Stronger Together: When Support Looks Different Than Expected

In this heartfelt episode, Katie opens up about something rarely discussed in strength and wellness spaces: the value of welcoming men into the conversation around perimenopause, menopause, and muscle-building.

Sharing her personal journey—including what it was like to build muscle with a male coach after years of being let down by women—Katie challenges the idea that support must come from someone who looks like you to be meaningful.

This episode dives into:

💬 Why the basics of muscle-building still work—especially in perimenopause

💬 The emotional weight of feeling unsupported by other women

💬 Why letting men in doesn’t mean you’ve turned your back on your sisters

💬 What real support looks like—no matter where it comes from

It’s raw, real, and rooted in one message:

Strength has no gender—and healing often comes from unexpected places.

Whether you’re in the gym, in the thick of hormone changes, or just needing a reminder that you don’t have to do it alone—this one’s for you.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Strength in Numbers. I am your host, Katie. How are you guys doing? Hope you guys are liking these little quick, quick little chit chats. So today we're gonna talk about when support looks different than we expected. So this episode is one that I've been holding close for a long time. Today we're gonna talk about something that maybe doesn't get said out loud often enough. Sometimes the support we need. For us women going through perimenopause and menopause and muscle building, in our strength journeys might come from people we don't expect. Yes, I'm gonna say it, the opposite sex. This episode is about why I believe in keeping that door open even when it feels uncomfortable. It's all about why building muscle is still and always will be about doing the basics and why? Because being strong. It isn't something we can do alone. So let's talk about perimenopause muscle. If you're here, you're probably somewhere in the storm of it. I am. I'm in the storm of it. Maybe you have a loved one, a wife, a sister, a cousin, your friends. The hot flashes, the hormonal swings, the dizzy spells, the fatigue, the moods, the mood shifts. That feeling like someone swapped your body in the middle of the night. Yes. I'm living it. And the only thing that keeps me grounded besides my stubbornness, which my husband will say, was building muscle. Building muscle is one of the most important, one of the most important powerful medicines we have. It's the anchor, the steady, the comeback. And guess what? The method isn't groundbreaking. There is no magic pill. You can't buy muscle. I mean, you can have stuff help you, but. You still have to do the work. You can't cheat it. It's the basics. Done well, done often, and you know what they are. Lift, eat, rest, repeat, lift, eat, rest, repeat. It's not always exciting, but it works. I have fallen in love with boredom. I love boredom. I can stay in boredom. Just keep me in boredom and I'm a happy clam. Especially when maybe your body is changing and your hormones are throwing you curve balls, that makes it a hundred times more or less exciting. But what, what? What if the support that we want and we're trying to shut people out at the same time, we want support, but we wanna shut people out. I don't understand that. We've been shut outta the health conversation for a long time. We've learned to stay quiet, but sometimes we're the ones shutting people out. We assume they won't get it. We think this is just a woman thing, but we forget. Like I said, they have wives, friends, moms, aunts, cousins. They're surrounded by women. But if we want real support, we have to be, we have to let them not understand to understand. We have to let people in. I've been training with my coach. Yes. He's a, he's a, he's a man for four years. Has it been four years or three years? I'm so confused on that matter. You know what he, he is definitely not in a female body. Has no, yeah, definitely not. But you know what he does? He listens and you know what else he does? He knows how to build muscle. He knows what it takes to get stronger. When I said I can't, he was just like, yes, you can just be different. And that has stuck with me. My whole entire training is all I wanted to do is be different and I want to inspire people, especially women like my coach inspired me to take up space to not shrink yourselves anymore. You don't need to live in the. Forever lane of being lean dumb. Oh man, that muscle leanness drives me crazy. That just gonna add that little tidbit in there. The kind of support that just does not come wrapped up in, you know, looking like how we think, you know, like a woman. It certainly didn't for me, but it just needs to be real. It just needs to be genuine. They just need to care. They need to do it for all the right reasons. Not for attention, not for clout, not for Instagram. Clicks and likes and comments, but because they wanna do it. Because they want you to feel better. They wanna see you succeed. They wanna see you get better. And maybe I'm more open because honestly, I've been let down by a lot of women in my life. My mother wasn't the mother I needed my sister and I. Yeah, that's uh, complicated. And sometimes those mean girls, you just never forget it, and that cuts deep. The men in my life, my grandfather, you know, my husband, you know, and now my coach and male friends that I've had in my life, they were the ones who saw me. They showed up. They didn't try to tell me I needed to shrink myself. They didn't tell me, here's the next best fix to snatch your waist. No. They gave me the, the, they gave me the space to be the best version of myself that I wanted to build. They gave me the space to be Katie. I'm not the woman who surrounded me back then. I'm the woman who was raised by the men who just stayed and showed up for me. Letting men into our space doesn't mean we're turning our backs on women. Let me get that straight. Men that are trying to educate themselves and ask questions and talk about it more are not mansplaining. I hate that word. I will forever show up for women. This is why I do this podcast. This is why I post all my stuff on Instagram, is because I want women to take up space, be stronger, build muscle, but I also believe the help we need. Might not always look like us, and that has to be okay. It's not about choosing sides, it's about choosing strength. And sometimes strength is handed to you by someone you didn't think would understand, but they do. Muscle is muscle and it's real and it changes you. So let's bring it back to the training part of it. Muscle just does not care gender of your coach. It really doesn't. Muscle is muscle. It just cares about consistency. Muscle is built on intentions, patients, food recovery and showing up. Consistency matters. You know, maybe that program you're following maybe needs adjusting and you know what, that's fine. I adjust my programs all the time. All the time. But what matters is we keep showing up. Building strength during perimenopause is not glamorous, but you know what it is, it is powerful and you are allowed to do it with all the support wherever it comes from. So let's talk about, okay, where I'm gonna leave you with this one because I'm really trying to keep these under 10 minutes, these little quick chit chats. So here's what I wanna leave you with. Stay open. Healing doesn't always come from where we expect it. Support may show up wherein, you know, maybe a different uniform speaking, a different language stand. You know, maybe you're looking at a screen and he is the size of a linebacker. I don't know that's what happened to me. But let them help you. Let them in, let them understand, let them learn. Welcoming men into this conversation doesn't make us less of women. It doesn't mean we've betrayed women. It just means we are wise enough to know that strength has no gender. Compassion isn't confined to one community, and growth often comes from places we least expect it. This is about lifting each other who, whoever each other ends up being. I'm gonna read that again. This is about lifting each other, whoever each other ends up being. So let's keep getting stronger together. Let's do it together because nobody gets stronger alone. I did not do this alone. I am here to help. I'm here to cheer on. I'm here to encourage. I am soaking up all the knowledge I can from men and women, and that's where the conversation should be because muscle is muscle. Thank you so much for you guys joining this quick little podcast. I really appreciate you guys like sending me messages that you guys like this kind of stuff. I'm gonna keep pumping these out every Friday. Guests are coming onto the podcast. I'm really working on getting those scheduled in. So guys, keep lifting, keep taking up space. Don't shrink yourself. Have a great day.