Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 86: Perimenopause, supplements and body shape changes
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations Podcast. And in today's episode, I have Laney back on, and we're gonna talk a little bit about some myths around weight loss, particularly pertaining to perimenopause menopause as well. So ⁓ this is gonna be ⁓ somewhat if you've ever listened to the ⁓ Louis kind of ⁓ mind ranty ⁓ one. I think this might border into that a little bit. So ⁓ saddle in for that one. But yeah, let's start off with what is the kind of like thing that winds you up the most right now about info or things that you're seeing on Instagram around perimenopause and all sorts of things around that. Lainey: Okay so the number one thing would be perimenopause supplements. It really gets on my tits because they are super expensive and preying on women who are in a vulnerable stage of their life and they will do anything to stop feeling the way they're doing and having been someone who's invested in those, do you know I'm a sucker for placebo, do you know what it is placebo is a thing and it can be effective but it will wear off. Cameron Cummings: Mm. Lainey: and I was suffering about 18 months ago quite badly with what I thought were perimenopause symptoms. Now I think it was a combination of a couple of things ⁓ and tried these supplements and another one of my clients sent me a happy mammoth and things like that. Stay away from them ladies, stay away from the men as well. But they'll often have some, you know, the B vitamins, things like that which is great to have. I would always say don't supplement until you're getting as much as you can from your diet. Obviously vitamin D is super important and a lot of us are deficient in it because of where we live in the world. If you're in the UK or at a northerly latitude. But yeah, so there was another one this lady sent me that said, get rid of your beer belly. was like, maybe don't drink. I didn't say, I'm not like this as a coach, but I was thinking. Cameron Cummings: Right, we can wonderful, ⁓ okay. Latitude, yeah. Lainey: I think potentially that maybe less beer might do that. Not that she drank beer, but I think it was just because it sells the whole belly fat thing. And this whole, you know, it is a struggle, you know, women feeling frustrated with the belly fat around the middle, but also the hot flushes, the racing heart, the disturbed sleep, to name but. a few symptoms, itchy ears, itchy skin, crawling skin, all of these things that obviously the conversation and the dialogue is quite rightly open in the wellness industry right now. But just be careful and mindful because there is no cure for perimenopause, right? There is no cure for menopause. And what's happening at the moment is because it's such an open conversation, there's an element of that in my opinion that Cameron Cummings: It's just one thing. Luckily has to be looking good and Lainey: is working against people because instantly if you're knackered and you see this conversation you think I'm between the ages of 35 and 55 that's me. I must be in perimenopause. Now that might be the fact, that might be the case but most likely it's down to chronic stress because this whole, we are all stressed like if you have a smartphone you are stressed whether you know it or not. Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Lainey: We are all addicts. I'm being very opinionated here. If you're not addicted to your smartphone, fantastic. But we are constantly hardwired to the matrix. We're constantly got stimulation left, and centre. And mindfulness didn't even become talked about until about 10 years ago or 10, 15 years ago. And 15 years ago, that's when smartphones were first around. Cameron Cummings: And then we can do that. Lainey: And yes, stress existed before then, but this is a different type of stress. So yes, it's normal to get stressed. actually stress is, know, that is, cortisol is not a bad thing. It's part of what wakes your body up in the morning. It's all about survival, keeping you safe. So it's a good thing. But because we're in a state of stimulation all the time, then cortisol, for example, or just feeling that stress. Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Like what you have to do, and I want to keep reading. Lainey: can have symptoms like brain fog, tiredness, disrupted sleep, cravings, ⁓ itchy skin, all the rest. Now I'm not saying that's not perimenopause, but what's happening here, especially I work with a female hormone consultant and she ⁓ basically said that stress does eat away at your progesterone. So progesterone is naturally calming. ⁓ Cameron Cummings: Anyway. And that's it. Okay. Lainey: and so if you were to take HRT, you know, for two months, two weeks of your cycle, you take the progesterone and that helps with your symptoms around your period as well and helps have that calming element. Now for me, I thought I was having a complete breakdown back, this is when I was in school still, so 18 months ago, I thought this is full on perimenopause. My period stopped, everything was just fucked. Cameron Cummings: That's the extra Lainey: and I spoke, I thought, right, let's go, let's try this oestrogen and all this stuff and I went for this private consultant and she, we did blood tests and it can't always show up but what did show up was actually my oestrogen was fine, my testosterone was fine because I lift weights. Note that. Yeah, I don't take testosterone to lift weights but that's a big issue as well at the moment, a big topic as well. I'm getting sidetracked. Cameron Cummings: That's a nice. Quick quick note. Lainey: But what stress does is it does eat away at your progesterone a bit. So if you are in your 40s, yeah, perimenopause could be there. But if this had happened 30 years ago, like our mums didn't, my mum didn't even notice going through menopause now. Maybe she's just a lucky cow. ⁓ But a lot of friends I've spoken to, their mums didn't notice symptoms till later. And I do think it's because they weren't as chronically stressed in the way that we are now with the. Cameron Cummings: Everyone. Lainey: ⁓ over stimulation from technology and just life in general and the work ethic is just so plugged in all the time. So ⁓ because the stress, the cortisol eats away at your progesterone, the naturally calming hormone, because what cortisol is doing, your body will choose survival over reproduction any day. And actually that's why my periods were stopping was because of the stress. Cameron Cummings: That'll work in the time. That's cool. Lainey: but then the progesterone because that was deficient because of the stress was sort of self-perpetuating. managing stress is, well, I would say nutrition, number one, but also managing stress, I know it's easier said than done, right? Just be less stressed. They are massive. If you're thinking about taking HRT or you have started taking HRT and then you keep having to up your dose, Cameron Cummings: Because it would have to be that Lainey: I would really step back from that and look at your lifestyle and change. Are you making the changes there or are you just popping a pill hoping that that will be a magic fix? Because ⁓ obviously we trust what the doctors say, but there's very little training on nutrition that goes into doctors training. I think they do a module on it, having spoke to some of those professionals, unless they branch out into the clinical nutrition side. But that lifestyle of Cameron Cummings: Even for the thing. ⁓ And then let's make that something. Drop one okay. Lainey: your nutrition and your stress levels managing those in a way that works for you are going to be so key to lessening those symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. Right, get off my soapbox. ⁓ Cameron Cummings: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But I think there's a lot of valid stuff in there. It's like it's like anything, isn't it? Is if you look at other variables, like as you say, we're all on our phones a lot. So that's not inherently bad, but it's bad if it's excessive. And it's particularly bad. Like a really common example if we want to think about stress, right? Is you go on your phone a lot and then you're comparing yourself to everyone else's highlight reel. So there's that element. You're also scroll holing about absolute shenanigans and you know, the type of nonsense that comes you come with some weird rabbit holes when you go like on Instagram or TikTok, God forbid, I feel like TikTok's a real black hole. So you end up in that kind of like position where you're staying up late, your sleep's disrupted, and then you think the next day you wake up and you feel quite stressed, quite groggy, quite brain foggy. And sometimes you do look at it and it's like, are we surprised? Like really? Like we are super stimulated and we're seeing more pictures of things like. Lainey: Mm-hmm. Cameron Cummings: If you think about it this way, when you maybe, I mean, if even if you think about work maybe 10, 15 years ago, when you're into work, it would be kind of like if someone's like, ⁓ I'm going on holiday away somewhere, like that would almost be so not an anomaly, but it'd be like, ⁓ Rou, amazing. Like, where are you going? Blah, blah, blah. Whereas now, if you go into Instagram, how how many stories do you need to go through before you see someone on holiday? Two, three? Like a lot of the time, and and part of that's because people like clicking on holiday. based content and therefore Instagram pushes up the algorithm. So that's why you're seeing that stuff more. But you're seeing that constantly as you're seeing a lot of people's highlight reels. So I think there's a bit of comparison that goes on, which then sometimes doesn't make our us feel very good in our day to day because you're comparing your, you know, rainy Monday on sitting at the desk to someone else's like holiday when they're, you know, that classic line, like had worse Mondays. It's like, yep. But just like just like anyone else, the Nick Lainey: the hot dog legs. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, hot dog legs. And then the next day, the next week, they're gonna be back and work just like all of us. But what you're seeing is you're seeing that. You're not seeing them staring at the screen with their eyes like, you know, yeah, it's gonna be because they're trying to get through their emails now. But that's a point of it, is there's a comparison, which I think sometimes creates a little bit of unhappiness and discomfort as well. Sometimes that we're not always aware of that comparison element. But then also you can just end up staying up really late and you feel massively overstimulated as well. It's like that classic thing of like now more than ever, like a lot of us are never like we're never bored because if you get bored at a bus stop, what do you do? You go on your phone or, you know, train or whatever, which is fine and it can be useful in its place. But I think like you say, sometimes you can end up feeling quite stressed. And I do think sometimes when you look at that, like whether or not you want to go down the route of HRT, which is by no means are we dissuading someone from doing that at all. That's not the case of this, but it's more just in terms of like managing your lifestyle really matters as well. think is the kind of key thing is like actually getting enough sleep, making sure you're managing your stress in the places you can is hugely beneficial. Whether you are or aren't taking medication for any particular condition, a lot of the time that does help. And I think that's quite a nice way of looking at this is sometimes when it comes to the struggle someone has around weight loss and perimenopause and and other things, it's like you're at a time where, as you kind of said Lena, you're you're probably more susceptible to stress anyway. So if you don't proactively manage it, you're more likely to be worse off for it anyway. It's almost like, you know, if you're kind of like PMS, that kind of period of time in your cycle, and you've got additional work stress, that work stress hits you harder, right? So I think it's good to navigate that. But a point that you made that I absolutely loved, and I think this is this is a really good one, is supplements around perimenopause. Like I'm not gonna lie, if I was trying to make money through supplements right now, I know who I'd be targeting. And it's perimenopause or women because Lainey: Ha Cameron Cummings: Like it's that classic that line of if you want to make money, market well. If you want to make lots of money, market well to women. Like it's a point where there's a lot of frustration, there's change going on that can be difficult to navigate emotionally. It can be difficult to navigate because your sleep's all over the place. So you're getting pushed a supplement. And I have the same creatine that Laney's taking, but mine's pennies and yours is like t like four or five times the price, and it's pink. Lainey: pink. The packaging's pink so it's twice as much. Cameron Cummings: It's pink and it's got a shiny label, but it costs five times as much and it's from the same flipping factory and you are paying like most menopause supplements are absolutely just the basic supplements you get elsewhere that you could be getting at a fraction of the price, but you don't get a pink label, do you? Lainey: No, you don't. And I think there's another element as well. When I'm talking about stress, there's a big conversation around cortisol and cortisol belly, which is definitely again, those supplement companies. And it's definitely a wellness marketing myth. It's not a formal medical diagnosis. Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Yeah. The cortisol diet's a thing now, isn't it? You see people think, you need to go on a cortisol diet. And I'm like, What's that? Do you just quit your job, sell coconuts on a beach and just never but then I'm like, What what happens if something happens to your coconut and you get a cortisol spike? It's it's game over. Like, I just don't know how that works. Lainey: Ugh, sounds like a dream. Well the thing is chronic stress can raise cortisol, which aids your fat storage a little bit, but it can't cause like localized fat gain. There are some studies done on sort of how chronic stress long-term can encourage visceral fat storage and that's kind of your fight or flight coming in. But it's not the only cause and it's not rapid, it's not like magical change. Cameron Cummings: That's right, yeah. Lainey: And you know, supplements aren't a fix. Again, it's all about lifestyle and your nutrition. so weight distribution is complex, right? You can't spot reduce belly fat. You can't say, ⁓ I want to get slim, but I want it to come off on my waist first or whatever, or I don't want it to come off my boobs or whatever. You know what I mean, right, Cameron? Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely don't want my weight to come off my boobs. I'd be so disappointed if that happened. So disappointed. I I really would would I'd be very upset about that. Lainey: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, but what's really probably happening and what I've noticed with my clients in person and online is I've had rather slim active women struggling with their belly bits because she wasn't strength training and she was super slim. She's an amazing woman. She'd been doing body pump for years, which she enjoyed, which had given her great technique, but she was scared of lifting heavy weights. So we worked with her getting through those barriers and and she started eating carbs again because she'd been restricting them. She said, I get really dizzy on long walks. I just think it's perimenopause. And then we looked at her diet and her carbs were super low and it's not her fault. This is just a generational thing, ⁓ generational trauma, I would say. And as soon as she started eating carbs again and started, started fueling her workouts, cause a lot of people talk about protein for muscle growth, but. Cameron Cummings: It's okay. Lainey: to get muscle growth, need those carbohydrates that's stored as glycogen in your muscles. And so building that shape and then her belly was just, it just sort of everything sort of evened out. you know, people were just saying they noticed such a change in her. She didn't look so fatigued anymore. So definitely in that case, her hormones were acting up because she wasn't getting, number one, it is a stress on the body. If you don't have enough carbs, it is a stress on the body. know, super low diet, super low calories over time. know, dieting is a stressor on the body, but done right, it's not gonna have the effect that, you know, that might have done in the past. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a big part of it as well, is that sometimes when people lose weight, they get down to being slimmer for sure, and they feel a lot better for it. But they sometimes get to a point and they're like, I'm still not quite in the shape I wanted to be. And sometimes there's a little bit of like almost like a harsh truth that underlies that. It's like there's just maybe not enough muscle mass. So objectively, you might be in better shape and you feel a lot better, which is really positive, and that's part of the journey. But you also not often do need to spend some time building some muscle. Like that's a reality for most people. And the great thing is, is that doesn't mean that you have to be a bodybuilder and live in a gym. Like you can go to a gym twice a week and just train consistently and you will see real tangible differences. But I do think that sometimes catches out is where people are like, ⁓ I'm still not got as much definition as I want. And it's like, well, you can keep losing weight and weight and weight to a point, and that's great. But after that threshold, a lot of the time, and I I have a A male client I can think of actually who we were talking about that he's gotten to point he's really, really lean and he's kind of like, actually, I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more muscle on my shoulders. And I'm like, we're probably at that point where any leaner that we go, we're just kind of look a little bit string beanie. Like it's not necessarily going to make you look better anymore. He's already dropped 30 kilos. He looks he's got abs, all the rest of it. But there are areas where he wants to, which is great. But like the reality is that like actually for him to probably get in really good shape and sustain it long term, there's that weight training. And I think Lainey: Bye. Cameron Cummings: Like you say, when you start kind of thinking about, okay, I'm going to fuel my body a bit better, the weight loss piece is done. But the other thing probably that you find as well is like a lot of people end up in that weird area where they kind of like they drop weight quite quickly or they drop weight and then they regain it extremely quickly, then they drop weight again, then they regain it. And the problem is that anytime they gain that weight, all the weight that they gain is body fat. So they're just losing the same few pounds over and over on repeat, but they never give their body a chance to go and and to build some muscle because Lainey: you Cameron Cummings: Although we want to be in a calorie surplus ideally, or at least at maintenance to build some muscle, the reality is you can't do that overnight. Like you can't just be like, ⁓ I'll have an extra thousand calories a day for two weeks, I'll build some muscle then. It's like you'll probably build like 20 grams of muscle and the other 980 grams you've stored is all body fat. Like that's not clever. So I think it's often that as well, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But you just end up with this kind of weird Lainey: Look at that me guys. Dirty boat. Cameron Cummings: Sort of position where you you keep losing the weight, but you're never quite in the shape you want. And it's like, well, maybe the missing pieces that's not a body pump class is actually properly structural structured strength training. And that kind of feeds into like when we're talking about perimenopause as well, like in that cortisol belly, there is an element of we know that body fat distribution slightly shifts into menopause. That's normal. There's a little bit of a change in body shape, but a couple of things that's really important to contextualize about this, I think, is Lainey: Yeah. Cameron Cummings: That is always more exaggerated the more body fat you have, right? So if you've not got a ton of body fat, the difference probably isn't all that tangible, right? It's not that noticeable. Someone with more body fat already, who also has a little bit of a change in the way that body fat is distributed into different areas that you might not want it to be, is probably going to notice it more. Someone relatively lean doesn't notice that much difference, but someone with excess body weight does. So I also think sometimes, like you were saying about the cortisol belly, sometimes there's a bit of again, a little bit of a harsh truth of like sometimes we just need to lose a little bit more weight as well, right? It's not magic, it's not the the cortisol belly that's causing it. It's just cause actually we have just got a little more body fat than we we need. And that's why we we have it. And and a lot of us, myself included, if I gain weight, where does it go? Well, usually your your stomach and hips and that those kind of areas are common, right? That's normal. Lainey: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, and I have to say in my fitness journey and having been someone who yo-yo'd and had disordered eating throughout my life until the age of 41, strength training was the missing piece of the puzzle for me maintaining my weight. It gave me control over my body, it gave me agency, master of my own destiny, because you can't control where you lose body fat from, but you can control where you build muscle. but it just takes longer. It is the long game. Fall in love with the process rather than attaching yourself to quick results. when it, because of that, it becomes a lifestyle. It helps your body, helps your mind. And you know, fat will be distributed differently, but you also, you know, with time and not, not significantly, but it does raise your metabolic rate as well. Your posture will be better. And you know, Cameron Cummings: But it's not a thing on the line If I think I thought that Lainey: you'll just be tighter. Yeah, it increases your, obviously having plenty of protein as well. It all increases your ability to burn fat, which is why it's sustained. So if I have a super carb-y day, I look ripped the day after. Because it's complete, it's like, I'm like the Hulk woman because it's stored as, carbs stored in your muscles. And it's just like, yeah, so I actually look. Cameron Cummings: I don't think Lainey: slimmer after a day on carbs than the rest. that's, you know, when you change your body composition, that is the real magical thing about it. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, a hundred percent. I often say this that the things for most people is like the the short term wins always come from weight loss. Most people don't look that different from training in a month or two months, right? That's reality. Whereas you can look different from weight loss in the first two months. But for a lot of clients, as they get to maintenance, this is something I talk about, is like this is really the exciting part where you get to eat more food and you get to progress your training. And actually that's what sets you up for long-term success. Because Like as an example, like we ⁓ your kind of weights in the kind of like sixties, and you're saying earlier. Like if you put on a kilo or even two kilos of muscle as a sixty kilo female, that is so significant, sixty-something kilo female, that's massive. Like you in and what I mean by massive as a massively impactful, you're probably going to feel like you're in better shape. And the cool thing is, even if your weight did creep up a little bit, let's say you do really well in your weight loss. Lainey: that. Cameron Cummings: And in over a year or so or 18 months, your weight shifts up a couple of kilos. A good chunk of that's gonna be muscle mass, not body fat. And even although you do have a little bit more body fat than when you were at your leanest, you still look good because you hold that shape better. I always joke that like rugby players are the best example of this, right? If you look at male rugby players who like tend to, if we're honest, behold not all of them, but do hold quite a lot of body fat. But they tend to look in shape because they have so much muscle mass. Now, don't worry about turning into a rugby player. Overnight, that's not gonna happen. If you're worried about ⁓ I'll get as bulky as a rugby player, good luck. ⁓ it's not that easy. I don't think you're gonna walk into the six nations by accident or anything. But the same rules apply at a lower scale. It's like if Laney trains for two years and has two kilos more muscle, chances are you probably find it much easier to stay in shape than you did beforehand, right? Because you can be two kilos heavier and look better, not worse, which is pretty cool. Lainey: And and you know if you are afraid of lifting heavy, ⁓ I'm not I'm not bulky I wish I was But I can deadlift 90 kilograms. So I'm not I'm not bulky that that is Cameron Cummings: How does it feel to be able to lift twice what Louis can lift? Lainey: Stop it. Cameron Cummings: Sorry, sorry, you're right. It's three times what Luele can lift. My bad, my bad. That's not fair. But twice what Harry can lift. Lainey: go for the... when I'm out of this dieting phase I'm definitely gonna go for one rep max at 100 I'm sure I can do one but not right now I don't have enough calories in the body but I feel like it's possible. Cameron Cummings: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, so I think there's some good thoughts in there around comparing menopauses. Like one of them was obviously the impact of strength training in your like body shape. The second's quite an empowering one is that whole thing about the cortisol belly thing. Like again, it's a little bit like when we were talking in the most recent podcast we did about this whole thing about like aging slowing down your metabolism. It's not as significant as you think. The same thing with cortisol cortisol is not the reason that you get cortisol belly anyway. That's just nonsense. It's it's a complete misnomer. There is a little bit of a change in body fat distribution through menopause for sure. But again, if you have less body fat, that has less impact. So there's a little bit of a like, again, it's more in your control than you think, which sometimes can be quite empowering. But it's also a little bit of a harsh truth, is like actually it's probably more to do with the fact that it's nutrition related than anything. But also when it comes to supplements as well, it's like be very, very wary of because it's got a pink label and says menopause. It actually being a menopause supplement. And a lot of the time, if you do want to try it, if you think, ⁓ do you know there's this perimenopause vitamin D, tell you what, go buy normal vitamin D, it'll cost you a fifth of the price, and then you're saving money anyway. And the same applies to all of these things. Like I saw a perimenopausal B12, and I'm like, all it is is B12. But it was like true, it was so expensive. I was like, ⁓ my god, it was like five times the price of something you get in boots, and boots isn't even that cheap. Lainey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cameron Cummings: But it's just it's just marketed at women. And it and the worst of it is my little thing that annoys me is that it's almost marketed like it's meant to be really empowering. So sometimes as well, it's a female influencer who's and it almost comes across like it's meant to be empowering other women. And it's actually quite the opposite. They're just selling you a BS, super excess expensive supplement. It's like, you shouldn't be having B12 for men. It's just bloody B12. It's just the same vitamin, but it's just marketed. But that white that winds me up. It's always this kind of like. semi empowering message, but I'm like, actually it's not. It's actually quite ⁓ scammy, which is really horrible, but it's sometimes the way it works, right? Lainey: Right. Yeah, yeah definitely. Cameron Cummings: Yeah, so that is a bit of a perimenopause and menopause kind of chat through there, guys. So if you have any questions about that, please feel free to ping us a little message. In the show notes, there's a link to my WhatsApp. So if you do have any questions or any questions about one-to-one coaching, then you can pop me a message there. Thank you so much for coming on, Laney, and we'll speak to you soon. Perfect. Thank y'all. Lainey: ⁓ Take care.