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Saying it outloud!
Saying it outloud!
EP 110: A deep dive into all things Menopause
Welcome back to Saying it Out Loud, where we bring a fresh perspective on menopause, revealing how functional medicine can help women navigate this natural yet complex time. With a sprinkle of our latest gym triumphs and foodie delights, Leo and Stephanie here are set to guide you through the hormonal rollercoaster with a side of humor and a hefty dose of practical advice. From Stephanie's gym records to our revamped website and symptom quiz, we're here to enrich your understanding and tackle the changes that come with menopause head-on.
Get ready to unravel the mysteries of estrogen and progesterone, the unsung heroes of women's health. This episode is a treasure trove of insights into the importance of these hormones and how their fluctuations affect everything from your bones to your brain. We're digging into symptoms often dismissed as just part of aging and showing you how muscle strength, vitamins, and nutrients play crucial roles in keeping your body in harmony. Forget accepting discomfort as your new normal; we're about to share the keys to a healthier, more vibrant menopausal experience.
Wrapping up, we spill the beans on the secret weapon of hormone testing – the Dutch test – and how it could be the game-changer in managing your menopause. We debunk the myths surrounding hormone replacement therapy and lay out the most effective training and nutrition strategies for the menopausal stage. Remember, our support doesn't end with this podcast. Join the conversation in our free Facebook group and connect with us on social media for even more golden nuggets on living well during menopause. Tune in, laugh, and learn with us as we peel back the layers of menopause, one episode at a time.
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What's going on, everyone and welcome to Saying it Out Loud. A podcast created to help people who want to learn more about fitness and life. Our podcast will help you build a foundation and turn fitness into a lifestyle and help you conquer your life. I will be your host, leo, and my co-host.
Speaker 2:Stephanie, and we're the owners of a how athletics coaching business built on our belief that clients aren't just a dollar sign and they're human. Now on to the episode. What's going?
Speaker 1:on everyone and welcome back to Saying it Out Loud In a minute. But here we are, back in action. Let's catch you up on everything that's been going on. First, I'm going to start out by saying that I have improved upon my cookie recipe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, drastically Like there were 10 before, but they're like 20.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're 20 out of 10s now. Yeah, we haven't tried all of them yet. I just made two batch carrot cake cookies. Fire, I actually ate three of those.
Speaker 2:Did I eat three or you ate three? I ate three. Yeah, I ate two, but you probably ate, because I had two pieces of cheesecake.
Speaker 1:Anyways, carrot cake was fine, so the recipe is getting better. So if you order now, you're gonna get the new recipe. It's a video recipe, but the old recipe is still what it looks like on the website anyways. So that's that piece. And lately, for our cheat days, we've been going around food truck to food truck, to food truck to food truck, because it seems like the only places that we've been to that have had decent food are food trucks and food halls, like no restaurants. But the one restaurant that we have been going to well, I say have been, but we've been to twice was it NOLA?
Speaker 1:Oh for breakfast yeah, new orleans, uh breakfast spot and those baguettes by vignettes beignets fire bro. Everything else is okay, yeah, everything else is like we'll go because we like the beignets but like other stuff is not like bad enough for us not to go, but it's a good spot overall. So cheat days have been a lot of cooking for mine yeah, hasn't been in the hit or miss, but we found some better spots the food trucks, like I said not spots that I would want to go though yeah, that burger spot at that last food truck spot was freaking good.
Speaker 1:So she tricking bro, I liked it anyway. So that's been our cheat day thing. And then training wise. She's been progressing drastically. She's been pr left and right stretching yeah, for some reason, stretching has helped a lot. It's crazy because, like, if you look up any research or anything like, oh, stretching, stretching doesn't do anything for you, stretching doesn't help. But ever since we've been going to this new massage therapist are we just getting massages?
Speaker 1:we still do nkt with abrianne, yeah and getting nkt done and then adding in the stretching, like all of them combined has really helped us progress more. So like, like I say all the time, like they do these studies, but like, just do just if you want to listen to the study, by all means. But if you want to just keep doing what you've been doing because it's working for you, and keep doing it because it's working for you, don't read the study and then stop doing something that has been working for you because the study says so, because they didn't test all 8 billion people, so he might be an exception. So that's been training. We've been progressing. Like I said, what else have we been doing? What else have we been up to?
Speaker 2:Literally nothing else.
Speaker 1:Literally everything else has been the same.
Speaker 2:We haven't even been even. We just have longer days with more mentorship. Oh, that's right we have, and we go to gym, gym, gym twice a week. So like all my calls, I have to push it to like, do I say thursday, fridays, so like our days are just like a thousand times longer now?
Speaker 1:tuesday. Tuesday, we have back-to-back mentorship calls. Monday, we have mentorship call, and then, whenever they do mentorship trainings throughout the week, we have those as well, on top of what we do for our education, on top of our content. So I normally say that I'm never busy, but you know, behind the scenes is a different story. We're always working on something. Oh, and we, we got the symptom quiz out. So if you ever, if you look at our stories and you want to take the symptoms quiz, it's an in-depth quiz that goes over a bunch of different symptoms that you may be experiencing. So check that out and see if you're going through any issues.
Speaker 1:And we revamped the website so you can change that. Check that out, see what we did to it. And we haven't traveled yet. So that's the only thing that we haven't done. But today is the amazing eclipse, so who knows, the world might just end today. So, yeah, anyways, we're going to get to this episode now, but before that, question of the day. Question of the day have you experienced menopause? Hey, listen, if you're a guy, it's still for you, because you might want to know signs, symptoms and how to help your lady out. So don't just back out. Pay attention, you learn something because ignorance is bliss. I think I use that saying incorrectly don't be all the way, don't be don't be ignorant.
Speaker 1:Learn so you can help. Okay, topic of the day menopause. Obviously we're going to be covering menopause a little bit more in depth than probably what you've seen or what you've googled. So you're definitely going to learn something and if you're a woman currently going through it or don't know if you're going through it or don't know when you're going to be going through it, this is definitely for you. So, with that, we're handing over to the woman and she's going to take over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the end, we're going to go through more like functional medicine and what to do. But I want to start off with general information about menopause, what it is, what to expect all of that stuff because a lot of people just assume it's like the worst part of their life and that's it. But it doesn't have to be. It's pretty bad, but it doesn't have to be the end of your goals, if that makes sense. So menopause is a natural biological process that ends pretty much the woman's reproductive years.
Speaker 2:So you're going to end your period and that, I feel like, is the one thing that might be good, I guess. I mean I don't really care for my periods, like they're fine, um, but I know a lot of people. It's still an inconvenience for them. So usually women will go through menopause late 40s, early 50s. Technically, that's more or less where you're supposed to be going through it, maybe like later 50s. But because the state of the world nowadays and how people don't really know well functional medicine, a lot of women are experiencing this way earlier than they're supposed to, or they think they're in menopause, which is even worse.
Speaker 2:So this might help you if you are struggling with it. Uh, so primarily menopause. What happens is estrogen progesterone go bye-bye like that's it. We still have testosterone, we still have androgens, cortisol, thyroid, whatever estrogen progesterone drastically decline, and that's where all the issues start to arise. Yes, women need testosterone, but we still need estrogen progesterone to get to our goals to have a healthy life and also build muscle. So that's why it's so much harder. Do you want to talk?
Speaker 1:about this this, yeah. So, like we just said, estrogen is still important. Did we do a podcast on the benefits of estrogen?
Speaker 2:I don't think we did no, not really not like in depth of actually I think we'll need testosterone? Yeah, not really, not like in depth of Estrogen, I think. Only testosterone, testosterone, yeah, that's the only one we've done Okay, but well.
Speaker 1:it plays a central role in regulating the menstrual cycle, supports bone health you know, maintaining the vaginal and urinary tract health and influences mood and cognition. So a lot times people have these mood swings because their estrogens are going through highs and lows and that can cause mood swings which is period that happens even during, not menopause yeah if you have an estrogen imbalance so, as women approach menopause, their ovaries produce less estrogen, estrogen leading to irregular menstrual cycles and eventual cessation of menstruation.
Speaker 1:so you just stop having a period, and the decline of estrogen levels can contribute to a range of symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, swings and cognitive changes. Progesterone works in conjunction with estrogen to regulate the menstrual cycle and prepare the uterus for pregnancy. So if you don't have both of them, so if you don't have both of them, then you're you can tell that it's not good and this is for menopause or people who aren't going to menopause like yeah, a lot of these women have levels of progesterone estrogen that you would see in menopausal yeah
Speaker 1:women and that's the issue that we're running into because, you know, birth control, the diet and everything, it just causes such drastic hormonal fluctuations and I was just telling her that night. I know this is sidetracked, but this is important to this topic here. I said I'm having a night because we've seen a lot of people complaining about their periods lately just on social media, uh, and people like oh my, my cramps and this and that or how they.
Speaker 2:Technically it was a tiktok.
Speaker 1:A husband was making fun of, yeah, his wife saying that periods are like he doesn't understand why periods are that big of a deal yeah, for women and uh, she got mad yeah, she got mad and was like, well, I, I see where he's coming from, because she I haven't experienced any of that with her, like she's just, she doesn't have a mood swing at all. She's the same person. She's never in pain Like I know when she's on her period, obviously because she's using tampons. But outside of that, if I didn't see the tampons, I would never know when she was on her period. And it's complete opposite of my ex-wife because she was the one that was complaining in pain, always cramping, having like dysregulated periods, like I would never know when she was off her period. Sometimes they would last like two months, like it was crazy.
Speaker 1:And well, she had her ovaries removed. So that can cause big issues, obviously, but at the same time you have one person taking care of themselves and then you have the other person not taking care of themselves. So it can lead to these issues that we're talking about in menopausal women and regular women. Back to the topic what was my error?
Speaker 2:You didn't want to hear menopause no I said that.
Speaker 1:Okay. So decreased progesterone levels can contribute to menstrual irregularities and exaggerated symptoms such as mood swings and sleep disturbances.
Speaker 2:Before I talk about impact on bodily functions, there is a period before menopause perimenopause which can range between 10 to 20 years before menopause, perimenopause, which can range between 10 to 20 years before menopause, and that is a period that a lot of women struggle with, and also because doctors don't really know what to do during perimenopause. Honestly, they just tell you you're getting old, you're going to get close to menopause and that's it, and that's when you start experiencing all these other symptoms as well. Or some people, some women, are lucky enough that only in menopause symptoms hit, but during perimenopause I feel like it's like, if you have not hit menopause, this, this is a period that you just really really want to hone into, like everything functional medicine, figure out exactly what's going on with your body and honestly back in timeline and also prevent the symptoms. And also, once you get into menopause, you know what to do and how to fix it as well. But a lot of people and like women, are just left a lot either yeah, pretty much just struggling, never-ending struggle.
Speaker 2:They just hate their life. And like what he was saying, difference between his ex-wife and me is like I literally have focused on fixing my hormones. A lot of women won't. A lot of women don't even know that. This is all the quote-unquote cleanly like cliche symptoms of like periods are terrible cramps, mood swings or even like you're constantly switching every week mood wise. It's not normal. Those are symptoms of something that's going on in your body. Your body's telling you but sadly, the media and everyone else have made it seem like it's normal and you know the husband or whoever has to deal with it and that's it. But no, it's not just letting you know, it's not like it's just my personality, it's just like this is literally what happens when your hormones are normal. Um, okay, so?
Speaker 2:So impact on metabolic bodily function, of course, reproductive system. We're not going to be reproducing anymore because of that. So menstruation stops, of course, because progestin is going to start declining. Progestin is very important for you to conceive, pretty much, justin's very important for you to conceive, pretty much. Not the only important hormone if you're having struggles with fertility, but it's one of the main hormones. And why the reason why you might be struggling with fertility etc.
Speaker 2:So changes in estrogen. He kind of talked about the vaginal dryness which is kind of like one of the main symptoms, but it thins the vaginal wall, so literally vaginal atrophy which causes discomfort during sexual intercourse. That's when a lot of pelvic floor rehab can come in to help you prevent that from happening as much as possible. We can't really prevent estrogen from naturally declining, but we'll talk about what to do after that. It also increases UTIs when you have a lack of estrogen.
Speaker 2:Just because our body was meant to have a balance and also microbial balance, a lot of hormones will be impacted because of the gut or vice versa. So if you're having a lot of utis around this time perimenopausal time and you don't know what the freak is going on and you're constantly on antibiotics, find out what to do when it's not just cranberry juice, just FYI. Um, estrogen plays a huge role in bone density regulating and forming uh, bone cells. So a lot of women close to menopause will start developing a lot of like brittle bone issues, so a lot of fractures or injuries that they were not prone to before, or even osteoporosis. So that's because of the estrogen decline. That's why all people are prone to before or even osteoporosis, so that's because of the estrogen decline.
Speaker 1:That's why all people are prone to breaking their or when they're prone to breaking their bones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why it's so important before you get to menopause, to build as much muscle as possible, like it's so important because it really drastically declines, like your fracture exposure and like all these symptoms. So it's very, very important. Stop chasing the scale. Estrogen has cardioprotective effects, so a lot of women during perimenopause and menopause start having a lot of cholesterol issues, start having a lot of like risk for heart disease. It's not only because estrogen is declining, like hormones in general will, when they decline, cholesterol will start getting higher, but it's because of estrogen as well. So just keep that in mind. Estrogen receptors are present throughout the brain so when it starts declining, a lot of women through this process starts having cognitive issues, brain fog, mood swings, et cetera. It's very, very, very important to start noticing these signs because you know Alzheimer's, dementia, et cetera.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of research as to what's going on. It's not what people are saying that it is, it's just age or whatever genetic. These hormones do really play a role in that, and also inflammation. Changes in hormonal balance during menopause can influence metabolism body composition. So testosterone is extremely important, mainly androgens for women to build uh, build muscle. But estrogen balance and progesterone balance is very important for you to maintain weight, not have weight loss resistance, not be swollen all the time. So, as it starts decreasing, your metabolism is going to start decreasing, it's not because of old age, technically and mainly because of these things that are happening.
Speaker 2:So when you start blaming things and you start trying to increase cardio and trying to diet harder, etc. You are actually digging yourself into a hole instead of actually supporting your body so you can prevent the weight gain and all these other issues touching that.
Speaker 1:So the the big issue with a lot of people is they want to do all this extra cardio, all this extra hit to lose the weight but, like we just talked about, your hormones are already naturally declining and the only way to support your hormones and to support your body is to get the vitamins and nutrients that you need in order to create these hormones and then later I don't know if you're going to touch on trt or yeah, okay so that's the only way.
Speaker 1:But, like your thyroid and all that stuff, you're not losing that stuff. So you still have to support these things, and thyroid is in charge of metabolism so if estrogen is going down. Your metabolism is slowing. It's only a matter of time before you burn out your thyroid, if it already hasn't been burnt out from chronic diet you have to support yourself through the process.
Speaker 1:And that's not just, you know, hopping on medication because, if you think about it, the more medications you on, the harder it is for your liver to process this and estrogen is detox to the liver, so the liver is backed up.
Speaker 1:We can go on about that later, but it leads to a lot of issues. So supporting yourself in getting the vitamins and nutrients is going to do more for you than trying to burn more calories, because if you can keep your metabolism functioning at an optimal level that it's supposed to be, then you don't have to worry about burning more calories, because you'll still be burning calories yeah, and also when you build more muscle and also when you build more muscle, it helps with your metabolism do you want to quickly go through the symptoms?
Speaker 1:yeah, so here's some of the symptoms and a lot of these symptoms you could be experiencing before menopause, like we keep talking about because of what we already talked about earlier.
Speaker 1:Or you can just experience it during your periods, yeah, so hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings that's a big one Sleep disturbances, vaginal dryness, weight gain and cognitive changes and I want to touch on that cognitive part too. So a lot of people don't understand how it works. So, like when we say the brain needs estrogen, there's cells in the brain that have receptors for estrogen. So estrogen goes to the brain and attaches to those cells and uses the DNA in there to do whatever it needs to do. So when you start blunting the effect of those cells being able to attach, that's when you start getting the symptoms of brain fog, alzheimer's like symptoms like memory loss and things like that, because the estrogen is not able to get into the cell, because it's been blended by chronic stress or whatever else is going through in your body, and then, like we said, menopause, your estrogen levels start to lower, so you don't have as much estrogen, so all the cell receptors aren't getting as much estrogen than they used to.
Speaker 2:So you know you just cognitive ability is not as good as it was yeah, so I'm gonna briefly talk about like certain diet, their dietary combinations of nutrition. However, with women, when I get to like functional side, I'll get a little bit more in depth, but these are just like the basic things.
Speaker 2:So, for example, essential vitamins and minerals that play a role in all this. So calcium, vitamin D, magnesium are extremely important, mainly to help hormone regulation, but also to help maintain bone density and reduce the risk of fractures. So not only just building muscle, but also having a well-balanced diet with, like magnesium, calcium, etc. Um diet low and saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, etc. So I'm not saying, like you know, stay away from red meat, which is like common nowadays, but you want to have something that's low, lower, lower and bad fat. So like, no fast foods, that kind of stuff. Also maybe consuming omega-3 fatty acids.
Speaker 2:So high emphasis on the high quality fish rolls, because most fish rolls are there are not yeah, so they're not really gonna help, but also like things like salmon or like omega-3 fishes can help, not all the time, but it can help. Again, keep in mind cholesterol in general. He's made a lot of posts about it. Cholesterol in general is not only because of dietary restrictions et cetera, but it does still play a role. So you just want to avoid having a heart attack. Of course, dietary recommendations, so phytoestrogens, are somewhat important just because it can help increase your estrogen. It's not going to make a huge difference, like in the sense of like, if you're at five. Five it's not going to take you to 100, right, it's definitely gonna help mitigate some of those symptoms. So I'm always for nutrition, like at getting stuff from your food. But also, you know, nowadays we don't really, even if you get like organic and all this other stuff, like it's not our soil, yeah it does not have enough.
Speaker 2:So even though you want to get some of that stuff from food, just keep in mind you're going to need extra help on the side. So phytoestrogens, just because any anything that's that has, like chickpeas, lentils, etc. Can help increase your estrogen slowly, which can help with, like the symptoms. Um, also, like I said, anti-inflammatory foods. So I always recommend like a Mediterranean based diet. Might not be like what you're used to or what you want, clinical as balance, like all people preach, but it's definitely going to help you have a lot of omega threes and help you reduce inflammation as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Adequate calcium, vitamin D so you can get that a lot from like leafy greens, high quality dairy products, eggs except high quality eggs as well, not regular eggs, but just keep that in mind. It has vitamin D, calcium, et cetera. That can help. Magnesium can come from leafy greens, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes, et cetera. It can help you just reduce inflammation, feel more chill or sleep, because a lot of women menopause have sleep issues and then like the omega-3s. But again, all these things I'm not saying just simply supplement like have a balance between nutrition and supplements the, the balance thing.
Speaker 1:You you probably you've heard it, everybody's heard it. Here's the issue with the balance thing you can't do balance until your body's in a spot to where you can actually balance. Yeah, people want to balance when their body is wrecked. You can't balance when your body is wrecked, so you have to fix your body and then you can afford to do balance. Yeah, so if you can't forgo all these fast foods, all this alcohol uh, had the high stress workouts for three months to get to balance then you're not ready for balance yeah it's just that simple.
Speaker 2:So these are like recommendations for sleep, if you want to go with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have a sleep episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do. So you want to have a good sleep schedule, and what I mean by that is you want to try to wake up at the same time and go to bed at the same time. So you want to make sure you're doing that, because people are like, oh yeah, I sleep, but it'd be erratic. Like one night they go to bed at 10 pm. The next night they go to bed at 1 am. The night before that they go to bed at 7 pm. It's like in order to stay on a circadian rhythm, you need to make sure you're going to sleep at the same time and waking up at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you want to have a bed down routine. This is probably the most important part, because I don't know I don't know of anybody that can just go to the bedroom to sleep. Like it's 6 pm, you just go to the bedroom, sleep. I don't know anybody to do that. I'm sure there is, but I don't eat or drink any more liquids at a certain time and then we're in bed at 6 pm and then we do our little nightly routine and then we're in bed by seven or we're laying down lights off, trying to go to sleep by seven, seven, 30.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:All right. So that's our little routine. We wake up early. Well, I'll make sure I wake up. She wakes up at four for some reason, and I wake up at six 30. And that's what works for us. And then you want to optimize your sleep environment. You need to make sure it's cool, that it's cool, and it's cool and it's not bright. The only light that we have on is a little candle.
Speaker 2:We don't need lights because our neighborhood is.
Speaker 1:Our neighbors behind us have these giant fog lights that just blast into our room and when we wake up it's literally like it's daytime. We never know what time it is, but we have a little candle in there so we don't have to turn on the lights to go to the bathroom and that's. But we have a little candle in there so we don't have to turn on the lights to go to the bathroom, and that's all we have.
Speaker 2:And then you want to make sure it's cool, because you have to lower your body temperature in order to actually get into those deeper sleeps, which also helps when you have, like, the night sweats as well, or, like you know, like if you wear cool clothes as well, or just get cool like comforters and sheets or cooling bag on pillow that works.
Speaker 1:And, obviously, stress reduction. You want to do whatever you can to possibly minimize your stress, and when I say stress, I'm talking about all stress in your life. You know relationships, work, your home environment, your mental environment, your workout environment. Eliminate as much stress as possible, because the least amount of stress you have, the faster you can recover and the better off you will be, because stress for most people is the number one killer yeah and then limit alcohol. That's like being a dead horse. It's obviously. I did a post on alcohol.
Speaker 2:Uh, they literally said alcohol is zero benefit and it's just a toxin yeah, I mean, if you, I'm making a post about like cheat days in general and how it affects me and like the only one of the things that saves me is that we don't drink alcohol. But alcohol, if you have like a whoop and an aura ring or whatever, you can track and see how absolutely terrible your recovery is. Ever is gonna be daily because of alcohol. Even if it's just like one drink or whatever, like it really does add up and it also affects sleep. Whether you feel like it or not, it's gonna drastically affect your sleep. So something important. So into the functional medicine side of things. So two things is very important when you are in menopause. I get full blood work because, like it's important, we get tmp, cnbc, thyroid, just insulin etc. But you also need a dutch test.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't know about Dutch tests.
Speaker 2:A lot of people doctors won't do Dutch tests and it can be somewhat expensive.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of discounts for Dutch tests in general, but the reason why is because on blood work you're not going to be tracking your hormones correctly, because during menopause your hormones are not free flowing in your blood.
Speaker 2:Pretty much it's tissue specific and that's what Dutch testing does because of the urinalysis test, um, and that that way we can accurately track not only the hormones and where they're at, but also they're metabolized, also in death, cortisol and like androgens, testosterone, which will be, for moving on, pretty much your normal hormones, like you won't be having estrogen or progesterone, um. So we want to know where they're at. We want to balance them. Whether you want to just lose weight, build muscle or just live a healthy lifestyle, we really want to know where that's at so we can start focusing on balancing that during perimenopausal years. Uh, we don't really need a Dutch test as much blood work works fine, but keep in mind that during these years, during blood work, the hormones are going to fluctuate a lot more between blood tests and blood tests if you're not actually like keeping track, healing them, etc. So that just can help be helpful in that sense of like being more consistent reading, especially if you're not doing anything yeah, and the blood work is just a snapshot in time.
Speaker 1:The dutch test is a 24-hour period yeah so that's why it's a little bit more accurate and, like she said, it goes way. It's way more in depth, yeah, than blood work, because you can see each pathway that the metabolites are taking and blood work you can't see that.
Speaker 2:You can only see the total levels yeah, which is very important, um, not only if you're consuming regular supplements to bring up your hormones, but especially hrt. So when it comes to menopause, it really just depends. But I honestly try to supplement as much as possible first and then we go through the HRT route. Hrt can be a little bit more expensive if you're doing it correctly, meaning doctors will give you creams and I'm not a fan of creams whatsoever, not only because it's not really bioavailable, but it does actually increase more inflammation. So I don't feel like it's worth it whatsoever. Hrt injectable.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of misinformation when it comes to estrogen, because a lot of women assume that estrogen HRT will cause cancer. With a Dutch test we'll be able to see the pathways that your body is taking estrogen. There's a pathway for a poor OH pathway that is extremely cancer reduced like risk, pretty much. Meaning if you take HRT and you're still converting into that pathway, then yes, you can have a higher risk or develop cancer, pretty much, um. But if you are actually fixing that and going through a normal pathway and taking hrt, you won't have that issue. So it's very, very important to keep that in mind and address it. But in terms of like hrt with estrogen progesterone. Depending on your goals, it can be helpful. However, if you don't really have those like intense building muscle goals, then like regular supplement can be fine so it really just depends on the person, where they're at, how far gone they're got, etc.
Speaker 2:Um. So keep that in mind. A lot of doctors won't do it and don't be going to like regular off the street clinics for HRT. They are not high quality and you don't know what the free they're putting in there um training.
Speaker 2:So, like he had mentioned before, a lot of women, especially like women that are going through menopause now, have been brought up in the era of doing more, like dieting more so you can lose weight. That's not gonna work whatsoever. All these HIIT classes, full body training etc. Will not work at all. You won't be a melding muscle, you're just gonna get swollen. The reason for that is because your body now, because it doesn't have estrogen, progesterone, you're gonna get you're gonna get extremely swollen all the time trying to build muscle. So you have to be focused on like more, like hypertrophy training, specific training blocks and also training heavier, resting more, instead of like the hip type workouts or crossfit type workouts.
Speaker 2:So we can effectively build muscle with reducing as much swelling as possible, because that's where all the weight gain goes in, because your body's just not, does not have the goal and balance for you to, you know, lose weight effectively. So keep that in mind, because a lot of people just want to go back to their CrossFit classes and all this other stuff and it's just not going to work. It it doesn't work during, when you have normal hormones. It does not work even less when you're in menopause. Uh, nutrition, so I talked about like the regular nutrients that you want to keep in mind and like add into your diet. But again, there are things that you can do to not only reduce swelling but help you build muscle. So, like, I'm not gonna recommend.
Speaker 2:I saw someone talk about how their doctor said they have to do low carb no matter what. So yeah, and she's not even menopause, she's in paramental boss, which makes it even worse. Okay, regardless, I don't recommend for you to be constantly doing like low carb etc. We we have a thyroid. Carbs are very important for that, we have digestion etc. But you want to go through certain phases to help you reduce that swelling. You don't want to be constantly dieting super hard as well like crashing your calories, because your body is just going to swell up, you're going to retain body fat and your body is going to be more stressed. So you want to have accurate nutrition to help you feel your body and your hormones, etc.
Speaker 1:It comes more about the micronutrients. Yeah, when you're in menopause than the macro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the micronutrients, yeah, when you're in menopause, in the macro, yeah, and and like, your body is very, very, very sensitive to stress during this point because, again, you don't have progesterone estrogen, so cortisol is one of the hormones that's going to be carrying the torch, and if you're constantly stressed, also stressing your body through dieting and training, it's just not going to help. You want to have balanced stress hormones or stress life in general.
Speaker 1:The cortisol goes up, testosterone goes down, and what is it?
Speaker 2:and, and, and, there's all it goes from yeah, you may swell up like a freaking balloon yeah which leads me to my final Menopause will upregulate your immune system. So there is a thing now a lot more people are talking about it which is OID overactive immune disorder pretty much and it's pretty much when your immune system is down and you're constantly reacting to everything, and that is very important to keep that in mind, because a lot of women start developing a lot of autoimmune conditions or symptoms that they didn't really experience before. They constantly get sick and that's the reason why your body is constantly going to be stressed and your immune system is going to be upregulated, because estrogen and progesterone are very important to regulate your immune system. So, yeah, that's really important to regular year in the system.
Speaker 1:So yeah, basically, you need to focus more on taking care of yourself. It's not to say that your dreams for building your physique are done for. You just have to be far more strategic about it and less focused on oh, I want to lose weight.
Speaker 2:And more focused on. I need to preserve everything that I have, yeah, and find out like the recourse, like where you're at with training, like with actual testing as well, and I mean it's the point that, like, having a coach is very important before, after, during, yeah and this is another thing that separates us just from going to the doctor because, like we said, you can go get blood work, but the blood, the blood work is not gonna freaking show you everything you need to see, and they're basing it off the blood work, which is based off the population, and we all know the population is unhealthy, so those ranges are just based off of unhealthy ranges.
Speaker 1:But if you come to us, you get the dutch test, we get that 24 hour period and we can see how your, how your hormones are, how you're breaking down your hormones, how you're using your hormones, what hormones you're using more than others and how much of each hormone you actually have, and then we can see your waking cortisol patterns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we can see everything on top of like we'll do actual in-depth blood work instead of what the doctor pulls, which is nothing yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so that was the episode on menopause. Hopefully you guys learned something new and if you did, that's good. Like I said earlier, we had the symptoms quiz, so this is for anybody menopause. You know you might want to check it out. We'll be posting it on our story. So if you follow us on IG, if you don't, our Instagram handles are in the show notes. So check it out and when we post the quiz, take the quiz and at the end of the quiz, there's a chance for you to do a free consultation with us and we can go over your results and then set you on the right path. And if you sign up with us, then obviously we're going to do the protocols for you and get you good to go. And you got anything.
Speaker 2:Uh-uh.
Speaker 1:And that's the episode. So if you liked the episode, don't forget to like, comment and share and leave that five-star review Until next time see ya.
Speaker 2:Hopefully you enjoyed the episode and have already left your five-star review, if you want more knowledge like this.
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