Decoding Women's Health: From Periods to Perimenopause with Shelby Tutty

If you’ve ever felt like your body has changed but you don’t fully understand why, this episode is going to help connect some dots.

In this episode, I sit down with Shelby Tutty and we break down women’s health from periods to perimenopause—what’s actually happening in your body and why so many women feel confused or unsupported during this phase.

Here’s what I want you to know: a lot of what women experience isn’t random—it’s just not well explained. And when you understand what’s going on, it becomes a lot easier to work with your body instead of constantly questioning it.

In this episode, we cover:

•  what perimenopause actually is and how it shows up 
•  how hormonal shifts affect mood, energy, and overall health 
•  the role of stress and why it can make symptoms worse 
•  why cycle awareness still matters, even as things start to change 
•  how to start paying attention to patterns in your body 

This episode is for you if:

•  your cycle or symptoms have changed and you’re not sure why 
•  you feel like something is off but can’t fully explain it 
•  you want a better understanding of your body without overcomplicating it 

"Perimenopause has unlocked a part of my brain that has brought more intuition and compassion into my life." - Shelby Tutty

Understanding your body changes how you take care of it.

Links and Resources:

- Website

- My 4-go to dinners to balance hormones

- Instagram

Connect with Shelby Tutty: 

Shelby is a healthcare professional focused on perimenopause education and the founder of The Periprofessional, where she shares clear, approachable information to help women better understand their health. She also writes a weekly Substack and leads the Women’s Health 365 Collective.

- Website

- Blog (ThePeriprofessional)

- Instagram

☕️ Stay bold, stay balanced, stay thriving 

📩 Subscribe to my newsletter HERE

⭐️ Rate and review! 

Transcript

0:00:01 - (Carly): Shelby Tutty and I met on the Internet. I was doing some research on women's health, stumbled upon her page, loved her stuff. And the next thing you know, we're having a coffee date. And within 10 minutes of our conversation, actually, honestly, it was more of like two minutes. I knew I needed to have her on the podcast. Despite being in two very different phases of our lives, we had so many parallels in our stories.

0:00:29 - (Carly): So both of us were coming from conventional healthcare backgrounds, both experienced burnout, both reached a point where what we had been taught just wasn't working anymore. And on top of that, we have both built a business around women's health. We've dedicated our work to clarifying the large amount of misinformation around what it means to be a woman. Now, if you thought that periods were misunderstood, Shelby's work takes it to a whole other level because she focuses on perimenopause, which is an even more forgotten part of women's health, in my opinion.

0:01:05 - (Carly): So, Shelby is a longtime healthcare professional who now focuses on perimenopause education, awareness, and support through her business, the Periprofessional. She also writes a weekly substack where she blends biology with humor. Another one of the reasons I love her. And honesty, right? She just. Her goal is to make women's health feel a lot more human and a lot less confusing. So today's conversation is just. Is for any woman, right, who's ever felt like she doesn't feel like herself, whether that is from burnout, stress hormones, or life is just lifing.

0:01:41 - (Carly): Because this isn't just about perimenopause, okay? It's about finally understanding what is happening in your body and learning how to work with it instead of against it. So grab a cup of something warm, settle in, and let's dive in. Welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wakeup call to a happier, healthier life. I'm your host, Carly Shade, and I'm here to uncover how good life can get.

0:02:17 - (Shelby): Foreign.

0:02:21 - (Carly): Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Coffee with Carly. Today we have Shelby Tutty here on the podcast. Welcome, Shelby. How are you?

0:02:31 - (Shelby): Thank you, Carly. It's a pleasure to be here and to speak with you and your listeners.

0:02:36 - (Carly): Yeah, I am so excited. As you know, I kind of shared in the. The pre recording, this has been just a really fun relationship that developed. I was like, we met on the Internet and we went on a date. Now we're here and you're on my podcast. So that is the. The beauty of living in 2026. We can do that. But I want to jump right in. You know, we do have so many parallels, right? We are. You know, I think that was kind of clear from the first time we talked.

0:03:04 - (Carly): We're in different phases of life, but have a lot of similarities. And so I want to dive into. To really your story, especially when you were navigating perimenopause kind of. I think it was maybe back in 2019, and you had that I don't feel like myself moment. I want you to share that because I think that no matter who is listening, almost every woman probably has a story that's very similar to that.

0:03:29 - (Shelby): Yeah. And, you know, we're all united over that story of perimenopause. And prior to, you know, the last few years, women didn't have that information available to them, so they kind of had to navigate it themselves. And as we've gone through the decades, our symptoms are different, different than what they used to be. So we can only rely on each other. And my story is very similar to other women's stories where we didn't really have a lot of information at the time.

0:04:00 - (Shelby): We were told, you don't really need to worry about it until you start skipping periods, which is not true. And so I had that mindset myself. Well, I don't really need to start worrying about perimenopause or thinking about it until I started skipping. Skipping periods. But the reality of that is, the way it presents itself is very different. It actually starts years before you reach menopause, years before you reach the skipping period phase. And it usually starts very subtle, where you wouldn't necessarily associate what you're feeling in your symptoms to, oh, this is reproductive or this is perimenopause, or this is leading me towards menopause. You're in your 40s, you're at the height of your career, the height of family and your life, and all of these symptoms kind of come.

0:04:47 - (Shelby): Come on to you subtly and slowly until they become very noticeable. So my first perimenopause symptoms were an increase in anxiety, which, I mean, I think everybody in this day and age has. Has dealt with some anxiety here and there, but I didn't really think too much of it. But when I started having these anxiety, anxious feelings, it really became noticeable to me because I was always able to manage it before, and I think that was key.

0:05:17 - (Shelby): I was able to manage any anxiety before, but now it was like it almost took a hold of me and I couldn't get around it. There was a lack of interest in things That I always enjoy doing, primarily traveling and reading. And all of a sudden, I didn't want to do those things. I found that I didn't have energy in general. I was very tired all the time, and I was still pushing, pushing, pushing. So when you're pushing so hard like that, as we women do when you reach perimenopause, we just don't have the resources that we had prior to this massive hormonal change and this transition, which will lead you towards menopause, which is a natural phase in our lives and nothing to be afraid of. But that first jerk reaction when you realize is this perimenopause can be jarring and unsettling as you try to navigate the symptoms. And, you know, I'm really not supportive of people saying, oh, I had mood swings. I think we need to define it a little bit more clearer so that women can recognize, well, what do you mean, mood swings?

0:06:31 - (Shelby): And for me, that showed up as literally being happy one minute and then crying the next minute or sitting on couch and being totally fine. And then all of a sudden a commercial will come on and I'm crying over these commercials or graduation ceremonies or even the Olympics. And then I could go from being totally fine to snapping at my family for little things. I remember. My daughter loves to share this story.

0:07:01 - (Shelby): She brought me a yellow highlighter when I asked her to get me a highlighter to so I could highlight something in a book. And the way she tells the story, I was extremely dramatic that she brought me a yellow highlighter when what I really wanted was a pink highlighter, because pink is my favorite color, and I want the pink highlighter. And she said, I just went crazy. Like, I didn't want a yellow highlighter. I wanted the pink highlighter.

0:07:28 - (Shelby): So it's that type of really emotional roller coaster is what people are describing when they say mood swings. And I think we just need to be a little bit clearer with our symptoms. Vaginal dryness, one of them, you know, people say all the time, you know, you read about vaginal dryness. Well, if you don't know what that is, you can't recognize it in yourself when perimenopause shows up. And that's certainly not something that waits until menopause to show up. I mean, it's irritation. It feels like you have an infection. It's uncomfortable to sit, it's uncomfortable to stay. Understand, it's not just a sexual activity that brings it on. And I think we just need to be clear with our symptoms. So I'm trying To change that narrative and what I do and being a little bit more clear, particularly with my experience and my knowledge around perimenopause and making it more relatable to women.

0:08:20 - (Carly): And it, it is, it's so important. And I love that bit about really defining what is a mood swing, you know, because even, you know, again, in my world, right. Of really focusing on women who do still have periods, same thing. Like there is a, yes, I feel different from phase to phase. That's a mood swing. But I have enough of a balanced rhythm where it's not. I'm crying because I don't have the pink highlighter.

0:08:45 - (Carly): Right. And so if we don't define what's a normal mood shift because we're entering different phases versus a drastic mood swing, that something deeper is maybe going on and we can better support our body. So I think that's such an important distinction. And you know, you have, obviously it sounds, you know, from your own lived experience meets your research. You know what, when, when you did first start having these symptoms, you said, I don't feel like myself.

0:09:16 - (Carly): You know, the first thing you did was go to the doctor. Right. Can you like tell us about that experience and was it helpful or you know, what happened?

0:09:26 - (Shelby): Yeah, I mean it, it brings, first off, you need to go to the doctor. When you're experiencing symptoms that are unusual for you or that you can't determine why you're having them, if it disrupts your lifestyle, if it disrupts your day, you really do need to seek medical care. But in that you're also brought down a very long path of medical tests to rule out other things that could be causing what's going on.

0:09:51 - (Shelby): Medical x rays and MRIs and CAT scans and incidental findings, which are things that they find that aren't even related to your, your symptoms that you're going. But because you had lab work done, now they see things that are going on that you weren't even looking for. So I have a very thick binder of all of my information and I really recommend that to women in their 30s, in their 40s, in their 50s.

0:10:18 - (Shelby): Don't rely on just the information that's available online to you. Always print a copy of your medical reports and the after care summaries and put them in a binder so that you can bring it with you to physicians appointments and reference it. And that is really key because I am a healthy person and yet my binder is really thick. It's a three inch binder and it is filled from the last six Years of taking care of things that have popped up in perimenopause.

0:10:50 - (Shelby): And you really do need to get checked out to make sure that there isn't something else going on. Because some of the symptoms of perimenopause mimic other things. They mimic thyroid issues. They mimic mental health issues. They can mimic cancer. So it's really beneficial and on your behalf to go and get checked out. Although realize that it may be a long journey. It's only when physicians and healthcare professionals rule out everything else that they look then at, okay, well, maybe this is perimenopause.

0:11:26 - (Shelby): And back in 2018, 2019, again, the. The narrative around menopause was not that available. And it was based on your age and skipping periods. And I was told, you know, 42, 43 years old, that I was too young for perimenopause, or, you know, they call it menopause back then. I'm 55 now. That gives you kind of a timeframe of when this was taking place. But even at 42 and 53, when 42 and 43, I believe I got my first hot flash. And with that came a heavy dose of anxiety, which I was not anticipating, because when you hear of hot flashes, you just think, oh, you get a little warm and maybe you sweat. But that episode when I was about 42, really, it knocked me off my feet, and I Googled it. And the thing that kept coming up was, this is a hot flash.

0:12:22 - (Shelby): And when I brought it to my physician, I was told, nope, you're too young. Which is actually incorrect. 45. Anything over 45 is age appropriate for reaching menopause. The average age in the United States is 52 to reach menopause. But perimenopause can start anytime after 40. Some women are even saying that they're showing perimenopause symptoms in their late 30s. So it's something that we really need, that we really need to be aware of, but also the medical community needs to be aware of. And I got to tell you, I mean, the good news is, the great news is that in the last seven years, there has been so much advancements in medical education around this, because traditionally, physicians and other healthcare providers have not been trained in this. It's not a medical issue.

0:13:13 - (Shelby): It can cause some medical issues, but menopause itself is not a medical issue. So they're not trained on. On it and the treatment for it. And things have changed over the last couple of decades as far as information and then also treatment guidelines, particularly around hormone therapy.

0:13:35 - (Carly): Yeah, well, I have two Things that I want to kind of circle back on. That is number one, I. What, what do we do? Like why, why is perimenopause? Why is painful periods, like why are those not considered medical issues? You know, because I think back when you said it's important to see a doctor. It is. But also what do we tell even your experience? Right. Like they didn't really know in the beginning. It was like, what, what's going on? Right. Or you had to go through X number of tests to, to finally, you know, get to the light at the end of the tunnel. So I think there is something where, whether it's my listeners, my own experience, some of my clients, right, who have felt gaslit, who have felt like I do go see doctors, and these things that I'm telling them are not being taken seriously, you know, so how, how do you. I understand especially maybe with perimenopause, some of these stronger symptoms, they need to rule them out. But you know, why?

0:14:35 - (Carly): I guess that's maybe a two part question, like why is it that it's always the last thing to consider? You know, maybe even we can start simple. Hormone support, nutrition, lifestyles, lifestyle support. While they're going through all those tests, you know, it's like, why is that not the first thing that we do think of?

0:14:57 - (Shelby): Well, I mean, if you look at medical curriculum today, I mean, it is. Physicians are trained to treat disease. That's what they're really good at. Particularly acute things. Chronic gets into a little bit more complexity. But they are taught to treat acute diseases. And because perimenopause and menopause are not diseases, it was not part of their curriculum. Just like very few doctors are actually trained on nutrition.

0:15:27 - (Shelby): You would think in this day and age that nutrition and your health go hand in hand, but there are physicians that are still claiming that nutrition is not going to assist with any disease markers that you've developed, particularly gastrointestinal things, which is always incredible to me. However, there is now a movement to bring some of that information to physicians so that, that is also included in the treatment plan. And that is a brand new kind of method called social prescribing, where physicians are now being trained to look at other things outside of medicine for treatment, because medicine for treatment and diseases go hand in hand. But now they're actually looking outside of that, looking at art, looking at nature, looking at community, looking at your, your level of isolation and loneliness and starting to make recommendations in those areas. But this is, this is pretty brand new.

0:16:32 - (Carly): Yeah, I say that's Awesome. I was like, I've not seen that in my world in the health care. But it is, it's like the definition of medicine, I think that people forget is the more that you take, the less you need of it. That is the definition of medicine. But the medicine that we take, you know, all of a sudden we got to up the dose, we got to up the dose, we got to double the dose and it just keeps going through the rest of our lives.

0:16:55 - (Shelby): And.

0:16:56 - (Carly): But I love what you said, right, where it's, it's not considered a disease. And of course we have our opinions of health care. It's a, it is great to treat those serious things, right? But again, the general, healthy people, someone who, it's a hormonal, not a true disease, can really fall through the cracks.

0:17:16 - (Shelby): So it's important with things like, you know, endometriosis, women, it takes on average 11 years to get diagnosed with endometriosis. Why women's pain isn't taken seriously in the medical world, I don't know. I mean, we need, we would need to ask physicians, but it's, it's across male physicians, it's across female physicians. When women show up at the emergency room, they're given less painkillers when they present with pain.

0:17:42 - (Shelby): And it's, it's an epidemic. And I don't, I don't know why women's pain is not taken seriously.

0:17:51 - (Carly): Neither do I. But the best we can do is start with things like this podcast, right, and these conversations. And so the next question I wanted to ask is why you had mentioned that. So again, this is going to be a two part, let's kind of back up and if you could quickly summarize what perimenopause is. Again, I think I don't want to make any assumptions on this podcast, right. We're here educating about menstrual cycles and so that's going to include what is perimenopause? I think often we do just jump from, you get your period and then you have menopause.

0:18:25 - (Carly): So what is this, what's this wonderful spot we have in between?

0:18:30 - (Shelby): So perimenopause is the bridge between having periods and not having periods. And so your body, when it stops having periods, most likely won't go just from having a period regularly to stopping your periods. Now there are some women that, that's their experience and that's totally fine. But for the majority of us, when we go through the perimenopause process, we go through skipping our periods, so we may get it One month, and then we don't get it for two months, then we might get it again, then it might be three months, and then it might be a month.

0:19:10 - (Shelby): It's very irregular where. When you get your periods and perimenopause. So when I started with my perimenopause symptoms around 2018, 2019, again, it was all about skipping periods. And then it became. No, wait a second, that is not accurate. It actually starts with periods that present too close together. So if you're used to cycling every 28 days, what you may start to notice is a shift in your cycles and to 24 days, 23 days, 22 days, you're going to start seeing your periods come closer together rather than further apart. Those should be your first indicator that, hey, there's something going on.

0:19:54 - (Shelby): And really what's happening behind the scenes is that your ovaries are getting ready to stop producing the hormones and ovulating that you have used to, you having done through your reproductive years. So it's the end of your reproductive years, it's the end of your period, and it's your ovaries shutting down. And I say shutting down lightly because they've now recently realized that your ovaries still do something after menopause. We just don't know what it is yet.

0:20:26 - (Shelby): It's not releasing the traditional estrogen and progesterone that we're used to through our menstrual cycles, but our ovaries are still doing something. And it's going to be really interesting over the next decade or so to find out what that is.

0:20:42 - (Carly): It's gonna. It's gonna be some magical hormone that is associated with, like, just this wildly intuitive wise woman. Like, I think of just, you know, when I talk about the superpowers of each phase, right. You know, we're most connected to ourselves and, and our intuition when we're on our period, right? And I think that is attributed to we. We aren't experiencing this change in hormones, right, where our mood is changing with these hormones. It's like our most authentic self. And so that's what I.

0:21:13 - (Carly): I actually just facilitated discussion on cycle syncing for a group of women that were postmenopausal or menopausal. And, you know, I was like, you are, you are all the. I'm in a room of wise women, right? And, you know, if we can support our bodies, if we can honor, you know, this rhythm that we don't forget there. You. You're all. You are wiser, right? And like, you are most connected to yourself because especially in the menopause year, menopause years, you know, you aren't, you aren't as influxed by this, this change in hormones. And so I'm like, I just think that when you get to that age, you are just this amazing wise, this woman that can, that really holds this wisdom. And so I'm like, there's going to be some hormone that is associated with that.

0:22:00 - (Carly): But that's what, you know, I choose to believe. And I think that too. People always think menopause is such a scary thing. It's like, no, they're just like, there are no bad phases of your menstrual cycle. There's no bad phases of being a woman. There's just different superpowers that come with it.

0:22:14 - (Shelby): That I love that idea that there is some hormone that it's releasing that we have not yet discovered because we don't know everything about the human body. We have a long way to go as in depth as I am into health care and hormones. And I just learned of a new neurotransmitter that we didn't know about before. So there's so much to learn. And I can tell you from my experience, Even though I'm 55 and I'm still perimenopausal, which is late, I am like, I am like waiting for this to happen because at 55, 90% of women have already gone through menopause.

0:22:50 - (Shelby): So my friends have gone through it. I'm like hanging in there. The nice thing about it is that now I'm chatting with younger women in their 30s and 40s, so that's been really fun because otherwise I wouldn't be exposed to them. But I think that's really beautiful because I have also recognized in myself a wisdom that has come through this where I am more in tune with the world around me. I'm not a grandmother, but I do feel that grandmotherly love for my community, for my, my friends, for strangers on the street, for people that I meet. I want to look after people that wasn't there before.

0:23:31 - (Shelby): I have a particular compassion that is since developed an intuition around what I like. Whereas before, if you asked me what I like, I'd have a hard time answering that because we're so outwardly focused on, well, what does everybody else like. This has given me the opportunity to really explore what I want to keep in my life and what I don't. Because stress plays a huge part in the number and severity of your perimenopause symptoms. And once you Realize that and you're able to kind of look at, well, what's your.

0:24:09 - (Shelby): Stressing you out. You can pick and choose the things that you want to keep in your life. And it's been an eye openening experience. And I absolutely feel that wisdom that you described.

0:24:21 - (Carly): Some, some have said it becomes the. I don't give a phase where it's like I am myself and I don't care, you know, and there's a, there's a really wonderful freedom that comes with that. So I think it is not only.

0:24:36 - (Shelby): And you also see the ridiculousness in things. Like you just look at stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, like if, if I had known that when I was younger. You just, I don't know, you just see the ridiculousness in silly things that don't matter and it allows you to focus on what you want to focus on.

0:24:55 - (Carly): Yeah. And yeah, it's right there. Again, there are no bad phases. No matter what part of life you are as a woman, no bad phases. So on that note though, how. You know, you had said something about women are getting perimenopause younger and younger now, right? You know, 37, 35. I don't remember how. How low? You said 39. You know, and this is actually a question for me since I, I'm not that familiar. Right. With perimenopause, I kind of focus on the, the men's training years is.

0:25:27 - (Carly): You said the periods get shorter, but how, how can we start to tell what is just a woman who needs, who's still very much in her menstruating years and just needs to support her hormones. Right. The work that I do, you know, our body symptoms. Are you talking to, is it talking to you? And we can look at lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, cycle syncing. Right. How can we kind of differentiate Your body just needs more support versus oh, I'm actually entering perimenopause maybe at a younger age.

0:25:58 - (Shelby): So I think the key is what you do, which is menstrual cycle awareness. And I wish that I had known about that when I was younger because I did see trends every month, but I wasn't really paying attention to them. It was like I knew after I had my period that I would get very sad and blue and the world would just be a gray place and it would be difficult to. The first few days after my period ended.

0:26:26 - (Shelby): I knew before my period that I would get what I call the hungry horrors where I could eat my kitchen up of all my food and still be hungry. So I had Identified that, but I didn't really see the bigger picture. So the key to all of this is knowing your body. And you can only do that through menstrual cycle awareness and paying and tracking through each month to see what's normal for you. The concern comes in when you start seeing things that are not normal for you. And if you do menstrual cycle awareness long enough, you get a really good set of data that you can use to make some decisions.

0:27:07 - (Shelby): Anytime you see something consistently a month or two month that has changed with your cycles, you definitely want to take a look at that and see, is this something that I'm doing? Am I not sleeping enough? Am I not eating correctly? Am I not exercising? Or is this now developed into something that needs medical care?

0:27:27 - (Carly): That makes sense. So, right. Like, you know, most women, the pms, the list of PMS symptoms can be very, very diverse. But most of us have a couple of the same ones that show up every single cycle. Right? That's that pattern. So even if there are some, there's some room for improvement in terms of our hormonal health and kind of regulating and balancing those symptoms. At least that's still a pattern.

0:27:53 - (Carly): So what you're saying is kind of I have this pattern, even if there's symptoms that show up, and then once that pattern starts to shift. Right. Particularly maybe for worse, things start to look a little different. That's when, okay, we might need to be looking at something outside of, you know, just typical menstrual support.

0:28:12 - (Shelby): Yes. Yep.

0:28:14 - (Carly): That makes sense. And I love that because it comes back to just the importance of. And I like what you said, Rick, menstrual awareness. Because I do, I do try to not use the words cycle syncing as much because I think people have a very, a very narrow view of what that means. You know, it must mean, oh, you're, you know, one woman told me my uterus, you know, sinks up with other people. That's what cycle syncing is, right? Or, oh, I have to be taking my temperature, LH strips and ovulation, you know, tabs, like every day, you know, and it's not.

0:28:47 - (Carly): It is really just understanding your patterns, understanding your rhythm, and then adapting your life, particularly in nutrition habits, you know, exercise to that. But no matter where you're at in your health journey, we have to get data. Right? And it does not have to be in a super scientific way. It can be. Every day you wake up and you write, I'm on day three of my cycle. How do I feel? Right? How did I wake up, how's my mood? Did I end up getting bloated today?

0:29:17 - (Carly): It can be really simple pen and paper, but, you know, I think that would be my recommendation for anyone. No matter what phase you're in. I even told the menopausal women you're still impacted by the moon. Right. Like your body doesn't forget this rhythm. So that is, that is a step one and it's. And I'm glad. This is a perfect segue. I think whether you're perimenopause, whether you're menopausal, whether you're menstruating, the importance of figuring out what your body is telling you, what your patterns are is the first step. It's so important and is really foundational to improving your health long term.

0:29:56 - (Shelby): Yes. And as you had said in the past, it builds trust with your body when your body knows that you are keeping an eye on it. Not, not in an anxious way, not in an overwhelming way, but keeping an eye on it to make sure that you're able to provide what it needs at different times of the month and go through the process. You really, you know, you build that trust and you start to see some threads and some themes come through which will help you make better decisions in the long run.

0:30:29 - (Shelby): And like you said, when you are perimenopausal, absolutely, you can still do menstrual cycle awareness. I have not had a period since November. This has been one of the longest spells I've gone. So I'm really hoping that this is bringing me closer to that 365 day mark that I need to go without having a period before I can say that I'm menopausal. And in the beginning I felt like my period was coming. I was having all the same symptoms.

0:31:00 - (Shelby): I, I felt like, yep, it's going to show up. And, and it didn't. And I call those phantom periods because it feels like you're gonna get it because your, your body isn't going to stop on a dime. It's going to continue thinking, oh, I need to keep acting this way. Like, for me, I think it's 43 years that I've had a menstrual cycle. So that's what it's used to doing and that's what it feels like. And because I, I did learn about menstrual cycle awareness later in my cycle years, but I was able to apply that before I went completely skipping periods so that I could recognize, okay, it feels like it's coming, but it didn't But I still. Even throughout the month, even around ovulation, which. When you're skipping periods, it means that you're not ovulating.

0:31:49 - (Shelby): I was still feeling like I was, even though I was not, because if I had, I would have gotten a period.

0:31:56 - (Carly): And that is exactly. You know, I love that. Where you're like, I had a period for 43 years. My body's not gonna just forget. I'm like, I have a hard time changing. When I go from like, turning 31 to 32 after just a year changing, you know, my age, I'm like, of course your body isn't just gonna forget how it's operated. And. And I. You know, I. I love that. Again, is. Is no matter the phase you're in, we use the moon. We. You are affected by the new moon just the same as the Puget Sound ocean here in.

0:32:27 - (Carly): We all are, man or woman. Right. We're made of water. So is that something. Cycle awareness. Right. Understanding, you know, tracking maybe your cycle with the moon if you don't have regular bleeds anymore, diversifying your diet. I mean, so for women who maybe are experiencing perimenopause symptoms, what are some of those recommendations that you would give them to help manage it? Because you don't have to just. You know, I love what you said about building trust with your body. I think no matter what phase, again, we've just been taught that these things are part of being a woman or we don't have control over them.

0:33:03 - (Carly): And that's where we lose trust with our bodies. We stop talking to it. And then all these other symptoms and ailments and burnout and all of that comes from it. So how do we start to build trust with it? And what can we do to minimize these symptoms? Because we do have a say in, you know, the phases and how intense our body goes through them.

0:33:24 - (Shelby): Yep. So what I would recommend is I still tracked my periods as if they were happening. So my period length was about 26 days under normal circumstances, and I would keep track of that. So I knew what cycle day I would have been on had I gotten a period. And I felt like I really aligned with that, even even though I still wasn't bleeding each month like I was before. So because I kept track of that, I knew if I was in the first half of my phase before ovulation, which is called the follicular phase, or the last part of my phase post ovulation, which is the luteal phase.

0:34:12 - (Shelby): So I looked at it more of a big picture as opposed to granularly each day. And I looked at it as the first half of my cycle and the second half of my cycle. The second half of my cycle, I gave myself a lot of space. I tried not to be critical if I wasn't able to do something, because that's really when, for me, the exhaustion would hit. You know, my estrogen would be decreasing during that second half.

0:34:39 - (Shelby): And, you know, you start getting a little bit more. I would say, for me, testy. I got a little testy. I called it two days before my period was supposed to come. I would call this family rage when my family knew that, like, I could just go off on the drop of a hat. So when that showed up, I knew, okay, it's time to slow down. It's time to get outside in nature. It's my favorite thing to do is to read. Whether it's nonfiction or fiction.

0:35:09 - (Shelby): I try to make more time for myself in that last part of my cycle. Even though I wasn't getting a period, if I was hungry, I would lean in. I mean, that's my body telling me that I needed extra calories because it thinks that it's getting ready to have a period. I would lean in and I would eat when I needed to eat because my body was telling me. I also made sure that my sleep habits were better. I would try and go to bed a little bit earlier. I would stay off the devices in the evening, but knowing that the first half of my cycle was always a little bit better. I had more energy, I wasn't as hungry.

0:35:46 - (Shelby): I could push a little bit harder in that first half of the cycle. And like I said, even though I'm not getting regular periods, I can still use the knowledge of menstrual cycle awareness to help support my perimenopause symptoms, which, you know, we're all complaining about our brain fog and cognitive decline during perimenopause, because that can take a hit as well. But I found that by still going with the flow, so to speak, I was able to mitigate some of those symptoms. Not everything.

0:36:19 - (Shelby): I'm still getting hot flashes. I still have trouble sleeping sometimes. The other night I slept nine hours straight, and then the next night I was up at 3am like, okay, what am I going to do with myself now? So, you know, we need to adjust when. When perimenopause happens on. On purpose. We need to adjust on purpose.

0:36:44 - (Carly): Everything you just said is the basics to being a healthy individual, to being a healthy woman. And. And I love that because, again, I think this is this is why I'm so passionate about what I do is I want to shout this from the rooftops. I want to get into every single high school. I want to, you know, to tell women because what you just described, right. Listening to my body, having a basic awareness of my menstrual cycle, right? Knowing that I'm not going to shame myself when I want an extra snack in my luteal phase. Because your metabolism speeds up and burns anywhere from 90 to 300 more calories a day.

0:37:23 - (Carly): Right? Like, if. If we have this basic awareness to trust what our body is telling us, give it what it's actually asking for, and have a basic awareness of how our hormones and our body operates as a woman, that basic education can carry you throughout your entire lifespan as a woman. Right? You just said, right? It's gonna. It can help with the perimenopause. It can help us stop living like a man. You know, stop feeling guilty for needing that extra hour of sleep.

0:37:52 - (Carly): You know, the. The group of women that I just met with, you know, they're a lot of them are grand grandmas now, and they're helping their daughters with their kids. And so they're like, I'm working like five days a week. I'm busy, I'm tired. I'm up with the kids now. So they're trying to get their workouts in the beginning, and they're trying to do five days a week and 6am workouts. And one woman, she's like, I finally realized I don't need to do that every day. I can do three days a week and I can go to the 7am and she's like, and I have more energy and I want to cook dinner now.

0:38:23 - (Shelby): And.

0:38:23 - (Carly): And it's that little adjustment of what should I do versus what does my body keep telling me in that feedback? And so I just. Yeah, I think that it is so important that we have spaces like this, that we have the periprofessional that we have coffee with Carly. Because no matter what phase you're at of life, you can always start this. This basic body awareness of tracking your patterns and simply just giving your body compassion.

0:38:51 - (Carly): And, and like you said, the more you just show up for it and like every day just remind it that you're listening, it will start to talk to you louder and louder and louder and give you direction on how to really feel your best.

0:39:06 - (Shelby): It really does. And you know, I. Like I said, I wish I had known about this in my 20s and 30s. If anybody wants a secret to life, As a woman, this is it. And it comes without mocking yourself or being imperfect. It really, like, you don't need to be perfect through your. Through your month. And it allows for some variability. It allows for some, you know, building trust with your body and taking care of it, and it reduces your stress. I mean, stress is.

0:39:43 - (Shelby): I. I didn't realize how much stress had an impact on me until I reached perimenopause, because I'm type A, I'm a pusher. I want to be perfect, I want to get things done, I want to push ahead, and I want to ignore things. And that really caught up to me in a bad way during perimenopause. And if I'm honest, it caught up to me in a bad way during my pregnancy. I also had a twin pregnancy, which my twins are now 20, but a stressful pregnancy where I spent the majority of my time being anxious over what was going to happen.

0:40:21 - (Shelby): And had I just taken a moment to myself and say, you're just doing the best that you can do and that's good enough. It is really the secret to life for women. It's okay. It's all okay. We're all doing the best that we can do, and this is the secret.

0:40:43 - (Carly): And I'm really glad that you did bring up stress, because I think that that continues to be a huge. It's the foundation. Again, the starting point that any woman needs to look at is to how to manage her stress. You know, whether you're perimenopause, whether you're menopausal, whether you're menstruating. You know, that was. That was a story that we kind of similarly shared, right? The burnout. My burnout ate up my progesterone.

0:41:06 - (Carly): And even though I have been actively working for three years now to try to raise my progesterone, I'm doing seed cycling, I'm eating the right things, I'm adapting my workouts. Stress still, it doesn't matter if you eat the fruit or whatever, stress still shows up. And as long as stress still shows up, especially in that luteal phase, the second half, you know, it uses cortisol, uses progesterone in the process of creating it.

0:41:33 - (Carly): So if you have this elevated stress, even if it's on a cellular level, you're using up that progesterone again. So it doesn't matter what you're eating or if you're doing all the right things, if you cannot figure out how to manage your stress. And so, you know, I know stress has always been talked about. But again, I just don't think, you know, at least I've been studying health most of my life, and I did not know the correlation between stress and our hormones and then what that does all the way down the road.

0:42:03 - (Carly): So I'm glad that you did bring that up because this should always be a reminder for women of just what stress can do to the body and the hormones and the digestive issues and everything. I would say the stress is the precursor to most ailments that we experience.

0:42:16 - (Shelby): Oh, yes. And you know what? I think that we are able to cope with external stress. I think the way our bodies are designed, with cortisol and adrenaline and other chemicals, we're able to adjust when those external stressors hit us. But I think the thing that's harder on our bodies is internal stress. And what that is is a disconnect between what I call yourself, which is your mind and what your body and brain want, and what our mind wants. And what our body and brain wants may not be in alignment. My body may want to rest, but my mind may want to say, no, you didn't clean the kitchen today. You need to get that done before you go to bed.

0:43:05 - (Shelby): And that disconnect between your mind and what your body want, I believe causes the biggest source of stress. So if you can get those two things in better alignment by paying attention to your body and building that trust that we talked about earlier, I think you'll be in a better place to go through life in general and go through the other stressors that women go through, like pregnancy and perimenopause and menopause and then other women's health conditions.

0:43:40 - (Carly): That is so perfectly put. And I'm like, that's exactly why mindset is part of what I do with women. Or we're so eager. It's like, it's really easy for women to do the hard thing. Like, like, I'm gonna do the 6am Pilates. I'm gonna do, you know, crush this workout. I'm gonna climb the mountain. But like that self talk, that compassion, that, like, you said, that alignment. And that comes back to, I think you even maybe said this. We love to should on ourselves, you know, and, and that's what you're talking about.

0:44:07 - (Carly): I'm so tired, but I should clean the kitchen, right? I didn't sleep well, but I should go to that HIIT class, you know, and it's that word and, and, and, and maybe this is for our listeners when, when you do start to, to hear the word should Whether it's internally, externally, maybe make that as a pause. You know, is this something that your mind is telling you or is this something your. Your body is telling you?

0:44:32 - (Shelby): So you can only do that if we're listening. And, you know, they say, oh, your body talks to you. Like, what does that mean, my body talks to me? Well, it's sending you signals all the time, and you just need to have the skills to interpret that. So if you have a pain in your shoulder, right, that's going to get your attention and it's going to make you think, well, why do I have a pain in my shoulder?

0:44:54 - (Shelby): What happened? What did I do that would cause that pain in my shoulder? And then it's going to make you act, what do I need to do to get rid of that pain? But sometimes we can misinterpret those signals in our body if we're not familiar with what our bodies are trying to tell us. And that's how your body talks to you, through pain, through interest in things like maybe eating that cookie or, you know, being tired.

0:45:24 - (Shelby): These are the ways that, you know, being cranky. These are the ways that your body's trying to get your attention.

0:45:31 - (Carly): Absolutely. And, and that is a good distinction because, yeah, sometimes, like, what, what do you mean my body's talking to me? What is my intuition? And I'm telling you the minute that you just at least start waking up, you know, whether it's every day, how am I feeling today? Right. Just like showing up for your body, it will start to get louder and it will start to make sense.

0:45:49 - (Shelby): Yes, absolutely. And I always say that perimenopause has unlocked a part of my brain that I did not have access to before. And so a lot of that intuition about my body, now I get it. And once you see that, once you unlock that, you cannot go back. You see it and you can act on it and you understand it, but until that happens, it's like learning a foreign language. You've got to practice, you've got to look, you've got to pay attention. You got to learn to roll your R's, you know, and.

0:46:21 - (Shelby): And just doing it repetitively, you'll get there. But it, you know, for me, it took time. It took perimenopause for me to recognize all of that.

0:46:31 - (Carly): Yeah, it does take time. And it. And that's exactly why we can't apply this quick fix, this pressure, this science, totally scientific lens to it, because it is something that should become intuitive over time, you know, and does become intuitive over time. If we take the time, you know, and so anyone who's just trying to force all this stuff in a month, in two months, even in a year, right. That's, that's how you're just burning out again. But calling it like a wellness lens, you know?

0:47:03 - (Shelby): Yes, yes.

0:47:04 - (Carly): Right. We gotta take a different approach. Holy. So I, we could talk all day. And this has been so eye opening for me too, right. To get to learn more about perimenopause and this kind of forgotten stage. I think that some women, you know,

0:47:22 - (Shelby): kind of forget about the gen, the Gen Xers now. We are the forgotten generation. But. Yeah.

0:47:28 - (Carly): Well, we're bringing you guys back. So I have really appreciated everything that you have shared. But I to. I have one more question before we go. So we've talked a lot about like losing trust with our bodies. Right. With that relationship. Or that no matter what phase you're in, if you can start to recognize patterns in yourself, in your cycle, in your rhythm, then it adds predictability to your life. Right. Even if there's those days where it's low energy, I can predict that and maybe make it better.

0:48:02 - (Carly): So I think there are a lot of women who just, they do feel like they've, they've maybe lost themselves. They're disconnected. Maybe the mind. Right. The body, they're not on board. So what would you say to her kind of maybe as a closing remark or something that she could start doing this week to maybe help her feel a little less crazy or lost?

0:48:22 - (Shelby): Yes. So it's recognizing that these are particularly for perimenopause and for menstrual cycle. These are biological changes to our body that are meant to happen. This is not our identity. So when we're faced with fatigue or we're faced with being self critical, these are not meant to define us. These are just a part of being a woman. And if we can look at it with that fresh perspective, we can take that information and not use it to bully ourselves because we need to be our own best friend through life.

0:49:02 - (Shelby): And I was always given the advice, you know, experts will say, oh well, would you talk to yourself like that? And I'd never, I would never like look at that and say, oh well, I'm not mean to myself. I'm not critical of myself. Of course I wouldn't say that to somebody else. But I don't think I was mean to myself. It wasn't until perimenopause that I realized my self talk was extremely negative. And all I was doing all day was bullying myself through Everything.

0:49:34 - (Shelby): If I didn't do something perfectly, if I didn't, if I failed at something, sometimes I wouldn't even start something with the fear of failure. But what I recognized was that, and this is specific about hot flashes is I believe it is a. It's an external process of an internal emotion. And it shows up when you are beating yourself up in your head, which is it never feels good. But I would say to start paying attention to the thoughts that you have through the day and then stop and ask yourself, is this true?

0:50:17 - (Shelby): Does this make sense? Because when you stop and you question it, it's going to bring you down a different path of curiosity over blame. And I think that's probably the easiest place that you can take a look at without having to buy anything, without needing supplements or, you know, spending money that you don't need to spend. I would say look at your thoughts and see where throughout the day your critical or negative to yourself so that you can become more aware of it.

0:50:50 - (Shelby): You can also look at your behaviors. So, you know, I would have you do things all day and you don't realize why you're doing them. If you can kind of put a fresh face on them, you can really open up things. So, for example, I didn't realize I had social anxiety until I realized I had social anxiety. And one of the things, I had a very awkward conversation with a friend. And afterwards, you know, it was awkward only because I thought it was awkward.

0:51:24 - (Shelby): I mean, that's the only reason why it was awkward. Like, I didn't say what I wanted to say. I didn't think the way I wanted to think. And so I left the conversation feeling kind of empty and I didn't feel good about it. So in my brain I started thinking, well, how can I make myself feel better? And I came up with, well, oh, I'm going to text my friend afterwards and tell her what a great time I had. And it was so good to see her.

0:51:51 - (Shelby): And then I was like, wait, why am I doing that? Just because I feel awkward about our conversation, which was probably totally fine. I mean, she didn't. It was a nice conversation. There wasn't anything to it. But I started questioning, why do I feel the need to have to text her immediately when I get home and say, I had such a great time with you? And it was looking at things through a new lens that I started to realize the behaviors and things that I was doing to myself that were not serving me, that maybe we get socialized to do as women.

0:52:24 - (Carly): I love that answer. Just the importance about the thoughts that we have, our internal thoughts, our behaviors, because that really is where change happens. And again, I think especially for the women like you, like me, the type A, the high achievers, the burnout. Like we said before, we're really good at pushing, we're really good at doing the external things. We're really good at, you know, being impressive to everybody else.

0:52:54 - (Carly): But we have a really hard time being impressive to ourselves, right? And the thoughts that we have and, and how we speak to ourselves and to. From the outside looking in, people might not know that because it's really easy for us to put this face to everyone else, you know, this mask. So I love that and that that is a beautiful reminder, right that this long term health begins with the relationship with ourselves.

0:53:21 - (Carly): So I think that is a great place to end. And I just want to thank you again so much for, for tuning in and taking the time to have this conversation that is so, so important to every woman listening.

0:53:35 - (Shelby): I love finding like minded women like yourself or just smart and classy and able to help other women and be so compassionate because you do make a difference in everything that you do.

0:53:47 - (Carly): Well, I could say the same about you. So thank you again. Have a wonderful rest of your day. And for everybody listening, like a good cup of coffee, stay bold, stay balanced and I will see you next week.

0:54:07 - (Shelby): Sam,