, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think we need to allow ourselves time, but we need to put the foundations in. So, before we even start to go down that route of oh, I've got this symptom, therefore, I need this product or this, whatever it is, we got to look at are my foundations strong? It's so important. I cannot bang on about it enough. And you're the same, aren't you?
Speaker 2:no, I completely, completely agree. And just we've said this before as well just because some of these things are like you think everybody knows it and that they are relatively simple does not mean that they are not so effective. I know that when I get enough sleep, I function a million times better on every level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's about the choices you make with your food that day, then, when you're not tired. Yeah, it's how you interact with other people. It's, it's everything, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:and so that, with many of the things that we're going to talk about today, it does that it has an effect on all sorts of little pockets of your life yeah, so get the foundations in place.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing that we want to really look at is that stress picture. We've already said on a previous episode that we have stress. We can't get away from stress. Some stress is good for us, but we need to really almost take a bigger picture of ourselves. It's almost like we look down on ourselves and see not look down on ourselves in a negative way I mean like you know, from the outside, in looking what's going on here, what can I address?
Speaker 1:because, like we said, if you've got stress going on and you're not dealing with it, it is just like throwing that petrol onto that fire when those hormones are starting to change. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So we've sorted that all out. We are eating a nice balanced diet with lots of uh beautiful colors. We are drinking plenty of water two plus liters a day, depending on who you are and what you're up to. Yep, we are sleeping, for us plenty, like seven, eight hours a a night. I was listening to a really interesting podcast about that. I won't go on about it now, but it was really interesting about sleep. But, yeah, getting plenty of sleep, and we have got a really fabulous plan for moving our body and strengthening our body.
Speaker 1:So we've got all that nailed yeah and we are looking at our stress management and hopefully managing that yeah, but it doesn't have to be perfect either, like when we're saying we're nailing it. It's not like we are we've got the perfect diet every day and we're doing our movement every day.
Speaker 1:It's not about being perfect, it's about that is more your default, yeah than the stuff that's not going to help yeah, no absolutely, and so then we start to specifically look at what symptoms we're getting and what else we can do yeah, so the very first hormone that we looked at was oestrogen, and we know that oestrogen is involved with the bones, we know that it's involved with the hydration and the, the fluids and the joints, and and that, yeah, that dryness that we experience is often due to estrogen being low and there's a connection with heart. There's lots of things that it's involved with, but we generally tend to think about it, I think, in terms of hot flushes, the dryness, for sure, and probably the weight gain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a real tricky one, and I mean it isn't surprising because it's played such a massive part in the whole of our body for the whole of our lives yeah, and it's not like it's going to all go.
Speaker 1:You know, initially in that perimenopausal phase, when it goes a bit crazy and we get highs and we get lows, and then it starts to decline, it's not like it's just going to completely go. We still maintain some level of oestrogen, but oestrogen is on that seesaw with progesterone. So when we're looking at if dryness is your main symptom, then you could almost call it a bit of an oestrogen picture, couldn't you? Yeah, but it might be that you haven't got sufficient progesterone to balance the oestrogen. So we've got to go back to that orchestra and look at the whole situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, with regards to nutrition and a decline in estrogen, what? What do we do there?
Speaker 1:so when estrogen declines, because of that of involvement in bone health, we're going to need some, some nutrients that are going to make sure that our bone health is secure. So we've got to have calcium in our bones and we need calcium, vitamin d, boron, magnesium. There's quite a group of nutrients that we need to keep our calcium in the bones, because it's very common to get calcium loss and bone loss when we start to transition, uh, through the, the menopause, but of course there's an exercise factor here as well yeah, absolutely so with this.
Speaker 2:We talked about jumping quite a lot, didn't we? So if you're thinking about, thinking about strengthening those bones. They need that, that impact. I'm here smashing my hand against my hand.
Speaker 2:They can't see you, you can't, maybe you can hear it. Yeah, you need that, you need that impact, you need that shock for the body to go. Oh, you know, we need to strengthen these bones and get on it, because you used to have the hormones to support you in that way. They're not there as often or as much anymore, so you need to use other systems. So if you're jumping, you're doing a little bit of impact and somewhere along the line, impact training got a bit of a bad rap and I think it's lots to do with that. We get scared about our body.
Speaker 2:And we've lost that contact with our body. We've lost that trust with our body, and I think we'll probably touch on this lots today is that we yeah, we hand our power over to the medics, the chemists, all those other people and we forget that we've got the wisdom, and so things like impact training it's not bad. I mean mean you may have to do things, you may have to modify it. There's always a modification. I mean, my clients are I think I probably annoy them with how many modifications I can create. They're like oh, I can't do that, oh, that's all right, we'll do this. Oh I can't do that, oh, that's all right, we can do this. There's always a way to make you move. There's always a way.
Speaker 1:And it's also like when we're talking about that jumping and that impacts stuff, if you haven't ever done that or you've not done it for a very long time, we're not expecting you to go from zero to jumping off you know something really high or do anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not going to send you off parkouring or anything like that. No, exactly, but just just start, just, or just don't be afraid to start is a is a huge thing, and so also we were talking about, like its impact on the connective tissues and and elasticity and things. So your cardiac health and I think again, this is something that maybe gets forgotten as we go on. I will be talking about weight training and things like that, and that message about weight training during perimenopause is coming out now. It is, however, I think, maybe to the detriment of cardio fitness, and I I see that a lot of women that like to just walk and walk and walk and stay in that level two of fitness.
Speaker 2:You need to give that heart a workout. Again, it's a muscle, it's the same as your quads, it's the same as your glutes. You need to give it a good workout. You need to get out of breath. You need to get a little bit hot and sweaty and again, people don't like to do that. I mean, I get it. I wash my hair nearly every single blooming day because it's annoying. I get hot and sweaty. It's just what you've got to do If you're running from that saber-toothed tiger.
Speaker 2:You get hot and sweaty.
Speaker 1:You've got to mix it up, haven't you? Because you don't want to just focus on one type of exercise. And if there's exercise that you enjoy as well, like if you enjoy walking, there's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes, I mean, we've spoke before about walking along the beach and going over the groins or going up the steep slope or running up the stairs that go over the railway line anything that's a little bit extra that can just give you that that extra. Suppose more efforts needed, isn't?
Speaker 2:it Definitely not saying that walking is a like long walks are a bad thing, but you're going to have to decide what you're doing that for. So if you're doing a lovely long walk, you're doing that more for your mental health than you are for your than for your physical health. If you are looking at supporting yourself physically, then if you like walking, you're going to perhaps do it in a blast of fast walking and then a moment of either stillness or slower walking and then a blast of fast walking and turn it into a little bit like a HIIT training session would be a great way of doing it if you wanted to do it to progress your heart and your and your muscles and all that sort of stuff. I'm not saying don't go out for a nice lovely long walk. Do it for the specific reasons yeah, I mean there's.
Speaker 1:So. There's so much that we could go into here, because I'm just thinking about we're talking about that impact of estrogen on bone health and then doing the weight-bearing exercise to help that, and I was talking about nutrients needed for bone health. But even things like if you don't eat sufficient protein, your body can't utilize the big minerals properly. If your gut health is compromised, you can't absorb calcium properly and magnesium properly. So when we're looking at nutrients, I'm not just suggesting that you just throw a load of supplements in your system, because that's not good and in fact we can have too much calcium, which will cause other issues in our body.
Speaker 1:Soft tissue calcification is going to cause joint issues. It's going to cause gallstones and kidney stones. We don't want that. We want the calcium to be in the right place. So it's not as simple as just saying oh well, I've. You know, I've got to an age where my hormones are changing. I better take a ton of calcium. It's it's not the answer. And I suppose that's the same with exercise. In a way. It's not just one thing, it's the knock-on effect of lots of things. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you, you mentioned weight bearing as well. So if again we we think about like weight lifting and stuff, but things like simple push-ups, lots of pilates exercises, are weight bearing.
Speaker 1:It's really fantastic to be able to do with very, very little equipment yeah, and we don't do these things in everyday life once we get to a certain age, because we're not necessarily talking about what you mean.
Speaker 2:I can stop when I get to a certain age. I don't have to do this every day. That's not what you mean, is it no?
Speaker 1:but I think things, things change, don't they? So the types of exercise that we do tend to change like when we're kids, are upside down a lot and things like that and as we get older we don't tend to do that. Well, I do, because you know. You know that I'm a bit crazy, but you know we, we change things that we do. So when you're talking about weight bearing and being in that press-up position and things that's not part of your everyday life, is it? Well, it is for you, but I mean, but if you think about the things that you people generally do, you get up in the morning, you know you have a shower, you make some breakfast. You're not on your hands and knees supporting your weight, are you? No?
Speaker 2:no, as a general role as a general role as somebody that's not me, I imagine that's probably that they don't do it very often and then they only do it in like almost prescribed little hours of their, of their week. When I get clients to work with me and you suddenly wake that kind of that stretch reflex up, they do start to do things like that. So I, if I get achy, I'll do a roll down, or if I'm on the floor with the dog, I will be coming up and and I, yeah, I'll do a push-up or I'll do a downward dog or that sort of sort of thing. But I think that's because I know that my body can do that and and I like the way that it feels and and perhaps that's just a a thing that people need to to realize or work out is that their, their body can do that and that it feels good yeah, and it's natural for you to do those things, the same as it's natural for me.
Speaker 1:Actually, some of the things that you've just described is exactly what I do. Yeah to, when I'm on the floor with a dog or whatever, that, yeah, I will do that downward dog or something on the way up. That's just walk yourself back to your toes, yeah just completely normal to do that, but it's not everybody's normal, is it?
Speaker 2:no, and it could be it could be, and I think that's again that's the message we get from society is that I don't know where this came from, that we should slow down as we get older, because it's completely untrue. We touched on this last episode. We look at the work that people do, like studying tribes and things, and the the older generation are almost as physically active as the rest of the tribe. This is not. They don't just, you know, go and sit in a sit in a rocking chair or something like that, and so I don't quite know where that story that we need to slow down has come from and it's to our detriment yeah, I kind of want to stick my tongue out and blow a raspberry and do the no, no, no, no, no thing when I hear that slowing down the whatever yeah that's what I've got to say about that exactly.
Speaker 1:So other things from a nutrition perspective, apart from the, there are a lot of minerals and vitamins that are going to help and we need to make sure that we've got sufficient. And the diet is obviously the first place to start. Food first remember I said that on another episode food first. But there are a group of foods called phytoestrogens and they've had some, I think, a bit of bad press in the past.
Speaker 1:People tend to think, oh, if I have phytoestrogens, I'm, I'm increasing my estrogen levels, but actually that isn't the case. What we're doing is we're helping the body to manage estrogen levels because we have receptors. And if we're producing estrogen in our body because we're under stress or we're in perimenopause and it's going up and down and gone crazy, we've got a lot of strong estrogens on our receptor sites. But if we put phytoestrogens in, they're a weaker estrogen. So you replace a, you know, a very concentrated, powerful estrogen with a weaker one, so it can actually lower levels when levels are too high, but if levels are low it can increase them because although you're adding a weak estrogen, if your levels are low you've got some estrogen going to the receptor sites. So phytoestrogens are?
Speaker 1:I think the most common one that most people tend to know about is soy products yeah yeah, but I would have to say with soy products that you want to use a soya that is in its natural form, not the processed soya products, because they are full of rubbish and flax seeds are amazing. If I could probably give one piece of advice, it would just be to eat seeds yeah, the ground seeds better, but flax seeds great phytoestrogen, but full of minerals and vitamins as well, and can really make a difference. Legumes yeah, yeah, phytoestrogen, but full of minerals and vitamins as well, and can really make a difference. Legumes yeah, yeah, phytoestrogen is brilliant yeah, and I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I mean, as a vegetarian, legumes make up a decent part of my food through the week and more and more recently, because I I pay a bit more attention to it and they are a like. You do have to get a little bit inventive in how you cook them, but they are so versatile and often so easy. You just chuck them into something and they bulk stuff out. They're cheap, they are, yeah, they're just an all-round goody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can give you a really nice protein boost.
Speaker 1:I wonder what you're going to say then they could give you a Well, yeah, they can cause that issue as well, but they're a really good protein source. And I mean, I talked about being inventive. I have a recipe that I make brownies using cannellini beans and sweet potato. It does. I do put chocolate drops in because it's a brownie. Oh yeah, you can't have brownies without that. But you've got a snack there. It's great for the packed lunches. Yeah, kids, it's got sweet potato and cannellini beans in, and does it just taste like a brownie? It really does. It's so nice. Oh, I like the sound. I have to give you that recipe. Yes, please that's.
Speaker 2:That's good. They are that versatile that you can start to to put them into things yeah.
Speaker 1:So just by looking at your phytoestrogens can be useful within that overall diet. I think is is so important. We have to mention stress here with regards to estrogen, because stress has a really complicated relationship with estrogen. So the more stressed we are, the more impact it's going to be, it's going to have on estrogen, and what I find interesting is that if estrogen is low, it seems to cause more issues with that being low. If it's high, it seems to cause more issues with it being high. So again, it's that throwing the petrol on it, a massive connection with with estrogen. And then when we're in that estrogen dominance remember what we were saying about that's. That's kind of like that growth hormone that gives us our shape. So then our body will go into that weight gain situation in those areas that we do not want, and estrogen plus cortisol equals belly fat yeah, absolutely, and it just won't let go of it until you've dealt with the under.
Speaker 2:I mean as as well as looking at the hormonal balance. If you don't deal with the stress, it's just not going to leave you no, it's not so.
Speaker 1:The other thing with oestrogen was this skin issue being drier and thinner and the impact with that elasticity which we mentioned. So one of the ways that we can help ourself there is obviously one is hydration, but what's interesting about the collagen involved in those areas is that the body needs vitamin c to make collagen. So therefore we're then going back to have we got all those colorful foods in our diet. Are we getting sufficient vitamin c?
Speaker 2:because the rda for vitamin c is really low and we might need a thousand two thousand milligrams to help support that side of our system when things are starting to decline and I'm assuming that when you're eating all those lovely colorful fruits and vegetables and things that it's going to really then support your gut, that will come out in your face as well as it were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is where it gets a bit more complicated. This is why I keep going on about you can't just put, you know, one, you can't just concentrate in one section of the orchestra. It's not like, oh dear, my estrogen levels have plummeted, I'll just go and get some estrogen and put it in my body. That's not the whole story, because everything is connected. So when you're looking at one hormone, we're looking at one hormone the estrogen but we've got to factor in, yeah it, the gut.
Speaker 1:Health is important, but what? What's also going on with the liver? Because we need detoxification routes to be working in order to process hormones. So if we're in perimenopause and that hormone is really high, we need the liver to process it, get rid of the excess that it doesn't want. If we haven't got enough, we need the liver to process it and recycle it back. So we've got to look at liver, and the best way to support liver is a similar way that you've just said about supporting the gut is to put all the colorful fruits and vegetables in, especially things that have contained sulforaphane. So that is a particular nutrient that we need for detoxification. The best source is broccoli. Oh, I'm good for that then what's it called again?
Speaker 2:tell us that word sulforaphane.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's a sulfur driven nutrient that we use in detoxification, and you want to use foods that are high in these products, and broccoli is brilliant. Now, an interesting thing about broccoli is, if you cut it 20 minutes before you eat it or you cook it, you actually increase the levels of that sulforaphane that you're looking for oh, there we go.
Speaker 2:So you've said that before, but I don't think you've gone into that much detail. And I do that now. When I'm doing a roast dinner or something with vegetables, the first thing I do now chop the broccoli is chop the broccoli and then I just, and then I stick it in its roasting pan and then it's ready, and I love that. That's another. It's so simple. Yeah, it's fantastic. I love that so much.
Speaker 1:I must just mention about that because it's another important one that would kind of link back to when I run tests with people Is that estrogen is metabolized in three ways in the body. We have a certain way that is not good, like we will call it the bad estrogen pathway, and the best way to support the body's estrogen going down the good pathway is with sulforaphanes. So if we are taking, if if you've had a test done and you know that you really estrogen dominant and it's going down the bad pathway and you've got a history of estrogen driven cancers in the family, you want to push that down the good pathway, you can use supplements like broccoli sprouts in order to support that and I see that on the test. I can run a test, let someone take those supplements and then retest and see that the bad oestrogen has changed direction and it's gone down the good oestrogen path and then that is protective for that person. But that is really at that level. This is very individualized nutrition, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And is it the same? So you've got the broccolis and then the. I can't remember the name of all the ones, but the really pretty broccoli and the darker purple broccoli.
Speaker 1:The purple sprouted broccoli and, yes, any of those are going to give you that sulforaphane that you need and then just chop it early, like you're doing, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's so easy, though, to be able to add these things into your week. That's brilliant. Just going back to, we were talking about stress. We, I think again, we'll just be on about stress forever until you're stressed and you don't listen to us anymore. You know that you're just that lovely, big, deep belly breath is going to immediately allow you to just let go of it. It will put you into that relaxed feeling and you won't be able to be like we talked about being in both. So you'll be able to do that and being able to create yourself a routine that supports you.
Speaker 2:So, rather than waiting for you to get stressed, create a routine that keeps you calm, and when you don't get calm because life lives that, you are then able, maybe, to just drop yourself into a five minute meditation. And so, if you've been practicing, if you've been doing this regularly, you're not going to say to me I can't meditate. You're not going to say to me I can't meditate because you will have been practicing and you'll be able to drop that in sort of as quickly as you can, and then you know, like the, the brilliant metaphor, you can take that petrol off of the fire and be able to deal with everything else a little bit calmer one of the ingredients that we see in menopause supplements is often the nutrients that the body needs to support the stress pathways and it helps the body to calm things down.
Speaker 1:We have herbs that are called adaptogens, some that you may have heard of, like Siberian ginseng, ashwagandha, shishandra. All of those adaptogens are often in menopause supplements because they're directly supporting the adrenals to balance them, to say, hey guys, don't be too overactive here, or to be reactive if you need to. So when we're looking at things like hot flushes again, a lot of it can be tied back to stress and by using those in a menopause supplement. Some people said, oh, I've tried a menopause supplement and I feel so much better.
Speaker 2:It could be that it's having an impact on that stress response in the body and then, obviously, there's external things that you can use to combat the dryness, for instance lubricants and moisturizers, things like that yeah.
Speaker 1:So there are non-hormonal things that you can try before you even go down the route of okay, I need to have my estrogen levels we, you know addressed. I better take some hrt. And with the testing that the doctor does for hormones, I don't really find it very helpful. It doesn't look at your hormones at the right time of the cycle, it doesn't look at them over a period of time, it's not even looking at the metabolized hormones, it's just looking at what you've got in your blood in that snapshot of time, which is one of the reasons why they often don't even test. You know a lot of people will go to the doctor and say I've got these symptoms.
Speaker 2:They go oh, you're perimenopausal, you know it's time to use some hrt, without really looking at all the information yeah, and I think that most medical professionals within the menopause field will recognize that the blood test is fairly useless now, and I feel like it's almost like somebody's come to the, to the doctor or the menopause nurse or something like, absolutely distraught, having a terrible time with symptoms, and it feels like it's just something that they can do for them, whether, whether it's any good or not, you know in your body how fast your hormone levels can change, and so that is what is being measured. It's just that tiny snapshot yeah.
Speaker 1:so I like to promote the natural things first, to put those foundations in place to support the body, because the body is so clever, isn't it? And it can rebalance itself when it's helped. And remember this is a natural process that we're going through. So I just think sometimes just letting people know that it's not just a case of you go to the doctor and you get the pill for the ill. It's not that Pill for the ill.
Speaker 2:I mean it might be.
Speaker 1:It might be for some people, but I think to do things that are going to naturally support your body first is really really important.
Speaker 2:And as well as is really, really important and and as well as so, if you have, yeah, done these things and you are choosing to use hrt or hormone support therapy as opposed to replacement therapy, because that's not what we're doing. We can't, we can't just continually replace the, the hormone levels that we have had previously in our reproductive no time.
Speaker 1:So actually replacement therapy is is probably a bit misleading, but support absolutely I like that word actually support, yeah, and if you put these things in place and you are on hormone support therapy, like that now, I think once you understand how estrogen is working in the body, if you're doing these things so that the estrogen's got its co-factors, it's got the liver to recycle it, you can actually get better use of your medication. Therefore, you'll probably need a lower dose, which is good, because we don't want to tip into that oh, we've got too much oestrogen. And then then if there are risk factors around oestrogen driven diseases, we don't want that and we don't want to go on hrt and have too much of oestrogen and be putting weight on, because that happens a lot, so lots of specifics for your declining oestrogen.
Speaker 2:So, as always, if you are suffering from any of those symptoms that we've talked about, come and have a chat with us in the facebook group. You're not alone and we can. We can all talk about it together.
Speaker 1:yeah, just quickly before. Quickly before we go on to progesterone, something that I think is really important about estrogen which we've spoken about before, but just to remind people is that you want to reduce your exposure to estrogen-driving things in the environment. So when you get to this stage, if you're not already using natural things on yourself, this is the time to do it. Look at what toxins that you're putting on yourself and think it's an easy one to reduce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, looking at the packaging of your food is another big thing. Yeah, and again something that you can relatively easily do. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:That's enough about estrogen. Yeah, but I just thought we need to cover that, because that toxicity is also a driver for not being able to shift weight.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, take, take the pressure off your liver, all those sorts of things, yeah it's huge and and it's a big, big issue now, yeah.
Speaker 1:So with progesterone, what tends to happen is we've got our oestrogen that goes erratic, originally or initially, and then it starts to decline. Progesterone tends that inability to metabolize our glucose properly. When we've got progesterone going low, we become insulin resistant and that causes problems in how we manage blood sugars. And the other side of it is, although it has lots of impacts across the body, like estrogen. Is that impact on our mood? Yeah, and our sleep?
Speaker 2:this is a big one for progesterone, yeah things like anxiety and becoming a very light sleeper are very common symptoms and they are very problematic in your day-to-day life yeah, they are.
Speaker 1:So if, when you start to get those irregular periods or the cycle has started to change a bit, where it's gone shorter or it's gone longer, and you're getting those headaches just before you get your period, that is quite a good sign that progesterone is starting to to drop off low and then you might suddenly get anxiety and you'd never had it before. So there's a lot to do with that side of things for progesterone. So how we manage progesterone levels declining is first of all with balancing blood sugars. The best way to do that is to look at our diet and make sure that we've got the foundations in place, because if we're over-consuming sugar, if we're caning processed foods, if we've not got the correct balance of our complex carbohydrates with sufficient protein, we're going to destabilise our blood sugars anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the message If you hear nothing else. Those complex carbohydrates and protein, just yeah, just to keep everything. It's really simple to do. Just keep everything level and just steer clear of the processed foods and the sugary foods, and we're not saying don't have them.
Speaker 2:No it's not what it's about don't have it all of the time, and I think what's it's really hard is that it is in absolutely everything, isn't it? So if you are not making something from scratch, chances are there are hidden sugars in it all over the place yeah, it really it's another area that's it's a big problem.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, looking at that food diary again and just picking out oh yeah, I I need to address the sugars is going to help. And then there are a number of nutrients that will help the blood sugars. I think most people will know that chromium is a good one for blood sugars. Where can we get that from? Chromium is a trace mineral. It's going to be in your natural whole foods. So when you're looking at your diet again but you've got your foundations in place you're ticking a lot of these boxes. Cinnamon is brilliant for supporting blood sugars, so you find cinnamon in a lot of menopause type supplements, yeah, and what else so, like grains and pulses, that sort of thing yes.
Speaker 1:Um, anything that is going to help your body slow down the release of sugars, yeah, is going to be important, because you don't want those spikes. Because what happens is your you get sugars in your blood but the receptor sites again become like they just don't want to know, like like the sugars poking them and they're just going no, I'm not available, I'm not open today, and you need the receptor sites to take the sugars into the cell. So then you start to see on your blood test that your hba1c levels are starting to go up and again you're thinking well, I haven't done anything different, but progesterone is involved there with blood sugar regulation yeah.
Speaker 2:So again, yeah, things like your, those, those fibrous foods to just slow everything down, I would think about. I just think about the fiber creating that, that little um, that little raft that goes down into your, down into your tummy and it's just nice and slow, rather than your um, I think, like a glug of orange juice without any fiber would just go whoosh straight in fill up your blood full of sugar yep and then and then, like I said, you've got no, or you've got a compromised ability to put the sugar into the cell and you want it to be in the cell.
Speaker 1:You do not want it to be in the blood, because if it can't get into the cell, the body goes. Emergency, emergency, immediately. Turn this to fat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you don't want that no, absolutely, and so I mean this is probably. This is probably the first favorite thing. That favorite thing is probably not the word this is probably the first favorite thing. That favorite thing is probably not the word this is probably the first thing that people will think about doing when they're suffering from menopause symptoms is to reach for the supplements yeah, and you can put in a general good quality supplement.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you're looking for certain levels of things, but it's very individual again. So I mean, I'm not one that likes to just blanket suggest supplements. Yeah, but having a good quality multi is a bit like your foundations. Again, yeah, it helps, but magnesium and vitamin b6 are absolutely crucial. I feel like you should say magnesium we just love magnesium, don't we?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely it's. I I cannot believe the difference in my body from taking it. I take a bit more while I'm marathon training but, yeah, in my sleep I take a bit more while I'm marathon training, but yeah, in my sleep is where it's at and I know when I've run out and I haven't taken any. My sleep gets much, much lighter and my recovery from training is far slower and not as efficient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such a crucial nutrient and we're finding that levels in the soil are really low, so even if we're eating foods that are rich in magnesium, they haven't got the same levels that they had even 40, 50 years ago. What foods?
Speaker 1:so rich in magnesium magnesium is one of those ones that it's an abundant mineral. So calcium and magnesium are abundant minerals. They're some of the biggest ones in the body, so you find them in a lot of foods, to be honest. But the soil is just so depleted and we use magnesium in every single cell to make energy. We got a high demand on it and we literally just run through it when we're stressed.
Speaker 2:I was going to say. I remember you saying that stress just burns it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, literally burns it up. So magnesium and B6 are known to influence the hormonal pathways. So those two together are really, really useful. B6 is brilliant. It's my favourite vitamin, is it? It is is oh well done. B6 I just think that all women should take magnesium and b6. Yeah, together, um, it does a lot. But, like I said it, I much prefer to check someone's diet and run the test so I know exactly what they need. But you will find magnesium and b6 in good multis, and especially for this age group. So you'll often find multis are 45 plus. We've seen that on the packaging.
Speaker 1:No, I ignore that, but yeah, yeah 45 plus that will have the magnesium and the b6 in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic and then? So we've got healthy fats as well yeah, healthy fats oh my god.
Speaker 1:We could do a whole entire episode on on healthy fats or just fats generally. I think we might have to do that, but the omega-3 fats are essential. We can't make them in the body, so we have to eat them, and they are kind of involved in well again, lots of things, but they're on the anti-inflammatory pathway. They are involved in the hormones. So making sure that we've got enough essential fats on the omega-3 side is really important. We tend to be more omega-6 dominant now and that is is pro-inflammatory and we want the anti-inflammatory impact. So, yeah, it's a key one.
Speaker 2:And inflammation in the body is so troublesome right. So being able to again keep that balance is really, really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and remember that the adrenals, if they're not busy dealing with stress, have the ability to make progesterone, so they can do that for us. But if they're running stress, they then impact estrogen and they don't make progesterone. So suddenly you know when your own levels are declining because your ovaries are starting to, you know, not work anymore. You need your adrenals to pick up the slack. But I don't think that generally happens now because everyone's so stressed, not all the time what herbal support is there going on a bit like with the oestrogen a lot of adaptogens.
Speaker 1:There are some specifics for certain symptoms but I don't know if it's worth because it's so individual. Yeah, I think having an adaptogen with the minerals magnesium and b6 can really help to support the hormone balance anyway. But there is the, the herb chastaberry that's a great, great name. Yeah, that can help with progesterone levels in early kind of perimenopause, with balancing symptoms, but there are lots of other herbs that will do that.
Speaker 2:I was going to say there so would it be worth somebody, for instance, going into a local knowledgeable health?
Speaker 1:food shop the way you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm, I'm, I'm just trying to stay away from the h and b yes, or the, or the vitamin island tesco? Yes, is it worth them going in with their specific symptoms and saying is there a herb that helps for this?
Speaker 1:I think there is some some benefits of that for sure, because we know herbal medicine. It's been around for years.
Speaker 1:It's really useful not longer than the modern medicine yeah, and a lot of modern medicine is based on some of these herbs. Yeah, absolutely so I think. I think it's a good one. But we, we absolutely have to make sure that our liver is working again for us to put herbs through, yeah, and then that's going to come back to our foods again, isn't it? Yeah? So again, like we said, with estrogen, there's lots of natural things we can do before we even consider going down the hormone support therapy. She said now I'm consider going down the hormone support therapy. She said now I'm going to say the hormone support therapy.
Speaker 1:But I think something to understand is that the synthetic hormone that we use for progesterone is often just it's called progestin. It's often just what we need for the womb area to stop the oestrogen from overgrowing. So if we are putting in oestrogen without progesterone we have, we run the risk of increasing that womb lining and then that can be a derivative of cancer. So we have to be careful there. But that synthetic form, although it acts on that area, it does not do the role of progesterone when it comes to the brain. Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:So I think this is really relevant because a lot of people that I see will be on something like a coil that's got progestin in it and think that, oh, my progesterone levels have started to decline. Therefore, I'm all right because I've got the progesterone coil. It's not the same. It's not gonna have that impact. So if you're somebody that is starting to get things like anxiety, or you've got a history of anxiety and it's got worse, your progesterone levels could be declining, but you haven't got anything extra to support it, because you've got progestin, which is a synthetic form which is only targeting that womb area. That's all it's doing.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so you're thinking about again. We're thinking about the symptoms associated with progesterone. You think about those brain fogs and and things like that yeah.
Speaker 1:So when we're looking at again with the neurotransmitters and we mentioned this briefly before when you look at the pathway for you to produce the the good, feel good neurotransmitters that are going to alleviate things like mood swings and anxiety and low mood, etc. You've got progesterone involved there, but if that's taken out of the picture because those levels are declining, you've got other things that are involved there that are going to help you produce those neurotransmitters. We can use diet, for sure, but again, magnesium and b6 factor there highly, vitamin d does as well, and then there'll be things like iron. There's lots of other nutrients that are going to come into play there. So then, making sure that your diet is nourishing you and you're having the support of supplements where you need it, specific to you, can help those pathways even in the absence of your hormone I think that we may have touched on the last couple of bits that we're going to talk about on progesterone maybe a few times, things like stress management and improved sleep.
Speaker 2:I feel like we may have mentioned this a few times. However, I don't think we can emphasize this enough. Things like overwhelm yep, will really play a part in this brain fog, and it's not you know, not really knowing what you're, what you're doing, what you've walked into a room for and why you've opened the fridge, or or I don't know why your shoes in the fridge. What did you put in the fridge or the cupboard the other day?
Speaker 1:I put the cutlery in the bin instead of in the dishwasher, didn't I?
Speaker 2:yeah, so being able to have a look at that overwhelm and that stress management and that improved sleep will immediately have a massive impact on all of those symptoms I know that we've mentioned this before about the adrenals being the boss of the endocrine system.
Speaker 1:They are in charge of everything. So if you've not dealt with the boss, nothing downstream is going to change and it doesn't matter what you do medication wise, supplement wise, whatever you're doing doing if you don't address what's going on in the adrenals and the stress response, it's going to be very difficult to manage the rest of the imbalances that are happening.
Speaker 2:yeah, and, like we've said with estrogen, if you are choosing to use hormone support therapy and you are in constant fight or flight, constant stress, you are functioning on very little sleep, you are not going to get the best out of the chosen therapy, and then I mean potentially there's a danger of the therapy being put up or you just thinking it doesn't work. Maybe you're gonna go and sort of mess around with another load of things, when actually it's because you are, because you're constantly stressed or in overwhelm or sleep deprived and I'm not saying that those are easy things to fix but until you've fixed them, or until you have created some sort of management system for you, you're not going to get the best out of whatever support you choose.
Speaker 1:No, I like that management system for you. Yeah, it's really really important. Okay, anything more to say on progesterone?
Speaker 2:let's go testosterone on the one, yeah, the one that gets, the one that gets forgotten probably for us girls.
Speaker 1:So what's interesting about looking at blood tests for estrogen and progesterone is that, because these change so much and you just have that snapshot, it's not a very good indicator. But testosterone is actually different okay, and you can do a blood test to check your testosterone levels and it can be very accurate. But I don't know that it gets done very often as a routine. From what I've heard.
Speaker 2:It tends to be done afterwards, so the levels of estrogen and progesterone are looked at and and tried to balance them, and then testosterone is the next thing to be looked at, and often I think they're after like six months or something like that.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's a bit ignored, because when you've got an imbalance in oestrogen and progesterone or your levels are low, there are like the symptoms, are they impact your everyday life, whereas actually, when we look at testosterone, does the doctor really care that you've got no libido?
Speaker 2:No, I've heard that said I've heard it. I've heard somebody say oh yeah, you know you don't need it to have sex anymore, so why do you need?
Speaker 1:it, yeah, and do you? Does it matter that you've got a lot, a bit of loss of muscle tone and strength? You know, if you go to the doctor and you say, since my hormones have changed, I feel weak that's often what people relate to me I just feel weak, they don't care, that's not a life-threatening situation, you're not. It's not stopping you from functioning. Therefore, I feel like it's a nice to have. Yeah, and the nhs aren't dealing with the nice to have things. No, well, now, absolutely they've got.
Speaker 1:They've got enough to do quite frankly, yeah, so I just think it gets a bit ignored, but I know, speaking to my clients, that this feeling weak and the impact on energy and motivation and actually the libido issue is really really, um, impactful in relationships. In you know, I remember having one lady say to me my husband is, I love him, I still fancy him, but I just have no desire and I don't know what's wrong with me. Yeah, he's going to go off and have an affair at some point and we're probably going to split up because I'm just not available for it. I want to be available for it, though, but I just don't feel any drive for it yeah, no, absolutely, because their their hormone level's still pumping on oh yeah and it's and it's incredibly important for them.
Speaker 2:And I think there's again that disconnect, even as a as a woman, isn't there. When you just don't feel like that anymore, you just not got that, that energy that get up and go, that sparkle no, no, and it is.
Speaker 1:It's very, very significant, but I just don't think it's taken seriously by the medical practitioners, to be honest. But anyway, how? What are we going to do about this? Because it is important. So one of the best ways to help your testosterone levels is through exercise. So over to you, the expert in that area, and this is.
Speaker 2:This is where I think this is probably the thing that we we are being able to associate with menopause and exercise a little bit more. Now the story is getting through is weight training, so these hormones are starting to deplete or just abandon you altogether. So what you've got to do is create that stress, that need in your body for your body to then do what it was doing with those hormones. So that's what you're doing when you are lifting heavy weights, you're creating that stress and that response in your body to be able to support you. It's like oh, hang on, we need to do this because she's lifting weights. Oh, hang on, we need to do this because she's, you know, doing push-ups and she needs those, those strong bones, or she needs to increase that, that muscle mass.
Speaker 1:Now, I've said before, our body muscle mass starts to reduce from about 30 35 the reduction in muscle mass starts to decline at the same time as the reduction in testosterone. Yeah, yeah that makes.
Speaker 2:So that makes sense, and so if we are not doing something actively to maintain, or preferably grow, our muscle mass, we are going to feel weak anyway, regardless of what our testosterone.
Speaker 1:You come up with a new word and it's a new hormone. I know it's way more important than the others.
Speaker 2:I know this is the one you need to know about and you heard it here first. I'm not going to say it now. Yeah, so it's really important to create that movement in your body, pun intended for your body to be able to support the strength in your bones, in your muscles, and create that lean muscle mass. It's so important. It's fun as well. You get that buzz, you get those endorphins kicking and you feel empowered.
Speaker 2:You feel like a badass when you've lifted up those, those weights and you're like, yeah, look at me, I can do this, it's, it's so important three times a week at least and again, you don't need at least three times a week, that's enough. Sorry about the. At least you don't have to be in the gym again for hours and you can do this at home. You can. You don't have to go onto like the weights floor with all the big boys. If you don't want to. I mean, if you're feeling up for it, do it. Yeah, absolutely, but it's yeah, it's, it's so important, it's fun and it is for you. It is for you. So please don't buy into any of these stories that that we don't lift weights. You can lift pink weights.
Speaker 2:All my weights are pink they don't have to be boring or boring and black and metal. But yeah, it's so important and I we said this about something earlier on start small. So get your technique. You don't have like, just don't, don't listen to the podcast now and go oh my god, catherine said I've got to lift weights and and go and pick up the heaviest thing that you possibly can. Start small, get your technique going because when you've strengthened all your muscles and your ligaments and stuff they are going to support your joints. You're going to make sure that you've got all those anti-inflammatory stuff going into you. That's going to help all your joints as well. It's just going to be beautiful.
Speaker 1:I love the picture you've painted there, and don't forget that when you are building muscle mass, you're also supporting your bones. Yeah, because they're linked, and the more you know you work on that muscle mass side of things, the more you help your body produce testosterone, so then you get the benefits of that. It becomes a circular thing, doesn't it? And? But you've got to make sure that you eat your protein at this point yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So making sure that you have got a blast of protein before you go in. Please don't go and work out fasted. You know you need and this is what's interesting when we were, when we were learning about all of this is actually, it's not necessarily for your, like your muscles and things at that point, it's for your brain, like the amount of energy that your, your brain, takes to just function. I mean, I think mine takes most of the energy just to wake up, so you need it there just to signal to your brain we're all right, there's fuel coming in. You know, do your worst, get, get those, get those bad boys lifted. And then, for women, 30 minutes within that 30 minute window afterwards to get your, your protein and your good carbs in so that you can fully recover. It's not the same story for men and unfortunately, most of the research is on men, and so we have been following a very masculine pro program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and thankfully this is this is changing it definitely is, but it's going to take a little while because, yeah, a lot of women think that if they start, you know, doing weight training, that they're just going to build all this muscle and bulk up, and that's not what happens at all.
Speaker 2:No, and also I think and I was definitely wrong in thinking this at one point is that if you exercise fasted, that it's going to I don't know it's going to stop just magically burning fat off, and that that, sadly, that isn't the case. It's just an added stressor, and then we can go back into everything we've told you about stress yeah, and stress is really relevant here, because remember that if we're stressed, we don't produce testosterone.
Speaker 1:We change it, we aromatize it to estrogen. So stress is another one. So going back to those adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha can really help manage stress to allow the body to produce enough testosterone. One of the other minerals that's really key here is zinc zinc for testosterone. So if you're somebody that is on a vegetarian diet or vegan, you might need to look at zinc intake because you might need to supplement with that. So is that mostly within meats? Then meats and fish? Yeah, you know it is in seeds and nuts and things as well, but you've got to be. Not everybody who's on a vegetarian diet is on a healthy vegetarian diet. I know a lot of vegetarians that are. They pretty much eat pasta and cheese and that's their vegetarian diet.
Speaker 2:Right, well, that's all that's ever served to us in restaurants.
Speaker 1:I know, I know. I think it's getting a bit better now it's getting a bit better.
Speaker 2:But no, it's good and often zinc is is within other multivitamins and things, isn't it? I think my vitamin c, yeah, had zinc in it yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's another big mineral that's used in lots of places, but this stress picture keeps coming up, doesn't it? With these hormones, it's really important to address any stress where you can. In the last episode, we spoke about writing a list and crossing off things that you can't you know you can't impact or you can't change, you can't do anything about and then working on the ones that you can. I think.
Speaker 2:I function with a list constantly as well, just remembering what I need to remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lists are key, so there's so many things that we could do. I we've only scratched the surface here, really, with these three hormones, and I think it just emphasizes the importance of going back to that foundation. Yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, like mostly everything that we've said comes into those four legs of a chair, doesn't it? And then it's. And then looking at things specifically, what I like about this episode is that you can start to get a little bit more in detail. So if you're thinking, oh, it's the, it's the brain fog, it's the mood, it's the anxiety, maybe you're going to start to look at things to do with progesterone. You know, yeah, if it's those connective tissues, those aches, those pains, those sorts of things, then you're looking at the oestrogen and it's that. You know. If it's that energy that's missing or that libido.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have to say, once I've lifted all those weights, I feel like a badass. I could take on the world. Good for you, I just yeah, I just love it. So, yeah, go and pick up those weights with help. Please Don't go and hurt yourself and then cause more injury. Because of these fluxes in our hormones, we are prone to injury a little bit more. Yeah, we are, which is irritating. I don't like that, but we are. So start off slow, but then, once you have built up the strength and you've supported yourself with your sleep, with your nutrition, with your sort of stress reduction, then the sky's the limit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. There's no reason why you shouldn't go through your menopause without suffering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's no they just don't suffer because we are worth what. So, before we round off, then this is its mindset, which we haven't touched on in any of these, but overall, overall, that mindset you are, you are so worthy, like you are going through this change in your life, but and you didn't think when you were going through adolescence, you didn't suddenly think you were, I don't know, either becoming or not becoming more worthy. You, you didn't have those thoughts around it when you were a young girl. And so now, why would we think that suddenly, because we're going into perimenopause, into menopause, that we were suddenly less useful, or dried up washed up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of that, all of that that's associated with it. You are so worthy and so, with that mind, you are worthy of looking after yourself. You are worthy of spending that time and maybe that money on yourself.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's a great thing to finish on, yeah.
Speaker 2:Big love. Thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
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