Taking Up Space: My Journey to Strength Through Perimenopause and Beyond

We’re done being the smallest version of ourselves to make others comfortable.

We’re lifting heavier, living louder, and surrounding ourselves with people who want to see us WIN—not stay small.

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Transcript

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Hey, welcome back to Strength in Numbers. I'm your host, Katie Dunford, and listen, today's episode, wow. Get your coffee, get your protein shake, get your creatine, because it's gonna be, it's gonna be part therapy, part conversational. Of course a pep talk from your favorite gym bestie. We're talking about building muscle in the middle of perimenopause while surviving HRT, the HRT madness, the pros, the cons, the side effects that I had from dizziness, headaches, and what I can only describe as leg pain. Like you've done a billion Bulgarian split squats in a Joe program. And of course, because it wouldn't be a journey without a little medical gaslighting. I mean, come on, we're, I'm gonna gaslight it. We'll talk about the time that I went to the doctors and they basically said to me, we don't need to do blood draws. You don't need a blood draw. We're just gonna go off of like how you're feeling. We're not gonna, we're not gonna look at any underlying issues. No, no, no, no, no. We're just gonna. It was like, kind of like that whole feeling that I got when I went to the first doctor. They were like, we're just gonna put you on birth control. Like, we're just gonna do birth control. No, no, no. So, and of course we're also gonna get in, into my journey, um, on tonal a little bit more, kind of talk about how, you know, how I felt going from taking up less space to wanting to take up more space. So, but most of all today is about this. We are not here to be small. Big lifts. Big energy, big confidence. Let's get into it. All right, let's go back a little bit. Let's paint a picture. So this picture, stay at home, mom. Running around after every everyone else. Low key. Forgetting who I was on the outside. I was on snack duty and laundry duty marathon. Can you relate? I think we can all relate. I still relate to that. To this day, tonal my beautiful magical wall-mounted miracle. At first, I just wanted to get a little stronger. Honestly, I was just like, if I could bench 75 pounds, that is a goal. Little did I know that I would be almost benching a hundred today. Maybe tone up. Have some more energy. Stop feeling like a tired bag of bones and care when I'm carrying groceries and doing normal tasks. Because at that time I was constantly over training, doing so much cardio. I wasn't fueling properly because I was so obsessed in the mind with I need to be smaller, so starving myself, not fueling myself. And being so concerned about everything else on the outside instead of what, how I was feeling. But y'all tonal flipped a switch on me. Suddenly I was excited to train. I was not chasing skinny. I was chasing strong. I went from, I just wanna to my arms to, I wanna bench press like a Viking queen, like I wanna be bear in forest. It's wild. Once you start seeing those numbers go up. And I'm not just talking about strength scores. I mean confidence, focus, the main character energy, you can't go back. It wasn't about shrinking anymore. It was about expanding and strength space and just being loving my own skin. So perimenopause and hormonal just like totally gave a total plot twist. But you know what? Loves to show up just when you're vibing are hormones. One minute, you're fine. The next, you're crying in grocery stores because avocados are too hard and you just don't understand why you walked into the kitchen. I thought HRT would be the solution, and it kind of was until it wasn't. Suddenly I was dizzy all the time, like I'm on a boat. Yeah, like on a boat, dizzy, headaches, legs hurting so bad. I could barely walk. It was like I was aging more. I was feeling worse. I'm becoming a rusty robot. I would literally finish workout and then just lay on the floor trying not to cry because my legs were just screaming. And I don't mean sore. I mean like. Like someone please exercise this pain demon out of my thighs. So I go to the doctor thinking, okay, cool. They'll test my, they'll, they'll do blood work now because I'm having side effects, right? Help me tweak things. Maybe recommend, you know, some different vitamins and check my vitamin levels. No, no, no. That didn't happen. You know what was said? We don't really need a blood draw. Your hormones fluctuate too much, which was total bs. I'm like, yeah, okay. Should I just do a tarot car reading and said Maybe, maybe I should like consult like Star Wars or something, you know, look at the stars and like get, you know, Darth Vader involved. It was a huge week. It was a huge wake up call for me. I realized if I didn't advocate for myself. No one else would. So I decided to go and get my blood draw. I had all my panels checked, I had my thyroid checked. I had, uh, all my hormones checked, and long and behold, guess what? D-H-A-D-H-E-A levels fine. Estradiol fine, progesterone a little low, but testosterone low. So all the medi, like all the things that they were trying to fix me with could have been just fixed with maybe a sh a one little shot a week of testosterone would've solved all the problems. Is it to solve all the problems? Who knows? Um, I just had my first shot, uh, the other day. So I got 10 weeks of, um, 10 milligrams of testosterone. So we're gonna see how that works. Um, will I get another blood draw? Guess what? We're doing another blood draw in 10 weeks. So if a doctor is denying doing blood draws to check all your levels, find a doctor that will, and I mean, sadly we're gonna have to pay out of pocket because the medical system is not in the preventative. Um, they're in the wait till we're gonna charge you up the yin yang. To fix you to help get you healthy. So preventative, we gotta pay out of pocket. So the next part we're gonna talk about is like, of course, the main thing about this whole podcast is taking up space. This whole season taught me something I'll never forget. I don't, I never wanna be small anymore. I see the old pictures of myself and I'm just like, how did I let it get so bad? Not physically, not emotionally, but energetically taking up space doesn't mean being loud or bossy or too much. It means owning your place in a room, in your body and in the damn mirror. And if someone's uncomfortable with that, that's their emotional pushup that they need to go do. Not me. Every rep I do on tonal, that's me taking up space. Every heavier lift. That's me saying I'm allowed to be powerful every time I say no to someone draining my energy. Yep. That's still taking up space. Even if it's on social media, it is okay to hide people. It is okay to remove yourself from places, things, people, whatever, that are draining you. There is sometimes when I, I have to pull back because, you know, we all know the world is fucked up right now. Like we all know. I don't need a reminder of it on social media. I really don't. Um, I go to social media to see friends, see family, see their kids, see somebody pring, see somebody, you know, getting stronger. You know, the good things that we can look at. Is it being naive that the world is a dumpster fire right now? No, the world has never been perfect. Never will I ever know because we're human and there's gonna be good people, there's gonna be bad people. But I refuse to live my life in anger. Refuse to. So remember all that taking up space. It is not you having an ego. It is an evolution. So let's talk about the people that you're surrounding yourself with. At some point in time, your journey, you are gonna realize not everyone is clapping for you and cheering. Some folks are secretly hoping that you fail so they don't have to face their own comfort zones. That is a big one. Remember? If people are talking shit and crap about other people, they are talking about you behind your back. If they are bashing somebody for wanting to be stronger, for somebody wanting to do something different, if they are dismissing them, remind yourself. There's gonna come a day where your goals, your training, what you're doing is going to change. And remind yourself that those people are probably gonna exit stage left. So when I started getting stronger and physically and mentally, some people got weirded out by that. And I'm talking about like, I'm not talking about like random people on the internet. I'm talking about people that were in my life. But you know what, that's that, that's a them thing. Because every person who couldn't handle like me doing something that was bettering myself getting healthier. Getting my eating under control, I found I found five more people that said, girl, let's go. People who understand that lifting each other up doesn't dim your own light. That's what strength and numbers means. It's spotting each other. It's hyping each other up. It's saying, I see you doing the thing and I've got your back. So now let's remind you what, especially women in our forties and beyond are capable of. You are capable of lifting heavy. You are capable of building muscle through hormonal chaos. You are advocating for yourself in doctor's offices, rewriting the damn rules about what aging looks like. We're not fragile, we're not fading. We're flipping the script and getting fricking powerful if you are in the messy middle right now. Whether it's perimenopause, training fatigue, or just trying to survive Wednesday with your sanity intact, I got you. You don't have to do it all. You don't have to be perfect, but you know what you do have to do? You do have to show up for yourself, for your future, for your strength, that's waiting for you on the other side, ask for the blood test. Do the scary lift. Say no to toxic energy, and yes to one more rep. You were never meant to shrink yourself in the background for no one. You were never meant, you were always meant to take up space and look that damn good doing it. That's all for today's episode. Strengthen numbers. What? What if you laughed a little? Nodded or yelled yes out loud at some point? Do me a favor, share this episode with somebody, with a woman who maybe needs to hear it because I needed to hear it. And remember, standing strong is the new small. And you, my friend, are just getting started. So I'll catch you on the next episode to go lift something heavy and walked tall.