Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Why Women in Their 30s Should Learn About Menopause (Zora Benhamou) | Ep 370

Transcript

Why Women in Their 30s Should Learn About Menopause (Zora Benhamou) | Ep 370 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: If you're a woman in your 30s thinking menopause is decades away and not worth worrying about yet, and you believe that when the time comes, you'll just figure it out with your doctor.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: But you want to maintain your strength, your energy and your physique as you age, without being blindsided by changes that could derail your progress.
• 0:17
  Philip Pape: This episode is for you.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: Today, my guest reveals why waiting until perimenopause symptoms appear is already too late.
• 0:25
  Philip Pape: The women who thrive through menopause started preparing decades earlier.
• 0:29
  Philip Pape: You'll discover the hidden timeline of hormonal changes that begins years before you notice symptoms, the silent killers that affect asymptomatic women and the specific biohacks that can transform your menopause experience from survival mode to optimization.
• 0:43
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we are discussing why preparing for menopause should start potentially decades before you think it does.
• 1:03
  Philip Pape: My guest today is Zora Benamou, a gerontologist and biohacker who hosts the amazing Hack my Age podcast.
• 1:10
  Philip Pape: Go follow that right now Hack my Age.
• 1:13
  Philip Pape: She holds a master's in gerontology from USC, has specialized certifications in menopause through the Institute of Bioidentical Medicine.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: At 54, she embodies what she teaches living as a digital nomad while interviewing women about menopause experiences in every country she visits.
• 1:30
  Philip Pape: Through hundreds I think well over 300 podcast episodes and interviews with hundreds of women worldwide, zora has identified patterns.
• 1:38
  Philip Pape: We love patterns.
• 1:39
  Philip Pape: We love data.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: This is very helpful to you guys that most women never see coming.
• 1:44
  Philip Pape: Today, you're going to learn why the strongest, most resilient women through this period of life, through menopause, are those who started preparing early on in their 30s, what the research reveals about hormonal trajectories and the specific biohacks that create the biggest impacts decades later.
• 2:00
  Philip Pape: So maybe you're in your 30s thinking this doesn't apply to you yet, or you're approaching perimenopause, wondering what you should be doing right now.
• 2:07
  Philip Pape: Either way, this conversation is going to answer your questions and, zora, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 2:13
  Zora Benhamou: No thanks for having me.
• 2:14
  Zora Benhamou: I should update the bio.
• 2:15
  Zora Benhamou: I'm now 55.
• 2:16
  Zora Benhamou: I forgot to do that.
• 2:17
  Philip Pape: Yes, I was thinking about it.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: When it comes to age and these biographies, I was wanting to say that so you know, but you look like 35, right?
• 2:25
  Philip Pape: So, and that's the demographic we're talking to today, and this might sound like a basic question, but how well informed do you think women are about what menopause even is and what to expect?
• 3:08
  Zora Benhamou: no-transcript.
• 3:13
  Zora Benhamou: Unfortunately, no one's preparing for us.
• 3:16
  Zora Benhamou: As for menopause, usually our mothers are not speaking to us about it, our doctors are not prepared about it.
• 3:21
  Zora Benhamou: Our doctors don't really know as much about it.
• 3:24
  Zora Benhamou: It's not part of the medical curriculum in most medical schools and there's not a whole lot of research on it as well.
• 3:32
  Zora Benhamou: So when you consider, actually not that long ago, women were dying in their 50s.
• 3:36
  Zora Benhamou: It wasn't a topic really of concern.
• 3:39
  Zora Benhamou: So it's now that we're living longer.
• 3:42
  Zora Benhamou: It's now that we're living longer.
• 3:44
  Zora Benhamou: We are living now up to 30, sometimes 40% of our lives women in menopause and or this post menopause stage.
• 3:53
  Zora Benhamou: So in fact, we need to understand menopause a whole lot more and we're just unfortunately, scratching the surface of it.
• 4:00
  Zora Benhamou: So women are not informed and but but they are getting informed by social media and podcasts.
• 4:11
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it is.
• 4:11
  Philip Pape: You know, even all the interviews that I've done and the women I've spoken to and research in this, and also this idea that, okay, I'm a man, so of course I don't understand this, but every woman around me must understand this.
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: And if only I was Mel Gibson and I could read women's minds in that movie he was in, which is a terrible thought actually.
• 4:24
  Philip Pape: I don't want to do that, not because of the women, but because of how I would handle the information and then talking to my wife and thinking how her mom didn't talk to her about half the things that she needed to know later in life.
• 4:34
  Philip Pape: And all of that makes sense now.
• 4:37
  Philip Pape: And, guys, if you go check out Zora's Instagram, you'll see these interviews with women where they're asked very I'll call them simple questions that if you follow the health space, you might know some of these, and yet a vast majority of women don't seem to be aware.
• 4:52
  Philip Pape: So education is important, but also the misconceptions, I think, and the gaslighting and the lack of studies into women's health over the years that we're finally maybe starting to catch up on, I don't know, of all that information in those interviews.
• 5:02
  Philip Pape: What are the, I guess, dangerous misconceptions?
• 5:05
  Philip Pape: First, that we can kind of get out of the way and then we can dive into some more like of the helpful information we want to run with.
• 5:11
  Zora Benhamou: Oh, some of the misconceptions.
• 5:12
  Zora Benhamou: Well, very often I'll ask a woman about.
• 5:15
  Zora Benhamou: I say one of the first questions I ask is are you in menopause or perimenopause?
• 5:20
  Zora Benhamou: And they'll say no, I'm too young.
• 5:22
  Zora Benhamou: Or or, and I said, well, how old are you?
• 5:25
  Zora Benhamou: And she's like I'm 45.
• 5:26
  Zora Benhamou: I'm like that's pretty perimenopausal.
• 5:30
  Zora Benhamou: I mean, it's possible, very possible, to be in menopause at that age.
• 5:34
  Zora Benhamou: So a lot of one of the biggest myths is that women think that it's for older women and to not even be concerned about and that I'm totally guilty as charged with this.
• 5:43
  Zora Benhamou: I was in my 40s, didn't even know there was a word called perimenopause and if you ask me about menopause I was like, oh, that's something I'll think about when I'm 50, past 50, for sure.
• 5:52
  Zora Benhamou: So it's only now, because we're sort of having this menopause movement, that people are becoming a little bit more aware of menopause and that word called perimenopause.
• 6:02
  Zora Benhamou: But another answer I get very often from women in their 60s or 70s and they say, no, I didn't do menopause.
• 6:10
  Zora Benhamou: Or I didn't get menopause, and I'm like, well, do you still have a period?
• 6:14
  Zora Benhamou: Oh, no, no.
• 6:15
  Zora Benhamou: But they're referring to the symptoms of menopause.
• 6:18
  Zora Benhamou: Interesting, okay, they didn't feel a hot flash or they didn't suffer or they didn't.
• 6:21
  Zora Benhamou: So menopause is such a broad word because we're using it for perimenopause and postmenopause.
• 6:27
  Zora Benhamou: We use it for symptoms, and it's one of these things.
• 6:29
  Zora Benhamou: We need to be a little bit more granular when we're asking what this is.
• 6:33
  Zora Benhamou: But yeah, so those are some of the misconceptions that I think I get typically, and again, this is universal.
• 6:39
  Zora Benhamou: This is not something only to women in Poland or in Thailand.
• 6:43
  Zora Benhamou: I get very similar responses.
• 6:46
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it makes sense, and the questions I get from women all the time are then, you know, I don't get questions like what are menopause, obviously, or to help me understand menopause.
• 6:55
  Philip Pape: It's more like these things are happening.
• 6:57
  Philip Pape: I think I'm in perimenopause or postmenopause and therefore it is causing issues I never had before with my physique, my body, you know menopause, my fat distribution.
• 7:08
  Philip Pape: By the way, there's a new study that came out about that.
• 7:10
  Philip Pape: It's fascinating.
• 7:11
  Philip Pape: We should talk about that offline Brand new study about fat distribution that really is happening right During menopause Again, to not deny the reality of it.
• 7:19
  Philip Pape: And so maybe it's helpful, zora, to understand the timeline right.
• 7:23
  Philip Pape: Is this a predominantly a hormonal timeline or are there other factors?
• 7:27
  Philip Pape: Is this more systemic that women should be thinking about across their ages?
• 7:32
  Philip Pape: So if we started from, I don't know what makes sense 30 and then go like, okay, 30s, 40s, 50s what is happening and what should you be aware of so we can start taking action earlier?
• 7:42
  Zora Benhamou: Good question.
• 7:43
  Zora Benhamou: As a gerontologist, I always say longevity starts in childhood, and now in my menopause space, I'm saying actually menopause starts in childhood.
• 7:52
  Zora Benhamou: We should know about it from very early on, just like we do our periods or something.
• 7:58
  Zora Benhamou: When you think about women, the changes that we have in our hormones throughout our lifetime, from puberty and pregnancy and menopause it's not just menopause.
• 8:08
  Zora Benhamou: I think women at all ages should understand that we have hormones, that they can fluctuate, that we have testosterone, estrogen and progesterone our main hormones.
• 8:18
  Zora Benhamou: There's plenty of other hormones we can dive into if they want to, but those are just sort of the basics.
• 8:23
  Zora Benhamou: I think that we should learn from very early on, and so anyone who's listening to this at any age, start learning about it and start talking to your kids about it, because it's just a part of life and that's fine, it's natural.
• 8:38
  Zora Benhamou: It's part of life, just like your periods.
• 8:40
  Zora Benhamou: We shouldn't be ashamed of it.
• 8:41
  Zora Benhamou: There's still major stigma and major stereotypes around it as well.
• 8:45
  Zora Benhamou: That can be frightening for the younger people, like what they see on social media.
• 8:50
  Zora Benhamou: It's horrifying, in fact.
• 8:52
  Zora Benhamou: Another myth that we need to bust is that everyone has a different experience.
• 8:56
  Zora Benhamou: Right, we all have the same experience, but the truth is we all have different experiences and there's plenty of women who are sailing through menopause without those outward symptoms.
• 9:09
  Zora Benhamou: The things are happening on the inside, but on the outside they're actually looking great, they're feeling great and we want to disrupt some of those as well.
• 9:16
  Zora Benhamou: But I think definitely, if you are at any age seeing a change in your mood or in your periods or your skin, think about your hormones.
• 9:28
  Zora Benhamou: Maybe and I'm not saying it's menopause or perimenopause it could be some hormonal shift and it could be just a temporary shift because of any kind of outward factors or inward factors.
• 9:39
  Zora Benhamou: But I would say, if you want to dive a little deeper into menopause in your 30s is a really good time, because the average age of losing our progesterone, which is one of our main hormones, sex hormones is happening about age 35.
• 9:57
  Zora Benhamou: And it actually takes a really steep dive around 35.
• 10:03
  Zora Benhamou: Not estrogen, everybody's like oh, we all fall off the cliff and menopause, no estrogen.
• 10:08
  Zora Benhamou: Actually, the loss from our 30s is a lot more gradual than progesterone.
• 10:13
  Zora Benhamou: So the signs of progesterone loss would be maybe you are not sleeping as well as you used to, maybe you're a little bit more anxious, or anxious when you never were before, or a little bit moody and it's outside of, let's say, your period, we can say oh, during certain cycles, and maybe I'm always like that, but if it's shifting it's kind of like every night I'm struggling with sleep then that's a sign that maybe this is your progesterone starting to head out the door, because we have early perimenopause, we have mid perimenopause and we have late perimenopause or so, like all these different stages in the early perimenopause is in your 30s.
• 10:53
  Zora Benhamou: So just being aware of that, because your doctor may go oh, you know you need, you're depressed or here's an antidepressant which maybe you need but maybe you don't, and so the low hanging fruit for me would be like well, why don't you just go test your progesterone if you're in your thirties and see maybe if you're low, and then you can decide if you want to top it up with hormones or some do some other type of protocol to try to balance out your hormones.
• 11:18
  Zora Benhamou: But understanding your hormones, definitely for preparation for peri and post-menopause, is a good idea in your thirties.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you definitely for preparation for peri and post-menopause is a good idea in your 30s.
• 11:28
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you have a lot of good takeaways that I want to dive into.
• 11:30
  Philip Pape: So we'll kind of go backwards, since that's fresh in the mind of testing your labs and knowing your numbers, and I think that's great for everyone.
• 11:35
  Philip Pape: As a coach myself, the more I realize that biofeedback and natural lifestyle changes will take you to a certain point and you should be doing those.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: But then there could be other, you know physiological changes that are happening, men and women at any age, like you said, and it's good to have a baseline right, it's good to just know.
• 11:52
  Philip Pape: Maybe this is my normal.
• 11:54
  Philip Pape: So when it comes to understanding your hormones, people get overwhelmed and they also often can't find the support they need in the medical industry.
• 12:01
  Philip Pape: This is what I've heard.
• 12:02
  Philip Pape: Zora right, is that traditional GPs and healthcare practitioners hey, you're 30, you're too young, we're not going to test this right?
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: Another myth, right?
• 12:12
  Philip Pape: Or you go to, you know there's these day by, you know, fly by night clinics everywhere too, trying to make a buck off of irresponsible prescription of, especially testosterone clinics, but anyway.
• 12:22
  Philip Pape: So anybody listening, who, who, let's say she's 25 or 30, she's listening and wants to get labs.
• 12:28
  Philip Pape: What's the best approach for that?
• 12:30
  Zora Benhamou: Oh, I would say it depends on the symptoms really, and you know if we're talking about possible menopause or perimenopause.
• 12:37
  Zora Benhamou: But but it's so much more than that.
• 12:40
  Zora Benhamou: It's not just the loss of your hormones, especially earlier on.
• 12:42
  Zora Benhamou: It could be if you're tired, it could be just a vitamin deficiency, right?
• 12:47
  Zora Benhamou: Maybe possibly vitamin Bs.
• 12:48
  Zora Benhamou: So I would say it's not just.
• 12:51
  Zora Benhamou: Let's say you can look at your estrogen, I would say still in your 20s and 30s, know where you're at, do your estrogens, your progesterone and your testosterone and like all your markers.
• 13:01
  Zora Benhamou: Like it's great to know where you're at when you're healthy, when you're young and full of hormones, because we're finding out, as we are trying to figure out our formula, our hormone like, if a woman is taking hormones, there is no one size fits all.
• 13:17
  Zora Benhamou: There isn't like, here you go, a hundred milligrams of progesterone for everybody, which is kind of what starting point like doctors to do, but you'll find some women they need 50, some women need 200.
• 13:28
  Zora Benhamou: Same thing goes for their estrogens that they're taking.
• 13:31
  Zora Benhamou: Some women need much higher doses because they're not absorbing and others need lower dosages.
• 13:36
  Zora Benhamou: And some are feeling great with lower blood levels of, say, estrogen, and some need higher.
• 13:41
  Zora Benhamou: And so we don't really know if maybe I was always like that's normal for me to be low or it's normal for me to be high.
• 13:47
  Zora Benhamou: We don't really know, because I wasn't testing my sex hormones in my twenties and thirties.
• 13:53
  Zora Benhamou: I wish I did so.
• 13:55
  Zora Benhamou: It is a good time to just get the full blood panel.
• 13:58
  Zora Benhamou: When I was in my twenties and thirties it would never even occurred to me to get a full blood panel of anything, unless you were sick right, so but now you're physical right yeah yeah, we're in this health optimization space, so, like I wish I did it.
• 14:12
  Zora Benhamou: So I do recommend just getting all those sex hormones done and your thyroid and, of course, your cardiovascular markers and some of these big bone densities.
• 14:21
  Zora Benhamou: Another one, because actually you can start losing your bone in your 30s.
• 14:26
  Zora Benhamou: It's very normal to start losing your bone right in your 30s, so it's like you may be surprised if you have osteopenia in your 20s and 30s and so you need to do something about it so that you don't get up to 50 and have a fracture and I don't know.
• 14:42
  Zora Benhamou: I remember if we talked about this last time with you, but there's not only a bone density scan, but there's one that shows bone strength as well, because you can have lower bone density but actually have really strong bones, so you don't need to panic if you have a low bone density, if they are strong.
• 14:59
  Zora Benhamou: What scan is that?
• 15:00
  Zora Benhamou: for the bone strength.
• 15:01
  Zora Benhamou: It's called the REM scan, r-e-m-ms, you know, I don't know radio electromagnetic something, I don't remember that.
• 15:08
  Zora Benhamou: It's a long name, sure, but it's a rem scan as opposed to a dexa scan and it's a really good.
• 15:14
  Zora Benhamou: I think it's.
• 15:15
  Zora Benhamou: I think it's great.
• 15:16
  Zora Benhamou: It's kind of new.
• 15:17
  Zora Benhamou: It's technology hasn't been adopted yet.
• 15:19
  Zora Benhamou: A lot of people haven't heard of it, and they didn't hear about dexone that first came out either.
• 15:24
  Zora Benhamou: So I think it just still needs some time.
• 15:25
  Zora Benhamou: But I think it's.
• 15:26
  Zora Benhamou: It's really awesome because it does a lot.
• 15:27
  Zora Benhamou: It does the same thing that Dexa does, but even more.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: Yeah, just so the listener knows, when Zora mentioned last time we talked, we have an episode on Hack my Age coming out where we talked about bone and muscle strength and lifting and all of that related to this, so definitely check that out.
• 15:43
  Philip Pape: Nice plug there.
• 15:44
  Zora Benhamou: Okay, yeah, thank you.
• 15:45
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, it was a fun conversation.
• 15:48
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 15:48
  Philip Pape: So getting a baseline is a good idea.
• 15:50
  Philip Pape: There's a lot of ways to do it now.
• 15:52
  Philip Pape: You could do it out of pocket through like a local lab.
• 15:54
  Philip Pape: You could do it through a medical person.
• 15:55
  Philip Pape: You also mentioned symptoms.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: Symptoms mean important, and it sounds like you're saying as soon as symptoms are obvious, or at least start to present themselves and aren't temporary or not associated with something that you know has occurred, let's say periodically, that's also an indication, right?
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: We hear the same with men with testosterone.
• 16:14
  Philip Pape: It's like it may not just be in the numbers, it may be in the symptoms or a combination of the two.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: When should someone freak out versus and think that it's a hormone thing or something else?
• 16:23
  Philip Pape: You know what I mean Versus.
• 16:30
  Philip Pape: These are normal, because I suspect I heard was it you or somebody talking about hot flashes and they were totally surprised about how it actually felt when they got there.
• 16:33
  Philip Pape: It was totally different what they expected.
• 16:36
  Philip Pape: You know what I'm saying.
• 16:37
  Zora Benhamou: So, like yeah, that wasn't me, but.
• 16:38
  Philip Pape: I.
• 16:39
  Zora Benhamou: I've heard that before too.
• 16:41
  Zora Benhamou: I still haven't had one.
• 16:42
  Zora Benhamou: I felt hot, but it not the classic I that that will be me if I ever have one, because I have an idea what it may feel like.
• 16:51
  Zora Benhamou: But I'm actually.
• 16:52
  Zora Benhamou: I wore a vest.
• 16:53
  Zora Benhamou: It was funny because I went to one of these menopause society conferences and they have a vest that you can wear, that men and women, everyone can wear to mimic a hot flash and they have it all the way up to your neck and they just turn up the heat and you, you, you feel it.
• 17:12
  Zora Benhamou: But for me I was like, are you sure it's on?
• 17:15
  Zora Benhamou: And they were like it's funny because most people are feeling and they touch, like, yeah, it's on, I'm like I don't know.
• 17:22
  Zora Benhamou: I guess I do saunas too many, too often.
• 17:24
  Philip Pape: You like to eat, you know yeah.
• 17:26
  Zora Benhamou: I didn't honestly feel very much.
• 17:29
  Zora Benhamou: But she says normally people go wow, that's pretty intense.
• 17:33
  Zora Benhamou: So you can, you can feel that.
• 17:35
  Zora Benhamou: But the question you had was I wanted to.
• 17:38
  Zora Benhamou: When do you freak out for someone who should?
• 17:39
  Philip Pape: never freak out.
• 17:40
  Philip Pape: How can you recognize that these are symptoms worth investigating?
• 17:44
  Zora Benhamou: Investigating yes, investigating, and you're just there investigating and it's going to be hard to investigate when you're perimenopause in terms of testing your blood work, because you can test in the morning and then test in the evening and there'll be totally different levels or tests in one day and then the other.
• 18:00
  Zora Benhamou: But a really good medical practitioner or any kind of practitioner and someone who understands hormones, will tell you to test on certain days of the month, usually 19 to 22.
• 18:11
  Zora Benhamou: Well, it depends on what you're testing and then they'll say they'll look for certain levels and then they may ask you to repeat it several times or take a urine test which can look at metabolites over the course of 24 hours.
• 18:26
  Zora Benhamou: There's many different types of tests that you can see in terms of where your hormones are and what they're doing and how they're behaving, which pathways the metabolites are going down, which is quite interesting.
• 18:37
  Zora Benhamou: So I would say a woman, usually at most ages, she understands her periods very well.
• 18:44
  Zora Benhamou: You know when it's coming and usually at most ages, she understands her periods very well.
• 18:45
  Zora Benhamou: Like you know when it's coming and usually women are quite regular, whether it's always day 25 or always day 28 or day 29.
• 18:53
  Zora Benhamou: And she'll notice if something's off If something is.
• 18:58
  Zora Benhamou: Maybe she's a little bit earlier or a little bit later, maybe her periods are a little bit heavier, or maybe they're a little bit lighter, or maybe she even skips a month and she's not pregnant.
• 19:09
  Zora Benhamou: So I think a period is a really good indication.
• 19:13
  Zora Benhamou: So I strongly advise, like any girl who get your period, start getting a period tracker or an app or something, and understand the fluctuations and know, and you're going to know what to expect.
• 19:25
  Zora Benhamou: So I think that's a really good biomarker to follow.
• 19:30
  Zora Benhamou: And then and then, if you, in terms of, could this be perimenopause?
• 19:35
  Zora Benhamou: Again, there are documented 103 symptoms, 103.
• 19:41
  Zora Benhamou: So really could be anything.
• 19:44
  Zora Benhamou: Changes in hair, hair thinning, these are, these are, you know, signs of perimenopause.
• 19:49
  Zora Benhamou: Changes in skin usually it's more dry and that's a lack of estrogen.
• 19:54
  Zora Benhamou: But when you think of you speak to a teenager and they get acne and they're like it's on the chin, it must be hormonal.
• 20:01
  Zora Benhamou: Like that's hormonal, probably not perimenopause.
• 20:04
  Zora Benhamou: Again, it depends on the chin, it must be hormonal.
• 20:05
  Zora Benhamou: Like that's hormonal, probably not perimenopause.
• 20:06
  Zora Benhamou: Again, it depends on the age and what you are.
• 20:07
  Zora Benhamou: But if you, if you are working with somebody who understands menopause, then then you usually can spit out some of these symptoms and then a doctor may conclude, yeah, this could be, yeah, some kind of hormonal shift, which is could be perimenopause or it could be again something else.
• 20:26
  Zora Benhamou: And it was interesting because I was just speaking to another person before you and we were talking about treatments and I've been listening to this episode.
• 20:36
  Zora Benhamou: Did you watch the Diary of a CEO?
• 20:38
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, for sure, there was this episode I'm watching right now about herbs and herbal treatments and this is a herbalist and he's talking about all these things.
• 20:48
  Zora Benhamou: And he said, and he had this is a case study I have, you know, sheila, she's 39 and she has moodiness, anxiety, changes in her period.
• 20:58
  Zora Benhamou: I'm like, ah, she's in pause, like you know.
• 21:02
  Zora Benhamou: So so my first thought is test her hormones.
• 21:05
  Zora Benhamou: And then, you know, you can maybe offer her some Jethro cream topically, and you know it's very, very safe.
• 21:11
  Zora Benhamou: But he's thinking, no, I gave her X, y and Z herbs and now she felt better.
• 21:17
  Zora Benhamou: Her periods are regular.
• 21:18
  Zora Benhamou: So, you know, is it a hormonal?
• 21:20
  Zora Benhamou: Is it perimenopause?
• 21:21
  Zora Benhamou: Almost doesn't matter, but like it's, you have a menu of choice in terms of how do you want to feel better?
• 21:28
  Zora Benhamou: And it may be it's, and if you talk to a Chinese medicine doctor, it may be you know what.
• 21:31
  Zora Benhamou: You need to start moving more, you need to exercise a little bit.
• 21:35
  Zora Benhamou: Maybe you need to eat certain foods and they're very much into the whole thing.
• 21:41
  Zora Benhamou: You got to lower your stress and that will be the prescription that you get and you can choose.
• 21:49
  Zora Benhamou: But I would love doctors, now or the future, to offer what resonates better with you, like hormones, or do you want herbs?
• 21:57
  Zora Benhamou: Do you want to just change your lifestyle?
• 21:59
  Zora Benhamou: But in terms of panicking, I would say, if you rule out, if you did some hormonal testing and you've you got, you got to go by symptoms.
• 22:10
  Zora Benhamou: You get to rule out, because if you're bleeding and it could be something very, very serious, you're bleeding really heavily.
• 22:16
  Zora Benhamou: So again, you know some doctors are actually there.
• 22:22
  Zora Benhamou: I don't know if you've interviewed Kim Vopney, but she's just brilliant when it comes to pelvic floors and pelvic floor health and she talks a lot about how hysterectomies are overprescribed, especially women in their thirties and forties, when you're very heavy, bleaker, and it's kind of like the first thing to go, let's just remove, you know, your ovaries or let's just remove the uterus, like we, we don't need that and I've met women who agreed to that and they didn't realize.
• 22:48
  Zora Benhamou: Oh wait, I wanted kids, what do I do?
• 22:52
  Zora Benhamou: And they got gypped out of that, and so you should really be informed of all the things that are positive and negative when it comes to certain things, especially when it comes to surgery.
• 23:04
  Zora Benhamou: So her low hanging fruit is always going into progesterone or hormones.
• 23:10
  Zora Benhamou: Right, let's look like we don't need to take out these body parts.
• 23:13
  Zora Benhamou: Maybe you do need to, I don't know, but it's not.
• 23:16
  Zora Benhamou: It shouldn't be the first call to action, and, and so I would say, if anyone is, you know, in their thirties and they they're told that they need to have a hysterectomy, I would certainly exhaust everything else first that are less invasive, and then go on to say if there's nothing else that works, then okay, maybe do what you have to do with me and people I've talked to as well.
• 23:42
  Philip Pape: You mentioned herbs, right, and I think, okay, adaptogens, right.
• 23:50
  Philip Pape: I've known women who have some anxiety or stress and they're doing everything right, you know.
• 23:52
  Philip Pape: They're trying to manage the stress naturally and something's just different that wasn't there a couple of years ago and then they started taking ashwagandha and it's like night and day and that's all they need for the next 10 years.
• 24:00
  Philip Pape: You know what I mean.
• 24:01
  Philip Pape: It's interesting and we don't know why.
• 24:04
  Philip Pape: That is right.
• 24:05
  Philip Pape: It's probably something in our, the way we live today in Western society, that is triggering that in some sense.
• 24:11
  Philip Pape: Right, with the stress that we're not eliminating.
• 24:14
  Philip Pape: But you know, having a menu of options is a great idea.
• 24:18
  Philip Pape: I also, you know, I'm a big fan of lifting, of course, and I think for a lot of people just like, if they're not lifting and then they start lifting weights and exercising, that right, there is a huge game changer for anyone to try.
• 24:28
  Philip Pape: At least it's free, it's your own body, do it.
• 24:32
  Zora Benhamou: But yeah, taking out your uterus and ovaries is different.
• 24:34
  Zora Benhamou: You can raise your testosterone levels for free with just lifting weights.
• 24:37
  Zora Benhamou: You don't need to buy anything.
• 24:38
  Zora Benhamou: I mean everybody's different, of course, but you can measure this stuff.
• 24:49
  Zora Benhamou: You can really just measure your testosterone now and go lift some heavy weights and see if it moved the needle right.
• 24:51
  Philip Pape: That's biohacking 101, right, the very basic of taking a before and after, you know.
• 24:55
  Philip Pape: Thyroid comes to mind too, because you're talking hormones, and that seems to be another big issue today is and for a lot of people, that they're just under eating and that's what's doing it, and for others it is some sort of wonky relationship between their T3 versus T3, t4 conversion, and that's where it gets complicated.
• 25:16
  Philip Pape: Estrogen, too, with the estradiol and the testosterone of the DHEA, it's like so much so yeah.
• 25:19
  Zora Benhamou: Have you heard of thyropause?
• 25:21
  Zora Benhamou: Okay, I can guess what it is it's thyroid-related menopause or something.
• 25:26
  Philip Pape: What is that?
• 25:27
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, it's when your thyroid goes south and it's usually during this period of life.
• 25:32
  Zora Benhamou: Dr Amy Horniman, we did a recording.
• 25:34
  Zora Benhamou: I'll connect you to her if you don't know her, because she's brilliant.
• 25:37
  Zora Benhamou: She's called the Thyroid Fixer and that's her podcast and she's just so focused on thyroid.
• 25:44
  Zora Benhamou: And we did an episode on thyropause and she calls thyroid the master hormone, like some people would say.
• 25:50
  Zora Benhamou: You know, cortisol is a master hormone.
• 25:52
  Zora Benhamou: Some people say thyroid is.
• 25:54
  Zora Benhamou: I mean, it depends who you are, what your specialty is, but the game is that all the hormones are interconnected.
• 25:59
  Zora Benhamou: It's not just let's just put in one and we'll replenish it.
• 26:03
  Zora Benhamou: No, that one will have an effect, a downstream effect, on other hormones.
• 26:08
  Zora Benhamou: It's the symphony and it's about getting it right.
• 26:10
  Zora Benhamou: And that's why so many women in menopause, when they start hormone therapy, they're like this is not working or I feel worse, or I feel nothing.
• 26:17
  Zora Benhamou: Well, because you have to find the right levers to pull and there's just no one size fits all and I encourage them to don't give up like just try up or down, or different formula or different dosage or different completely delivery method.
• 26:34
  Zora Benhamou: Again, we're all so different if you go down that route.
• 26:38
  Zora Benhamou: So, but again, a lot of these things can be pulled.
• 26:41
  Philip Pape: The levers can be pulled outside of hormones as well, so yes, yes, and I think it's a good approach to look at both.
• 26:49
  Philip Pape: Right Is what you're saying is like be open to both, do some biohacking, do some measurements, Like it's fairly inexpensive.
• 26:55
  Philip Pape: Thyroid is an interesting one.
• 26:57
  Philip Pape: I have a coach on my team.
• 27:08
  Philip Pape: She's personal experience of hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's, and thyroiditis, and so she's learned a lot through that process.
• 27:10
  Philip Pape: I actually worked with Karen Martell, who I know is a friend of yours, and you guys connect all the time and I love Karen too.
• 27:12
  Philip Pape: She and I have connected, so it's like a small circle here.
• 27:12
  Philip Pape: But the thyroid thing is interesting because it regulates your metabolism right and so if it's off, that could significantly affect your metabolic rate and like what I see just you start a small calorie deficit and your body just immediately adapts, and then you try to increase it, it immediately adapts.
• 27:28
  Philip Pape: It's kind of a funky thing that creates what seems like weight loss resistance.
• 27:32
  Philip Pape: You know, obviously if you starve yourself you're going to lose weight, but nobody wants to do that, right?
• 27:36
  Philip Pape: So all this is part of menopause, right?
• 27:39
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, yeah, and progesterone also has an effect on the thyroid as well when you're losing your progesterone.
• 27:44
  Zora Benhamou: So, yeah, there's so many reasons why somebody can have a low thyroid or high thyroid, dysfunctional thyroid.
• 27:52
  Zora Benhamou: I agree, though, that it is a very important hormone and it's not a thing that we should just brush off, and I think a lot of traditional doctors that when you go to get your labs, the range is really wide, so you can be within the normal range, but still like my hair is falling out and I'm so tired and I'm bloated and I can't lose this weight and they're like I don't know.
• 28:17
  Zora Benhamou: Your numbers are normal, but that's where we want to get into maybe a functional medicine approach or optimal ranges, because any functional medicine doctor would have a much tighter range and say this is why you're not feeling well, so let's try to figure out how can we move the dial and getting closer into the optimal range, and you'll probably feel better.
• 28:37
  Zora Benhamou: They won't dismiss you or gaslight you and go out.
• 28:41
  Philip Pape: And there's ratios and there's also your own baseline, like you've already mentioned before.
• 28:45
  Philip Pape: So so that makes me think now, since we're talking about preparing early for this and you mentioned talking to your kids, right Cause that's as early as we can get.
• 28:54
  Philip Pape: I have two daughters as well.
• 28:56
  Philip Pape: I love that my wife talks to them about things we homeschool, so we have like a health subject in there and I've already talked to them about genitals and sex and like all that stuff.
• 29:07
  Philip Pape: To whatever level they they are, it's appropriate for their age.
• 29:09
  Philip Pape: You know things that our parents just didn't do very often like our generation in the 80s.
• 29:14
  Philip Pape: Right but the question is when it comes to menopause, if the mother isn't super informed like it looks like is the case currently and they listen to this podcast the first time they're hearing about this right what should they talk to the kids about In terms of menopause?
• 29:30
  Zora Benhamou: Sure, yeah, since we're preparing for the menopause, it depends, like you said, age appropriate.
• 29:34
  Zora Benhamou: How much information can they handle?
• 29:36
  Zora Benhamou: What's their interest?
• 29:37
  Zora Benhamou: The simple thing is, maybe, if they're in their teenage years you're like, well, you're going to have the discussion about when the periods start.
• 29:44
  Zora Benhamou: You can also have the conversation that I know it's.
• 29:47
  Zora Benhamou: You know you're struggling now but it is going to end, and that actually sounds like a really good thing that you won't be living bleeding for the rest of your life and that's because the hormones are starting to decline.
• 29:59
  Zora Benhamou: But just bringing a little bit of awareness in terms of your, I think the period is such a tangible thing for most young people that they can understand that.
• 30:08
  Zora Benhamou: I would also talk to the boys as well and you can say understand, and I would relate it maybe just overall for hormones, because if there are, whether they're a boy or a girl, they will maybe be dealing with somebody who's going to have a pregnancy or, if not themselves, they will maybe be dealing with somebody who's going to have a pregnancy or, if not themselves, and then they're going to see again a hormonal shift and not think that they're broken and they're falling apart.
• 30:29
  Zora Benhamou: We're like, no, you're pregnant or you're just post-pregnancy and hormones are trying to shift again.
• 30:35
  Zora Benhamou: So having that discussion about hormones is really good.
• 30:38
  Zora Benhamou: And then, as they get older, I think when you, when you are approaching your thirties, then I would start talking about more about progesterone and and how that can decline or just or, and that the hormones go up and down.
• 30:50
  Zora Benhamou: They're just crazy and it's not you that's crazy.
• 30:53
  Zora Benhamou: The hormones that are going a little wonky and not to be afraid, and it's totally normal and you have solutions.
• 31:00
  Zora Benhamou: Again, here's this mortgage board of choices that you can do to balance them out and replen phase and again, having that discussion about perimenopause pre, mid and late.
• 31:30
  Zora Benhamou: But I would also have them understand that we don't know what our menopause journey will be like.
• 31:40
  Zora Benhamou: Like.
• 31:40
  Zora Benhamou: There's the whole spectrum.
• 31:42
  Zora Benhamou: It's not going to be horrible for everybody and not to dismiss that, it can be really horrible.
• 31:47
  Zora Benhamou: You'll have many symptoms.
• 31:49
  Zora Benhamou: You'll have all of them under the sun and they're going to be extreme and that happens, totally can happen.
• 31:55
  Zora Benhamou: But if that does happen to you, we got solutions.
• 31:59
  Zora Benhamou: There's so much we can do and you don't have to suffer in silence.
• 32:02
  Zora Benhamou: Menopause is inevitable but suffering really is optional If you want to white knuckle your way through and give yourself a badge because you did it quote unquote naturally suffered through it.
• 32:15
  Zora Benhamou: That's your choice.
• 32:16
  Zora Benhamou: Like fine with you, but but if that scares you, you don't.
• 32:20
  Zora Benhamou: You don't need to go down that route.
• 32:22
  Zora Benhamou: It's.
• 32:22
  Zora Benhamou: It's again we have.
• 32:23
  Zora Benhamou: We have so many options, but leading, starting with everything that you talk about in terms of getting your nutrition dialed in and having exercise as part of your daily routine, are so foundational for having a smooth transition.
• 32:39
  Zora Benhamou: It's not a guarantee, but it should be smoother when you have those things in place, as well as maybe sleep and your stress management and all that stuff, because they do impact your menopause journey.
• 32:51
  Philip Pape: Yeah, all of that's important, and I think of the phrase minimum effective dose when you talk about like white knuckling it through, doing it only naturally, which I've definitely met people who are like I don't want to do this, I don't want to take anything, I don't want to do this, I don't want to take anything, I don't want to take HRT, I don't you know, and I'm like, okay, you're potentially limiting yourself and others who want to try everything, and they don't approach it with a scientific method of like isolating the variables, right, and so then you don't know what's working, and so the middle ground seems to be you know foundation and then see what's there and then take one step at a time and start pushing the lever.
• 33:24
  Philip Pape: So, given that you're like the biohacking expert and we're talking about preparing early, what's something, let's say, in your 20s as a woman, you should biohack or do besides what we've already talked about.
• 33:34
  Philip Pape: That will set you up for more success than most women have knowing.
• 33:38
  Philip Pape: Menopause is coming.
• 33:39
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, okay, yeah, first, definitely get your testing done and definitely understanding your periods that's just foundational.
• 33:46
  Zora Benhamou: And then getting those, understanding how your body reacts to food and what foods are actually nourishing yourself right To give you energy, to make you feel good this is really, really important.
• 34:01
  Zora Benhamou: And not being under-fueled or over-fueled, right, you don't want to have too much body fat and you don't want to have too little, because both of those set you up for possible early menopause.
• 34:13
  Zora Benhamou: Okay, we want to be at a healthy body weight and so having that and again, exercise is a big component of that too.
• 34:20
  Zora Benhamou: So getting in your strength training is so foundational.
• 34:24
  Zora Benhamou: I talk a lot about sarcopenia as a gerontologist and this is the age-related muscle loss, but no age-related, sorry.
• 34:33
  Zora Benhamou: There's things we can do.
• 34:35
  Zora Benhamou: We're not using our muscles and without our hormones it can be.
• 34:40
  Zora Benhamou: Versus when we have them, it can be a little harder to build muscle.
• 34:45
  Zora Benhamou: So having building that now is so vital.
• 34:50
  Zora Benhamou: I honestly think that part of my really good muscle mass.
• 34:54
  Zora Benhamou: But I've been training and exercising since I was born, like I was just running around like it was doing the Jane Fonda thing when I was a teenager and I always liked exercise and I think it's really saved me in so many ways.
• 35:11
  Zora Benhamou: Yes, things have happened to me in the last several years where I go.
• 35:15
  Zora Benhamou: Thank God I've had good muscle and muscle has memory as well.
• 35:21
  Zora Benhamou: So when you and you're building these muscle fibers when you're young and the same thing goes for bone they're so important you may not think about it.
• 35:29
  Zora Benhamou: When you're young.
• 35:30
  Zora Benhamou: All you're thinking about is I just want to grow and maybe, if you're little, you just want to become Superman.
• 35:35
  Zora Benhamou: But you will need those muscles and you will need those bones, especially as we're getting into our sixties and seventies and eighties, because it's going to be a lifesaver to keep us independent, to help us recover from a fall without getting a fracture, and there's things that are really bad things that happen with that.
• 35:54
  Zora Benhamou: So we want to keep that.
• 35:55
  Zora Benhamou: So I would say, as you're young, please get you know and I don't want to say you'd have to be a bodybuilder but just get good muscle mass and protect your bones, and those are really really key.
• 36:06
  Zora Benhamou: And again, you may struggle with that and I've had people who tell me in my community is like they've increased their muscle mass and they're boiling it all down to sleep.
• 36:15
  Zora Benhamou: It's because I really focused on my sleep when growth hormone is released.
• 36:20
  Zora Benhamou: So sleep is a big factor and I know we can get away with sleepless nights when we're young and pull all-nighters and all that.
• 36:29
  Zora Benhamou: But again, you want to keep things in balance.
• 36:33
  Zora Benhamou: Especially if you're having symptoms or if you're starting to feel like I really need my sleep, then make it a priority.
• 36:41
  Zora Benhamou: And then, of course, the stress component, because that affects the hormone cortisol and that can affect a lot of other things that are going on in our.
• 36:48
  Zora Benhamou: Then make it a priority.
• 36:49
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, the stress component, because that affects that's the hormone cortisol, and that can affect a lot of other things that are going on in our body.
• 36:52
  Philip Pape: You know we've talked about a concept called upward spiraling, which is when you can get one of these things improved that you just talked about.
• 36:56
  Philip Pape: They make the others easier.
• 36:57
  Philip Pape: And it's funny you mentioned sleep because there's a joke, like with menopausal women that I've noticed.
• 37:02
  Philip Pape: It's you know they'll say well, what do I do?
• 37:04
  Philip Pape: And some 20 year old, you know, influencer guy would be like you need to get more sleep.
• 37:08
  Philip Pape: And they're like well, I have trouble sleeping because I'm in menopause.
• 37:10
  Philip Pape: Well, you just need more sleep.
• 37:11
  Philip Pape: You know, and it's like this, like circular thing, and I've seen that I'm like I can't just tell people get more sleep or get better sleep, but if you're not lifting, if you're not moving, if you're not eating, well, that's also going to affect your sleep and your sleep's going to affect those.
• 37:28
  Philip Pape: Right, it's a systematic thing.
• 37:30
  Philip Pape: So it's a spiral of like where's your low hanging fruit?
• 37:33
  Philip Pape: Now, you know I've had clients who they've lifted for 20 years.
• 37:37
  Philip Pape: That's not their concern.
• 37:38
  Philip Pape: Their concern is they don't move throughout the day.
• 37:39
  Philip Pape: They go and they lift three, four days a week, and then they don't move all day and they have 3000 steps.
• 37:43
  Philip Pape: Well, all of a sudden their blood flows low, their resting heart rate's high, their insulin sensitivity is not great, and then they just start walking more and all of that gets better and now they start sleeping better, right?
• 37:54
  Philip Pape: So I'm playing off what you're saying, because when you're younger, listening to this, don't wait.
• 37:59
  Philip Pape: And if you haven't done it and you're in your fort, yeah.
• 38:09
  Philip Pape: So I want to ask you about the food and the healthy body weight part, because that could get misunderstood a lot.
• 38:15
  Philip Pape: You talked about being overweight or potentially underweight, and overfueling or underfueling.
• 38:20
  Philip Pape: I assume there's a fat-free mass component to that.
• 38:23
  Philip Pape: Right, like, if somebody has good body composition, maybe that's less of a concern.
• 38:27
  Philip Pape: What does the research say or what do you know about that?
• 38:31
  Zora Benhamou: In terms of I'm not sure I I'm sorry In terms of body weight and its impact on early menopause.
• 38:37
  Philip Pape: That's what I mean.
• 38:37
  Zora Benhamou: Oh, okay, yeah, no body weight, yeah.
• 38:40
  Zora Benhamou: So I hate weight, I hate looking at a scale.
• 38:44
  Zora Benhamou: To me it just doesn't mean anything.
• 38:45
  Zora Benhamou: If anybody gets on a scale, I say I want to know your muscle mass, I want to know how much fat mass you have.
• 38:53
  Zora Benhamou: So I think those are much better markers to look at.
• 38:55
  Zora Benhamou: And then of course, you have the woman who's just like it, disrupts her day and she shouldn't be on a scale and she doesn't like it.
• 39:02
  Zora Benhamou: And you know, sometimes we remove those things altogether.
• 39:05
  Zora Benhamou: But in terms of, if you want to look at weight, what the research is showing in terms of menopause, if you are underweight you are more likely to have an earlier menopause.
• 39:15
  Zora Benhamou: The weird thing is that there's some research coming out that shows if you're obese like a BMI over 30, you're more likely to have a later menopause and delayed menopause, at least I think, is actually a good thing.
• 39:31
  Zora Benhamou: We want ovarian function as long as we possibly can, and there's one study that showed obese women who had obese women, again over 30 BMI, they had 50% higher odds of menopause after the age of 52 and 53, 52, 53.
• 39:50
  Zora Benhamou: And the average age right now in North America is 51.
• 39:53
  Zora Benhamou: So it's okay.
• 39:53
  Zora Benhamou: It's delayed by a couple years, but you go.
• 39:56
  Zora Benhamou: Well, that's to me.
• 39:57
  Zora Benhamou: It's not a reason to like you know it's not a good trade-off yeah, focus on that.
• 40:04
  Zora Benhamou: It was just an interesting study.
• 40:06
  Zora Benhamou: I thought, okay, I don't like that, but you know, but it's probably has a lot to do because there's your, your fat cells have a lot of estrogen, right.
• 40:20
  Zora Benhamou: So when it's the loss of estrogen that causes the, at least the we, that's when we have the menopause.
• 40:22
  Zora Benhamou: So if you can still have some hanging around, I'm not saying if you're obese forever, you'll always have estrogen and you'll always have, like, be menopause free, but but it tends to delay menopause.
• 40:32
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it's interesting I didn't that that's a good explanation for the mechanism, cause I was like is it because your reproductive health is supported because you have more fat?
• 40:39
  Philip Pape: You know, despite the trade-offs of being more overweight, you can, you know you're in a better condition physiologically to have a, have a child and support the child because you have more fat stores.
• 40:49
  Philip Pape: I don't know Right Like yeah.
• 40:51
  Philip Pape: Yeah, but the estrogen makes a lot of sense.
• 41:00
  Jorge: Hello everyone.
• 41:01
  Jorge: My name is Jorge and I just kind of want to share a little bit about my experience with Wits and Weights.
• 41:03
  Jorge: So I've been blown away from day one.
• 41:04
  Jorge: Honestly, the best thing about Wits and Weights University is that Coach Philip has everything that we need all in one place.
• 41:11
  Jorge: It's easy to follow, it's easy to understand.
• 41:14
  Jorge: It even gives you like an introduction course at the beginning so you can know exactly what to do.
• 41:18
  Jorge: It kind of made me very conscious of my nutrition and it's kind of set me in the right path, in the right direction.
• 41:25
  Jorge: So, honestly, I could not recommend it enough.
• 41:28
  Jorge: One of the best things is that whenever you have any type of question, it's answered within 15, 30 minutes.
• 41:35
  Jorge: You feel welcome, you feel good and like somebody's helping you.
• 41:38
  Jorge: Everything you need is there.
• 41:40
  Jorge: All you have to do is basically come and join us.
• 41:42
  Jorge: See you there.
• 41:44
  Philip Pape: And then you said you talked about sarcopenia, which is super relevant topic on this show for sure, and you and I talked last time how Megan Dahlman was on the show and mentioned the term osteosarcopenia and how they're linked together.
• 41:56
  Philip Pape: Is there anything okay besides like lifting weights and moving?
• 41:59
  Philip Pape: Is there anything in your world of gerontology that you see people could be doing better or more of in their 20s and 30s?
• 42:06
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, I would say it's shocking how many people have lost flexibility, mobility and agility in their 20s and 30s.
• 42:15
  Zora Benhamou: It's like, wait, you look at a baby or a young child.
• 42:19
  Zora Benhamou: They do a perfect squat and they can do so many things and they're flexible.
• 42:24
  Zora Benhamou: And what happened right?
• 42:26
  Zora Benhamou: And we blame it on these chairs that we're sitting on very often.
• 42:30
  Zora Benhamou: If you've ever been, have you been to Japan Once?
• 42:32
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, I was lucky to go to Japan.
• 42:32
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, so you've ever been?
• 42:33
  Philip Pape: have you been to japan once?
• 42:33
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I was lucky to go to japan, yeah so you've the toilet sat.
• 42:38
  Zora Benhamou: No, sat on the floor, I was gonna say that the holes in the floor toilets yeah, the squatty potty, like anyway.
• 42:44
  Philip Pape: Yeah, the holes in the floor yes, you eat on the floor, that's true, you sit on the floor.
• 42:47
  Zora Benhamou: The the holes.
• 42:48
  Zora Benhamou: No.
• 42:48
  Zora Benhamou: Japanese toilets are more known for their high tech that is true too and warm seats and stuff.
• 42:56
  Zora Benhamou: It's more, I would say China, where you get the holes in the ground.
• 43:01
  Philip Pape: I mean, look, I went in 2002, so it was a long time ago.
• 43:04
  Philip Pape: Oh, okay, and they actually had some of those, but you're right, mostly they had the seat warming and the LEDs and all that stuff.
• 43:11
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, yeah, it's funny, but Japanese people you take off your shoes when you get in the LEDs and all that stuff.
• 43:13
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
• 43:14
  Zora Benhamou: But Japanese people, you take off your shoes when you get in the house and then you have eat on the floor, everything's on the floor.
• 43:19
  Zora Benhamou: You sleep on a tatami right the like the futon imagine, I guess.
• 43:24
  Zora Benhamou: I guess we would say in America, yes, where you have just it's like mattress on the floor and so you're constantly having to get up, get down, squat and you're just always have this movement.
• 43:35
  Zora Benhamou: So you don't seem to lose that mobility and agility and flexibility.
• 43:41
  Zora Benhamou: But in our Western world we have couches and chairs and beds that are high, so we don't need to squat so much anymore.
• 43:50
  Zora Benhamou: So I think if you could work on that and keep it for the rest of your life, you're going to be really, really lucky.
• 43:58
  Zora Benhamou: And I think that agility piece is really important because if you look at some older adults not everyone that maybe there's shuffle walking and they're just afraid to take a step because in case they fall and they haven't practiced fall prevention.
• 44:14
  Zora Benhamou: We should be all practicing fall prevention like, like a stuntman, right?
• 44:18
  Zora Benhamou: You just learn how to do a little roll in case you fall, like.
• 44:21
  Zora Benhamou: This is fun and you don't have to call it fall prevention, because I'm protecting my 70 year old self, but but these are really important.
• 44:29
  Zora Benhamou: We don't understand until we lose it.
• 44:30
  Zora Benhamou: And and I mentioned to you earlier that I had osteoarthritis I was living in the body of an 80-year-old.
• 44:37
  Zora Benhamou: I know what it's like to shuffle, walk and to be afraid to go take a step off the curb.
• 44:43
  Zora Benhamou: It's horrible, it's horrible, and I got a glimpse of what that's like and since I've had my hip replacements, I'm like thank goodness, but I don't ever want to be like that and I don't recommend it to anyone else.
• 44:58
  Zora Benhamou: So please work.
• 44:59
  Zora Benhamou: I know mobility classes now sound boring or not cool, but honestly, they should be a part of your weekly workout, in my opinion, if you want to talk about your future self if you want to talk about your future self.
• 45:14
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you make a really good point, right, because I'm in a world where there's people like to lift but sometimes, just like that person I mentioned, sits around all day right With his job and gets stiff.
• 45:22
  Philip Pape: I know men and women who they start lifting, maybe they walk, but they're not doing this other component and I like to think of it as, like you know, doing something fun and making that part of your routine if you can, for mobility, whether it is mobility stuff like yoga or stretching, but also sports, maybe you know pickleball, like all of that.
• 45:41
  Philip Pape: Being being agile, calisthenics, playing with your kids, like if you've got kids, why aren't you playing with them and going outside and playing, come on, like just don't you know, and yeah, we do kind of lose that, and then you get stiff, right, you get more chance of connective tissue issues.
• 45:55
  Philip Pape: You get the surgery.
• 45:56
  Philip Pape: I mean I've had rotator cuff surgery and back surgery.
• 45:59
  Philip Pape: You talk about your hip replacement.
• 46:00
  Philip Pape: I'm like one day I feel like I'm going to need that.
• 46:03
  Philip Pape: But I'm also trying to stay a little more active.
• 46:05
  Philip Pape: Do some sprinting, do this and that Maybe not as much as I see some of my 25-year-old peers doing.
• 46:09
  Philip Pape: I'm a little bit jealous.
• 46:10
  Philip Pape: I'm like man, they're like playing basketball all the time, but I am a parent too, right?
• 46:14
  Philip Pape: So you've got mothers who are parents taking care of their kids.
• 46:17
  Philip Pape: Maybe they've got a 50 hour a week job or whatever.
• 46:20
  Philip Pape: What's your practical favorites when it comes to that?
• 46:24
  Zora Benhamou: Oh, yes, I practice this all the time and I've got to figure out another way, actually, because I do my podcasts doing this.
• 46:32
  Zora Benhamou: But I would say, try to live on the floor and make your floor comfortable, right?
• 46:38
  Zora Benhamou: You can see, here in the back I have a rug and I have a low coffee table.
• 46:44
  Zora Benhamou: I will put my computer on the coffee table and I sit with my like an Indian style or and then I have to.
• 46:51
  Zora Benhamou: Oh, I got to go to the toilet, so I got to get up.
• 46:53
  Zora Benhamou: So then I would say, let me try to get up without my hands.
• 46:56
  Zora Benhamou: Let's try to just get up without putting too many hands on the floor.
• 47:01
  Zora Benhamou: I eat on the floor, I go, and now it's, it's lovely, it's summer, I'll go in the garden, I'll eat on the grass, I'm getting some grounding, I'm getting outdoors, I'm getting fresh air, and I have to squat and I have to stand up again and again.
• 47:16
  Zora Benhamou: Try to hold your plate with two hands and do it without getting off the floor, without using your hands.
• 47:22
  Zora Benhamou: You can try to do these things in every single moment of the day that you can, and I think it's fun and maybe people will go.
• 47:31
  Zora Benhamou: You look ridiculous, but I don't care, I'm going to be the one laughing when I'm 70, you know, if I'm lucky to get there right Assuming that I do so, I think it's it's a matter of, I would say, floor life.
• 47:46
  Zora Benhamou: Try to get on the floor as much as you can.
• 47:48
  Zora Benhamou: Work on the floor, eat on the floor, play with your kids on the floor in the when the guests come.
• 47:51
  Zora Benhamou: If you have guests, I'm on the floor.
• 47:52
  Zora Benhamou: I sort of like tea, like a japanese woman, like, yeah, you know, I'm on my knees and we, why don't you sit on the couch?
• 47:58
  Zora Benhamou: I'm like, I just like being on the floor and actually that's quite natural for me.
• 48:02
  Zora Benhamou: I've always been like that, without even thinking about my future self.
• 48:05
  Zora Benhamou: I've just been very I don't know, I guess grounded no, that sounds like you're mistake.
• 48:10
  Philip Pape: Proofing the process is the way I would put it, my geeky sort of way.
• 48:13
  Philip Pape: It's like you're biohacking the process because by being on the floor you have to interrupt constantly that pattern with movement right, whereas when you're sitting you can get hunched over for four hours in a row and not move right, even if you want to.
• 48:28
  Philip Pape: You'd have to have reminders you have to do this and that You're making it where it just naturally is part of your life.
• 48:36
  Zora Benhamou: It's like the flow.
• 48:36
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, actually, if you're sitting cross-legged, there's a time you're like, oof, yeah, I gotta stretch my legs.
• 48:39
  Zora Benhamou: Then you stretch out the legs and then you're like, oh well, I'm here, I'll just do an extra stretch and you're there anyways.
• 48:45
  Zora Benhamou: So you just think about it.
• 48:48
  Zora Benhamou: Another thing I do is I have toys usually all over the floor, like like a ball for my foot.
• 48:53
  Zora Benhamou: You know, I rub the ball, you know the little bounce the points.
• 48:58
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, so you can rub your foot, you massage your foot.
• 49:02
  Zora Benhamou: Oh yeah, like the little.
• 49:03
  Philip Pape: yeah, I got it.
• 49:04
  Philip Pape: Yeah, sure, Sure.
• 49:05
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, and I just have just bands, because if I trip over it I go oh yeah, I could do this, and it's there and you can take like 30 seconds a minute and it adds up.
• 49:18
  Zora Benhamou: And one thing I learned just recently and it totally inspired me yesterday I had an interview with Dr Marie Snyder and she has a podcast as well and we were talking about the blood glucose monitor challenge because I'm just finishing mine, were talking about the blood glucose monitor challenge because I'm just finishing mine, and she was saying you know what?
• 49:36
  Zora Benhamou: I concluded with blood sugar, which is another thing please, like, get your blood sugar.
• 49:41
  Zora Benhamou: That's another great test to do.
• 49:43
  Zora Benhamou: I'm such a fan of these.
• 49:44
  Zora Benhamou: These are little devices.
• 49:47
  Zora Benhamou: It's a sensor that you put in the back of your arm.
• 49:49
  Zora Benhamou: It's a continuous blood glucose monitor and you have an app on your phone and you can see how your blood sugar rises and falls with the foods that you eat, the exercise, the stress, the sleep, how this all impacts.
• 49:58
  Zora Benhamou: Blood sugar is a very important marker to understand your health and it's a way to delay aging, to have your blood sugar levels stable.
• 50:09
  Zora Benhamou: It lowers inflammation and so many other things.
• 50:12
  Zora Benhamou: And so she said, I said you know what?
• 50:14
  Zora Benhamou: I tried berberine, I tried apple cider vinegar, I've tried eating vegetables before you eat certain foods that can increase your blood sugar.
• 50:23
  Zora Benhamou: Let's say a banana and bananas.
• 50:24
  Zora Benhamou: I love bananas, I eat them.
• 50:26
  Zora Benhamou: But I noticed, wow, it goes really high and then it just like boom, it like drops.
• 50:30
  Zora Benhamou: So I had the best impact was exercising after I eat the piece of fruit or chocolate or whatever it is.
• 50:41
  Zora Benhamou: That would spike my blood sugar and I thought, god, that's amazing.
• 50:45
  Zora Benhamou: So she said you know what I do?
• 50:46
  Zora Benhamou: I got small kids.
• 50:47
  Zora Benhamou: I can't run, I mean I can't go to the gym, so I do air squats right after I eat it.
• 50:54
  Zora Benhamou: So she does just three minutes, just do 20 for one minute, another 20 for another minute, more or less.
• 51:02
  Zora Benhamou: No, she does 60.
• 51:03
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, 20, 20 and 20.
• 51:05
  Zora Benhamou: That's what she does Every minute.
• 51:07
  Zora Benhamou: She does 20, 20 squats and then she does it for three minutes.
• 51:11
  Zora Benhamou: Because we all got three minutes and I tested that twice.
• 51:14
  Zora Benhamou: Totally, I drank grapefruit juice, which should have, should have like gone through the roof and it was just so stable?
• 51:21
  Zora Benhamou: I'm like no way.
• 51:22
  Zora Benhamou: So exercise is such a powerful tool it's magic.
• 51:26
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, it's like so many ways and it's free, like I don't need to spend money on another supplement so so, yeah, that that's.
• 51:34
  Zora Benhamou: That's another air squats she.
• 51:36
  Zora Benhamou: So what she does is kind of crazy.
• 51:38
  Zora Benhamou: She does that six times a day okay so she does 360 squats a day.
• 51:43
  Zora Benhamou: I'm like whoa, that's a lot, but she's like I just sometimes I just take a break from my kids and you know we just we all do air squats together as a family and she incorporates this into her day and she's like this is brilliant, brilliant idea.
• 51:58
  Philip Pape: Has she compared it to?
• 51:59
  Philip Pape: Has she compared it to like walking?
• 52:00
  Philip Pape: I'm curious.
• 52:02
  Zora Benhamou: In terms of the blood sugar levels?
• 52:04
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:04
  Zora Benhamou: Well she did.
• 52:06
  Zora Benhamou: One day she told me that she ate a piece of cake Like she said.
• 52:10
  Zora Benhamou: It was the most horrible piece of cake like you buy in the supermarket.
• 52:13
  Philip Pape: The highly sugary grainy like it's all sugar, right yeah.
• 52:16
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, it was a Saturday.
• 52:17
  Zora Benhamou: I was in the park with my husband and my son and I, and after that we went for a bike ride.
• 52:21
  Zora Benhamou: So I wanted to go on a bike ride.
• 52:28
  Zora Benhamou: So she went for two hours on the bike and she looked at a monitor didn't even blip.
• 52:31
  Philip Pape: That's interesting, isn't that crazy?
• 52:32
  Philip Pape: Crazy, is it the bike?
• 52:33
  Philip Pape: But then walking compared to biking.
• 52:34
  Zora Benhamou: I wonder, I don't know, the walking compared to biking, but for me walking definitely lowers the spike, for sure, for sure.
• 52:39
  Zora Benhamou: I would go for about 20 minutes, 20 or 30 minute walk and it's so much it.
• 52:44
  Zora Benhamou: If it's watermelon that really increases me, it'll.
• 52:47
  Zora Benhamou: It'll still have a bump, but not not nearly as what it was before, with just a walk.
• 52:53
  Zora Benhamou: It was within the range definitely.
• 52:57
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 52:57
  Philip Pape: So again you're just reinforcing the idea that being active, moving, taking care of yourself, eating foods you love, that nourish, you are all really great foundations if you wanna be ready for menopause and beyond.
• 53:10
  Philip Pape: And then of course you can isolate the other things right and see okay, maybe it is thyroid, maybe it is progesterone or something like that.
• 53:16
  Philip Pape: As we wrap up, is there anything else that someone, maybe in their thirties, maybe getting toward perimenopause in their forties, should know?
• 53:24
  Philip Pape: That we didn't cover.
• 53:26
  Zora Benhamou: Oh God, there's a lot.
• 53:27
  Zora Benhamou: Where should I start?
• 53:29
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, and I'm trying to think I would say don't be afraid, Even if you're seeing all those horrible videos and those horrible reels.
• 53:39
  Philip Pape: Good point.
• 53:40
  Philip Pape: Don't do the fragility narrative Like.
• 53:41
  Philip Pape: Don't adopt the fragility narrative.
• 53:43
  Philip Pape: Right Of menopause.
• 53:44
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, For menopause as well as aging.
• 53:47
  Zora Benhamou: I see a lot of younger people terrified of aging, Like they're like all biohacking in their twenties.
• 53:54
  Zora Benhamou: I'm like I understand, like why I'm biohacking, because I can see the wrinkles.
• 53:58
  Zora Benhamou: I can see like you can start seeing the degeneration, but in your twenties you're like full of collagen, Like why would you like in hormones, Like?
• 54:07
  Zora Benhamou: But they're concerned and I think they're concerned because of ageist, stereotypes and it's what we see.
• 54:13
  Zora Benhamou: We're all ageist.
• 54:14
  Zora Benhamou: There's plenty of research that goes and looks at all of these countries of the world and everyone's ageist.
• 54:20
  Zora Benhamou: Some are more, some are less, and ageist.
• 54:23
  Zora Benhamou: You know meaning.
• 54:23
  Zora Benhamou: You just have a you.
• 54:24
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, you have a negative association.
• 54:27
  Philip Pape: Bias against older age yeah.
• 54:29
  Zora Benhamou: Right so, but there are countries that are better, like Japan, for example, is more accepted.
• 54:35
  Zora Benhamou: People aren't so afraid.
• 54:36
  Zora Benhamou: But we want to disrupt those just these ages stereotypes, because we have a menu of choice on how to age.
• 54:43
  Zora Benhamou: We of course the the the horror stories are there.
• 54:48
  Zora Benhamou: There are people who are sick, there are people who are frail or people who are getting fractures, or people who are dying, people who are really struggling the last 30 years of life on medication and doctors and all that.
• 54:58
  Zora Benhamou: But that's just one choice.
• 55:00
  Zora Benhamou: We have a choice.
• 55:02
  Zora Benhamou: We can do things to age healthily and the way we want to.
• 55:06
  Zora Benhamou: We have to be proactive.
• 55:09
  Zora Benhamou: We have to look for our future selves and when you think about dementia and cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, these aren't diseases that start at age 70 or 65.
• 55:20
  Zora Benhamou: They start in your 30s, 40s, 50s and we don't feel them.
• 55:26
  Zora Benhamou: They're called silent killers because we don't feel our bones getting brittle or we don't feel our arteries getting full of plaque.
• 55:34
  Zora Benhamou: We only notice it when we're already there, and then it's kind of late and it's a good thing.
• 55:41
  Zora Benhamou: I really strongly recommend people to consider prevention.
• 55:45
  Zora Benhamou: I know it's not sexy, but everything that you're doing now in your 20s and 30s and 40s is really going to protect your future self, and it gets easier.
• 55:54
  Zora Benhamou: You may think, oh, it's job right now.
• 55:56
  Zora Benhamou: To get it sorted out.
• 55:57
  Zora Benhamou: Yeah, maybe hard in the beginning, but after a while it becomes a habit and it becomes a lifestyle and you don't even think about it anymore and you just don't want to live any other way because it's just quite normal for you, because you feel so good.
• 56:11
  Zora Benhamou: So really don't be afraid of aging.
• 56:12
  Zora Benhamou: And again, we have choices.
• 56:14
  Zora Benhamou: We can do whatever we want and when it comes to aesthetics, if you want to go gray, fabulous.
• 56:19
  Zora Benhamou: If you want to dye your hair fabulous.
• 56:21
  Zora Benhamou: Do you Do what makes you happy.
• 56:23
  Zora Benhamou: We can A lot of things that we can to be the way that we want, to look and feel as good as we want.
• 56:29
  Philip Pape: Oh, I love that message right, because being happy and having well-being starts now and, like you said, it gets easier.
• 56:37
  Philip Pape: You've got to take the steps and some of it is uncomfortable or different, like working out if you don't do it.
• 56:43
  Philip Pape: But, trust me, when you're 40, when you the surface, so folks can definitely find you on your podcast Hack my Age, and you're also going to be in Physique University as a guest speaker doing a live Q&A.
• 57:00
  Philip Pape: That's on September 23rd, so if you're hearing this before then, you could always jump in before that to catch Laura for a live Q&A with her.
• 57:08
  Philip Pape: Where do you want folks to find you after hearing this amazing podcast?
• 57:12
  Zora Benhamou: Wherever they go, I am there, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn X, I've everywhere.
• 57:20
  Zora Benhamou: I've got podcasts, but the easiest thing is just go to hackmyagecom, because I'll have all the links to all of whatever area that you put yourself into, I will be there and you can reach out.
• 57:31
  Zora Benhamou: I'm still reachable.
• 57:31
  Zora Benhamou: You know, send me a message.
• 57:32
  Zora Benhamou: If I don't see it right away, I will be there and you can reach out.
• 57:33
  Zora Benhamou: I'm still reachable.
• 57:34
  Zora Benhamou: Send me a message.
• 57:34
  Zora Benhamou: If I don't see it right away, I'll.
• 57:36
  Zora Benhamou: Eventually we'll see it.
• 57:38
  Philip Pape: Beautiful Hackmyagecom.
• 57:39
  Philip Pape: You can find Zora everywhere.
• 57:40
  Philip Pape: She's awesome.
• 57:41
  Philip Pape: She will respond to you and thank you so much, Zora, for coming on the show to talk about a very important topic.
• 57:46
  Philip Pape: It's a pleasure.
• 57:48
  Zora Benhamou: Thanks for having me.