Ep 28: Perimenopause #2

In this episode of the perimenopause series, I'm talking about how perimenopause symptoms are a report card of what has happened over the last 20 years. The symptoms tell us what has been supported (or not supported) and what needs to happen moving forward. The symptoms point to a deeper issue - which actually nourishing your body and understanding what she is saying to you, will improve your transition experience dramatically. 

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Hey, hey, welcome back to Healthy Period. And to today's episode, we are going to continue the Perimenopause conversation because I think it's just so important. And I'm recording this actually before I go to Colorado, but I will be putting this episode out after I get back from Colorado. Um, so I'm really excited about that trip, which I will probably break down in a podcast episode for you guys because it's gonna be incredible. It is a retreat with Julia Sewell. She is a wonderful business coach and life coach. She actually wrote the book Um The Self-Made Mom, which comes out in November, which I'm really excited about. If you're in my circle, I will definitely link that book for you. But anyway, so Julia is just fantastic and she invited me to go to Colorado to bring my nutritional therapy expertise and guidance to a bunch of women who are moms and who are in the world of business who really just need to learn and reset and nourish themselves so they can increase capacity to do all the amazing things that they do, but do it at a higher level. And that only comes when you nourish your body and you are actually pouring into your own cup first. And a lot of those women are between, you know, 35 and 40, 45 years old. So the perimenopause conversation is likely, because I again I'm recording this before I go, is likely going to be an intense conversation while we're there. And the one thing that if you didn't listen to the first episode of the perimenopause series, I want you to understand that perimenopause is an expression of symptoms from what has happened to your body over the last 20 to 30 years. And today I want to talk about how that's not your fault. So, yes, perimenopause is a report card on what has happened over the last 20 years. Those symptoms are going to express that. It reveals what needs support, what hasn't been supported over time. It's not telling you that this is your fault. So I'm just gonna kind of jump right in to what I want to talk about, just dive headfirst into it because perimenopause is just such a nuanced conversation. And again, I don't know how many episodes this perimenopause conversation is going to be, but I'm really excited because I just love talking about it and I love educating women on what is your body saying to you? What does it mean? What needs support, and how can we help? So we're talking today about the last 20 years of self-care or lack of self-care. So perimenopause is not your fault. Okay? The expression of the intensity of the symptoms that you are experiencing or might experience in perimenopause is not your fault. You did not cause worse perimenopause symptoms because you drank coffee. You did not cause it because you had stressful careers and jobs. You didn't cause it because you didn't eat enough vegetables in your 20s. You didn't cause it because you were busy raising kids, building your career, surviving hard seasons, or simply just doing the best you could with the information you had. Perimenopause is a normal biological transition. But what this transition can do is expose the places where your body has been running on fumes. It can reveal that you've been under-eating for years. It can reveal that you've lost muscle. It can reveal that your blood sugar is all over the place. It can reveal that you have normalized bad sleep, high stress, pain, exhaustion, and never prioritizing yourself. And that's not a reason to beat yourself up, but it is just like an invitation to pay attention to what's going on. So the women that I work with are very high-functioning, very capable, they're moms, professionals, caregivers, the women who keep it all together. You've worked through your period, you show up when you're exhausted, you're pushing through the workouts, you're drinking the coffee, like you're making the dinner, you're taking care of everyone else. And then one day your body starts saying, I can't keep doing this the same way. Maybe that looks like waking up at 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning. Maybe it's your cycle starting to change. Maybe you're gaining weight around your midsection, even though nothing has changed with your workouts and your nutrition. Maybe your energy starts crashing every afternoon. Maybe your anxiety feels just a bit louder. Maybe you're having night sweats, brain fog, more intense PMS, or you just don't feel like yourself. And the instinct is often, what is wrong with me? But I want you to ask a different question. What has my body been carrying for years that I have not had the capacity to address? So your symptoms are not a personality trait. Being the bloated one, the tired one, the one with the bad periods, the one who cannot lose weight, or the one who never sleeps is not just who you are. Your symptoms are information. They're not a diagnosis by themselves, they're not a reason to self-diagnose yourself through TikTok, but they're signals that deserve your attention, your curiosity, and sometimes we might need medical evaluation. So when I say that perimenopause can reflect the past 20 years, I mean that if you've spent two decades dieting, going from restriction to overeating, never eating enough consistently, your body may have less resilience when hormones begin fluctuating. And if you've spent years avoiding strength training because you thought cardia was the only way to lose weight, or you may have less muscle than you need to support metabolism, bone health, blood sugar regulation now. If you've spent years living in chronic stress state, sleeping poorly, skipping meals, and then you rely on caffeine and sugar to function, it doesn't mean you cause perimenopause, but it means that the transition feels harder. And it's not just a hormone issue that everybody makes it out to be. Because you can go on TikTok right now and buy a hormone balance supplement or a 40 supplement stack to balance your hormones in perimenopause. But it's not just a hormone issue. And I know it sounds strange coming from someone who like all I talk about is hormones, but it's true. Your sex hormones matter, your estrogen changes matter, progesterone changes matter, the brain ovary connection matters. But if your entire plan is fix my hormones and you're barely sleeping, you're not eating enough protein, you're not getting enough fiber, you're sitting all day, you're never lifting weights, you're living on caffeine, you're ignoring your stress level, you missed the foundation, like you literally missed the plot. And it's not about becoming perfect. I'm not trying to tell a busy woman that she needs a two-hour morning routine, a color-coded supplement cabinet, organic everything, and a workout plan that is six days a week. Absolutely not. If you've been around the block, you know that those are the things that I do not teach. I actually take things away, like take things off of your plate, right? But I want you to ask, what is the minimum effective dose of support that I can give my body consistently? So maybe that's eating breakfast with protein instead of only coffee. Maybe it's adding a vegetable or fruit with a real protein source to lunch. Maybe it's taking a 10-minute walk after dinner. Maybe it's strength training twice a week instead of doing a workout you hate five days a week and quitting after two weeks. Maybe it's going to bed 30 minutes earlier. Maybe it's asking your doctor about heavy bleeding, fatigue, thyroid symptoms, sleep issues, or mood changes instead of telling yourself you're just dramatic. Maybe we need to go deeper on those things and understand why you are having the heavy bleeding and the fatigue and the thyroid issues. And we talked about this in the last episode, but I'm gonna bring it up again because it's so important that most women at this stage miss the blood sugar picture. When your blood sugar is unstable, your whole day can feel unstable. You are more likely to have energy crashes, cravings, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and that I have no willpower at night feeling. Poor sleep and stress can make blood sugar regulation more difficult, and blood sugar instability can make it harder to make choices that support sleep and stress. So it becomes a loop. So this is why we do not just cut carbs. Carbs are not the enemy, but the better question is: are you pairing your carbs with protein, fiber, and fats? Are you eating enough overall? Are you eating consistently enough that you're not going from starving to ravenous every single day? You don't need more food fear, and you have enough of that on the internet. You need more food understanding, more food literacy. And we talked about muscle in the last podcast too, but I'm gonna bring it back because muscle is like your retirement account that nobody told you about. So think about muscle, like it's your metabolic retirement account. You build it over time, you protect it over time, and it pays you back later. Muscle supports blood sugar regulation because it's a major place where your body can take up and use glucose. It supports strength, bones, mobility, confidence, and the ability to do life without feeling fragile. And I know some women here build muscle and immediately get nervous because they don't want to like look bulky or whatever it is. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you need to feel strong. You need to be able to carry your groceries, pick up your kids or your grandkids, travel, hike, get up off the floor, and live in your body with confidence. So strength training two or three times a week is enough to create a meaningful foundation when it's consistent and progressively challenging for you. You do not need to be crushed after every session for it to count. And prioritizing yourself is not selfish. This might get a little bit of emotional for some of you, but a lot of women are not struggling because they don't know that protein is important. They're struggling because they have been at the bottom of their own list for years. You feed everyone else and eat the scraps, you schedule everyone else's appointments and never make your own. You work through the pain, you push through the exhaustion, you wait until you're completely depleted before you ask for help. And then you feel guilty for wanting to feel better. But taking care of your body is not selfish, it's not vain, it's not dramatic, it's not too much. It's literally the basic care that you need. And no, your reason for getting healthier does not need to be a number on the scale. Maybe it's having energy for your kids or brainkids. Maybe it's not dreading your period. Maybe it's being able to travel without worrying about a flare-up. Maybe it's wanting to feel like you again. A meaningful why makes sustainable change more possible than chasing just a superficial number alone. So, what do I want you to do this week? I do not want you to overhaul your entire life after this episode. I want you to pick one thing, one thing that tells your body I'm paying attention now. Maybe it's protein at breakfast, maybe it's a walk, maybe it's one strength session, maybe you just need to fill your water bottle one more time, maybe you need to set a bedtime alarm. Maybe you need to call your doctor. Maybe it's tracking your symptoms for one full cycle or one full month. One thing done consistently. And that's how we build trust with yourself again. You need a process that helps you become more supported, more informed, more resilient. You don't need another plan that asks you to be perfect. So if that is you and that's what you want, you guys know hormone balance accelerator. I'm not just talking about hormones in isolation. We're looking at the patterns, your food, your blood sugar, your movement, your sleep, your stress, symptoms, and the real life barriers that are keeping you stuck. Again, you don't need another plan that's just gonna ask you to be perfect. You need a process that's gonna help you become more supported and more informed. So hopefully this was helpful. This was a really quick one, but I really wanted to make sure you guys understood that perimenopause is not your fault, but it is a report card of what has happened, and now we have the ability to pay attention to it when you have the bandwidth to actually give your body what it needs. So hopefully this was helpful, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.