Latest / Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40 / 57. Where Was Our Menopause Manual?

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57. Where Was Our Menopause Manual? · Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think back to when you got your first period.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Chances are you knew it was coming, your mom had probably talked to you about it, or you learned about it in school, or you had had conversations with your friends.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: You knew that at some point your body was going to start changing.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And while you might not have known exactly what to expect, and maybe you were a little scared of what was to come, you at least had some idea of what was ahead.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I actually got my first period at a sleepover at my best friend's house, and I made a big mess of the sheets.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: How is that for just embarrassing?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I was mortified, I knew what was happening in my body.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think about pregnancy.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: For those of us who experienced it, there were probably surprises along the way, but we had books like What to Expect When You're Expecting.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: We had prenatal appointments and childbirth classes, and we had conversations with other women who had been through it.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We had some idea of what was coming, and we had resources to help us navigate it.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But then we get to perimenopause, and it's like, where is that manual?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: For many of us, there was no real conversation, no preparation, and very little understanding what was actually happening in our bodies.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And while today there are definitely more books and podcasts and resources available, thank goodness.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there are so many women still that are entering this stage of life feeling completely unprepared and like shocked at what's happening.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the more that I learn about menopause, the more frustrated I get when I think about how many women have been left to just figure this out on their own.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to talk about why that is and share a little bit more about my own experience and explain why I've become so passionate about helping women feel informed and equipped and empowered when it comes to their health in midlife.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Midlife Glow Up Podcast, where we simplify fitness, nutrition, and healthy habits for women over 40.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Joan Dandineau, your midlife health and wellness coach.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are ready to feel strong, consistent, and confident in this season of life, then you're in the right place, my friend.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've shared bits and pieces of my own menopause experience on this podcast before, but recently I've been thinking about it from a different perspective.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I started experiencing night sweats in my early 40s.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, I did not fully understand what was happening in my body.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was frustrating.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would have to get up and change clothes, sometimes change sheets, but it just never really occurred to me that this was the beginning of my menopause transition.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I knew menopause was something that happened eventually, but I did not understand how early perimenopause could begin or how many different symptoms could be associated with those hormonal changes.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, I brought my concerns to my primary care doctor.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember leaving that appointment feeling really discouraged and defeated.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I felt dismissed, like I would what I was experiencing was just part of what being a woman was.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just had to suck it up, something I should just deal with.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: my symptoms were not that bad.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was having night sweats, but I wasn't experiencing some of the debilitating symptoms that I know tons of other women go through.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I still walked away, feeling unheard and really unsure what to do next.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And also like where to turn next.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this was my doctor.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was supposed to be somebody who took me seriously and helped me.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always trusted my doctors and done what they told me to do.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: But that was a complete shift for me.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, okay, I'm a busy woman.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do I need to now start calling around?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who even knows how to help me with this kind of thing?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Am I gonna get dismissed by other doctors?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I up against?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I just remember thinking that if this is how I feel when my symptoms are relatively mild, I can't imagine how frustrating and overwhelming it must be for women who are really struggling, like physically, but also mentally and emotionally, and they're not getting the help that they need, and yet they still have to go about their life like nothing's wrong.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I've learned about menopause, the more I realize that my experience is part of a much bigger conversation.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is something else that I want you to understand about my experience.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: My biggest motivation for exploring hormone replacement therapy was not actually my symptoms.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was my long-term health.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have a strong family history of osteoporosis, and I've always been concerned about protecting my bone health as I get older.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been in the health and wellness industry for a really long time, and I understand how important it is to maintain muscle and bone strength and physical function as we age so that we can remain independent and enjoy our life while we're here on earth.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to understand everything that was in my control to protect and preserve my bone and reduce my risk of getting osteoporosis down the road.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that estrogen plays an important role in maintaining bone density, and I wanted to understand whether hormone therapy might be appropriate for me.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also have a genetic blood clotting disorder.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And for a long time, I was told, and so therefore I believed that estrogen was completely off the table for me because of that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't until I started working with a menopause specialist that I learned that there are different types of hormone therapy, different ways of delivering the estrogen.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that distinction makes a difference in their risks and their benefits.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody's situation is different.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is my complicated medical situation, and I know that hormone therapy is not appropriate for everyone, of course.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And those decisions definitely need to be made with your healthcare provider who understands your individual health history.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: But what really struck me here was how much I didn't know.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I started wondering how many other women are making decisions about their health based on incomplete information or assumptions that they've just carried around for years.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: For me, finding someone who could help me understand what my options are and evaluate my personal risk factors and help me make informed decisions was incredibly empowering.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I actually had seen several different providers before I found the menopause specialist that I'm working with now and I've been working with over a year, and I feel amazing, but I keep coming back to the same question.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I have to work so hard to figure all of this out?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And why are so many women reaching midlife without a basic understanding of what's happening?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the history of women's health research, it actually becomes easy to understand why there are still so many gaps in our knowledge and our education.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that it wasn't until 1993 that Congress passed a law requiring women to be included in NIH-funded clinical research?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like 1993.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: For decades, women were underrepresented or even excluded in many of the studies that helped shape modern medicine.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yet women represent half of our population.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a phrase from exercise physiologist Dr.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Stacey Sims, and that I love.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, women are not small men.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: But yet for decades, much of what we've learned about exercise, nutrition, and even medicine has been based on research that has been conducted primarily on men.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then here's another statistic that I find just incredibly frustrating.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: A National Academy's analysis found that approximately 8% of NIH research grant funding in 2023 was specifically dedicated to women's health research.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So to be clear, that doesn't mean that the other 92 was specifically spent on men's health, but much of that funding supports research relevant to both men and women.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: But when you consider how many health issues are unique to women or affect women only or affect women differently, it does raise some important questions about research priority.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the issue of sexual health.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: A study examining NIH funding for male and female sexual dysfunction over a 10-year period found that male sexual dysfunction receives substantially more funding than female sexual dysfunction.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about how many women experience vaginal dryness, painful sex, changes in libido, and other symptoms that can significantly affect their relationships and their quality of life, and yet they're supposed to just deal with it.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: These are real health concerns.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And women deserve to be taken seriously.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's important to just zoom out and take a look at the bigger picture.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have made tremendous advances in medicine.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there are knowledgeable and compassionate healthcare providers doing incredible work in women's health.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: But we also have a history of gaps in research and education and awareness that we're still working to overcome.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the consequences is that many women enter this perimenopause phase feeling unprepared.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we start experiencing symptoms that seem unrelated and we don't necessarily understand that hormonal changes could be contributing to what we're feeling.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're suddenly waking up at three o'clock in the morning, you can't get back to sleep, or maybe you're having trouble concentrating at work, or you're experiencing anxiety that feels completely out of character for you.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've got aching joints, or your digestion has changed, or you're noticing irritation on your skin.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And because nobody has explained how broad the symptoms of perimenopause can be, you find yourself trying to address each issue separately without ever considering whether hormonal changes could be the root of the bigger picture.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that hormones are the root of all problems, but I do think that hormonal changes should be part of the conversation.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And because traditional medicine did not train doctors to learn about menopause medicine, I think that we are left women in our generation right now trying to connect the dots ourselves.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're Googling symptoms and we're listening to podcasts and we're reading books and we're following experts on social media and we're just trying to figure out which information is accurate and which advice applies to us.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a lot out there.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So when you hear one person saying hormone therapy is dangerous and another person saying every woman should be on it, and someone else tells you all you got to do is change your diet and you'll fix all your problems, then you end up feeling on top of already exhausted and overwhelmed by what's happening in your body, you're also trying to sort through all of this information and it can feel like a full-time job.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then you might even be adding fear to the equation, fear about making the wrong decision or fear about your future health or whether what you're experiencing is normal.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of feeling equipped to take action, you feel completely overwhelmed and frozen.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what I want for us to change.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want women to enter this stage of life understanding what's happening.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I want them to be able to recognize when something might be connected to hormonal changes or at least raise the flag of that, and then understand what kind of questions to ask and understand what kind of labs to ask for and where to turn for support.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want women to feel comfortable speaking up when something doesn't feel right and continuing to ask questions until they get the information they need and until they start to feel better.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: We deserve to feel good.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: We deserve to have our concerns taken seriously, and we deserve to be active participants in these decisions about our health.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about how different my own experience might have been if I had understood more about perimenopause when I first started having those night sweats.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I might have recognized what was happening sooner and I might have known which questions to ask or where to turn for help.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And though I can't go back and change my own experience, I can use what I've learned to help other women have a different one.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: As a mom of three daughters, this is something that's especially important to me.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think about how little our mom's generation talked about menopause.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: For many women, it was something that you just quietly went through and there wasn't much conversation.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't expect to really have any support with it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I really want that to be different for us, but especially for the next generation.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want our girls to grow up understanding that hormonal changes are a normal part of life and that they deserve to understand what's happening and advocate for their health.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I want that for every woman listening today, too.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I think about what it means to thrive in midlife, so much of it comes back to understanding what's going on, having the support to help make decisions that are right for you so you can step boldly and confidently into this stage.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where my work as a health and wellness coach really fits into the conversation because I spend a lot of my time helping women understand how their approach to fitness and nutrition needs to evolve as we get older.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you've heard me talk about this time and time again.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be strength training, we need to be prioritizing protein.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I also want to emphasize that understanding our hormones is one piece of a much bigger picture.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Our muscle mass, our bone health, our cardiovascular fitness, our metabolic health, our nutrition, sleep, daily habits, they all play important roles in our overall health.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And while we can't control every aspect of our health or the changes that come with aging, there is so much that we can influence through the choices that we make every single day.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want women to feel empowered by.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: When we understand what's happening in our bodies and when we can identify what actually matters for us to focus on for our long-term health, then we can make informed decisions and we can take meaningful action and we can build strength and we can improve our overall fitness and we can nourish our bodies and we can create habits that support our overall health.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm a big believer in keeping those habits simple and realistic enough that we can actually follow through with them.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we repeat small things over and over again, they really do add up.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about the work my friend Stephanie does as a menopause specialist and the work that I do helping women build healthy habits, I see how beautifully those two areas of expertise complement each other.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: She helps women understand what's happening inside their bodies and evaluate their medical options and make informed decisions about their health.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I help women take that information and translate it into practical, sustainable changes in their everyday lives.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a big part of why Stephanie and I are excited about what we're doing together.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're local to the Seattle area, we are gathering in just a couple of weeks for our event called Midlife Reimagined: Hormones, Health, and the Habits That Matter.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are bringing together women for an evening of education and conversation and connection.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just so excited about bringing this community together.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Stephanie is a menopause specialist.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've had her on the podcast a couple of times now.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's going to help us better understand what's happening in our bodies during perimenopause and menopause, including symptoms that we might not realize are connected to hormonal changes, the impact that the loss of hormones have on our long-term health, and what questions we should be taking to our healthcare providers.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about how to find medical support and what treatment options might be available, and why it's so important to make informed decisions based on your individual health history and your goals.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm going to help you take that information and think about how to apply it to your everyday life.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll talk about fitness, nutrition, lifestyle habits that matter most for women in midlife, and how our approach to health needs to evolve as we get older.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll also have time for questions and conversation and connection with other women who are navigating the same stage of life.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's just something really powerful about bringing women together for conversations like this.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So many of us spent years trying to figure things out on our own.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I want this evening to be an opportunity to learn and ask questions and share experiences and leave feeling more informed and confident about our health.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're just beginning to notice changes in your body or you're right in the thick of perimenopause, or maybe you're already postmenopausal, there's still so much value in understanding your health and what you can do to support it moving forward.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are in the Seattle area, I hope you'll join us.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I will put the link in the show notes so you can grab your ticket.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love for you to invite a friend too.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: These are conversations that I think more women need to be having, and it's always more fun to experience something like this together.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And whether it's possible for you to join us or not, I hope this episode has encouraged you to think a little bit differently about your midlife health.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to feel empowered to ask questions and get curious and advocate for yourself until you feel heard and like you have the information that you need to make decisions to help you feel better.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you're thinking about the woman that you want to be in 10 or 20 or 30 years from now and what you can start doing today to not only support her health, but to create her actual lifestyle.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because we deserve to feel good through midlife and beyond.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: We have so much to look forward to.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, my friend.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Remember progress over perfection and consistency over intensity.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep growing, keep glowing, and bye for now.