Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / You Are Not Broken –Your Body Is Changing— | Menopause in the Light, Part 1

Transcript

You Are Not Broken –Your Body Is Changing— | Menopause in the Light, Part 1 · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, faithful, welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. In a moment,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: my dad, coach Alex van Houten, will help you honor
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: God by making the most out of the body God's
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: given you. Today you can expect truth from the Bible,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: tools from science, and guidance for everyday life. So listen closing,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: get ready, let's get one percent better today.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Hey there, coach Alex. Here, grace in peace to you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: This episode of Faithful Fitness is going to be a
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: little different. Normally, when you meet me here on the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Faithful Fitness Podcast, I'm sitting across from somebody. I'm asking questions,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: they're asking questions, I'm listening. They're listening or having a conversation.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: But for the next few episodes, I want to do
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: something different. I want to talk directly to you about
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: something that I've danced around for years. I've mentioned it
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: in passing and probably hundreds of times, but I've never
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: really taken it head on. Today I want to start
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: a series on menopause, and more specifically perimenopause. Menopause and
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: what it means to faithfully steward a woman's body through
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the toughest transition in her adult life. This is going
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: to be a four part series, and today we're going
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: to start with the big picture, what is menopause, What
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: is actually happening, why can it be so difficult? And
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: is there anything good waiting on the other side of it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Then after we answer those hard questions, we're going to
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: get really practical, and part two we'll talk about exercise.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: How should a woman train during perimenopause and after menopause,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: what becomes more important, what doesn't need to change, and
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: what should you stop being afraid of. In Part three,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about nutrition, protein, calories, body composition,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: bone health supplements, fat loss, and what to do when
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the diet that worked at thirty doesn't seem to work
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the same way at forty eight. And in part four,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: we're going to get into some of the more complicated
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: stuff hormone replacement, therapy, sleep, sexual health supplements, peptides, medical
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: care and some of the things women are being told
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: online right now that deserve a much closer look. And
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I want to make something clear from the beginning, this
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: series is not only for women men. I want you
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: here too. If you have a wife, a mother, a sister,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: a daughter, a friend, or a woman you care about,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: who's walking through this season or eventually will. You need
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: to understand some of this, because some of the worst
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: things we can do to someone we love is to
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: make them walk through something difficult, all alone and in
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the dark. I think menopause has lived in the dark
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: for far too long. Check it out. I've been training
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: people for more than two decades, and wh I think
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: back across a lot of those years. The majority of
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: my one on one clientele has been women, and many
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of them have been women somewhere in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I've had some version of the same conversation over and
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: over and over and over again. Coach, I don't understand
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: why this is happening. My body's not doing what it
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: used to do. I'm exercising, I'm trying to eat well,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: but my body isn't responding the same way. I'm gaining
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: weight differently. I'm not sleeping. My joints hurt, my moods
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: are different. I don't recover like I used to. I
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: just don't feel like myself. And underneath a lot of
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: those statements, it is a much more painful question, what's
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: wrong with me? And I want to begin this entire
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: series by answering that question. Nothing is inherently wrong with
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: you because your body's changing. Your body's doing something that
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: women's bodies have done since the beginning of humanity. Now,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that every symptom should be ignored. It
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that suffering is somehow virtuous, and it doesn't
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: mean that you don't need to change the way you train, eat, sleep,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: or sometimes seek medical treatment. That does mean this, You're
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: not broken, You're entering a very different season. In different
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: seasons require different stewardship. So one of the remarkable things
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: about the female physiology is the magnitude of the reproductive
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: transition that a woman's body can experience across her lifetime. Now,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I know, coming from a middle aged man, this might
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: sound a little crazy because I've not experienced it myself.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: But I have sisters, I have a mom, I have
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: a wife, and like I said, I've trained so many
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: women over the past twenty plus years that if you
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: step away from some male chauvinism and show some compassion,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a guy can learn a thing or two. And I
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: also happen to be a science geek, so I hope
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: that in this series, I can share those experiences with you,
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  Speaker 2: not because I am a woman and have gone through
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: those things, but because I really really care about the
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: women in my life. And if you're not a woman,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I hope you do too. But think about it. For
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: a woman, there's childhood, and then comes monarch, the beginning
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: of menstruation, and suddenly the endocrine system begins operating in
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: an entirely new way. There are menstrual cycles and ovulation,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: fluctuating estrogen and progesterone, and even the possibility of pregnancy.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: But it's crazy to me that while boys gradually become
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: a man, for young women, the line between girlhood and
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: womanhood is a switch that just flips on and never
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: flips back off. Then, for young women who become pregnant,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: pregnancy and childbirth bring a whole other extraordinary transition. A
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: woman's physiology reorganizes itself to grow another human being. Her
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: cardiovascular system changes, her metabolism changes, her hormones change drastically,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: and her body prepares to give birth and potentially nourish
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the child afterward. I remember when my wife Kristen was
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: pregnant with Gabriel, my oldest I'd come home from work,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: and she'd be sitting on the couch watching an episode
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of Friends and she'd say, man, I just feel so
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: lazy today. And I remember saying, honey, you're growing life
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: like you're the busiest person I know. And she'd have
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: a little glint in her eye and he's like, you
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: know what, You're right, I'm so busy right now. And
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: that became the joke. When she was pregnant. I'd say, hey,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: how are you doing, honey, She's like, I am so
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: busy growing life right now. Think about both of these transitions.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: From girlhood to womanhood, we recognize that transition and hopefully
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: celebrate it. And from young womanhood to mother, we recognize
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: that transition and we celebrate it. People even write books
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: about it. There are baby showers and classes. There are
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: even apps that will tell you that your baby is
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: currently the size of a mango, and everybody knows that
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: something big is happening. And then, some years later, another
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: enormous reproductive transition around perimenopause. In what do we do?
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Often almost nothing. Nobody throws you a party, nobody brings
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: you a casserole because you woke up four times covered
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: in sweat last night and there's no cultural ceremony announcing congratulations,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: your estrogen is becoming unpredictable. For a lot of women,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: it just starts happening quietly. Maybe her period changes, maybe
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: sleep starts becoming strange. Maybe she's suddenly hot for no
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: apparent reason. Maybe her mood changes. Maybe training feels different,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Maybe even intimate moments with her husband feel different. Body
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: fat starts showing up in places where she didn't carry
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: it before. And sometimes she doesn't even realize that these
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: things are all connected. And that's part of why I
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: want to talk about this. We need to bring menopause
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: into the light. So what actually is menopause. Let's clean
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: up some terminology because we use the word menopause to
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: describe this whole season. But technically, menopause is a moment
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: in time. Menopause is confirmed after a woman has gone
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: twelve consecutive months without a menstrual cycle, assuming there's no
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: other medical explanation. In the United States, the average age
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: is around fifty one, but before metopause comes a period
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: called paramenopause. Paramenopause simply means the transition toward menopause. For
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: most women, It commonly begins in a woman's body around
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: her forties, although timing seems to vary considerably, and during
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: this period, ovarian hormone production doesn't necessarily just glide smoothly downward.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: In fact, it can become pretty irregular. My female clients
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: and I call it their ovaries sputtering. Estrogen can fluctuate,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: and ovulation becomes less predictable. Cycles can get shorter or longer.
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  Speaker 2: Periods can become lighter or heavier. You might even skip
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: one and then have another, And eventually ovarian reproductive function
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  Speaker 2: declines enough that menstrual cycles cease altogether. That is menopause.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Everything afterward is postmenopause. And here's something that I really
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: want women and those who care about them to understand.
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  Speaker 2: Paramenopause is not one single experience. One woman may have
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  Speaker 2: relatively few symptoms, while another woman can feel like somebody
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  Speaker 2: came to her in the middle of the night and
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  Speaker 2: changed all of the settings in her body. And that's real.
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  Speaker 2: Organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are
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  Speaker 2: the ACO G for short, and the Menopause Society recognize
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  Speaker 2: changes in menstrual cycles, hot flashes and night sweats, sleep disturbances,
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  Speaker 2: urinary tract changes, mood symptoms, and other concerns that are
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: associated with this transition. So when a woman says I
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: don't feel like myself right now, I don't think that
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  Speaker 2: our first response should be you're getting older, deal with it.
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  Speaker 2: But I also don't think it should be your hormones
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  Speaker 2: are broken and you need seventeen supplements immediately. Both of
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  Speaker 2: those answers are bad answers. First, we need to understand
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  Speaker 2: what's happening, and then we can respond intelligently. So let's
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  Speaker 2: talk about some of the hard stuff. And if you're
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: one of our listeners that usually listens with the podcast
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: and kids around, I think that's awesome. But these are
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: some difficult adult things, so use your discretion and maybe
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: come back to it another time when your kiddo's aren't around,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Because bringing something into the light means telling the truth
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  Speaker 2: about it. Some women experience outflashes, night sweats, sleep disruption, fatigue,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: changes in menstruation, mood changes, irritability, difficulty concentrating, vaginal dryness,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: changes in sexual function, and changes in urinary function, And
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: depending on the woman, those things can range from mildly
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: annoying to deeply disruptive to their life. The ACOG notes
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: that poor sleep associated with symptoms like night sweats can
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: spill over into mood, memory, energy, and even every day functioning.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: And then there are things that may be less obvious
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: day to day, but they matter enormously over time. Bone
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: tissue density becomes a bigger concern, maintaining muscle becomes more important.
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  Speaker 2: Cardiovascular and metabolic health deserve increasing attention during this time.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Body composition, that is, how much fat you have versus muscle,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: can change, and the way you recover from training can
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: even change. And suddenly the strategy that you've used for
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: your body for the last twenty years might need to
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: evolve altogether. That is hard, and I don't want to
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: minimize it. It's like learning your body all over again.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes Christians can get uncomfortable when we have to
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: acknowledge that something is actually difficult, as though somehow saying
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: this hurts means we're failing to trust God. It doesn't.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: The Bible's filled with people faithfully saying, hey, this hurts,
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  Speaker 2: this is hard. I'm tired. I just don't understand. Faith
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: isn't pretending that a valley isn't a valley. Faith is
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: knowing who walks with you through it, but you need
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: to know that menopause is not a disease. Let's put
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: some guarbrayls on the other side for a moment, because
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: right now there's a massive market built around convincing women
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: that every unpleasant thing happening over forty is hormonal dysfunction,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: weight gain, hormones, bad sleep, hormones, bad mood. Definitely hormones.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Are you tired, it's probably your hormones. Is your marriage difficult?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Hormones affixed that can't find your car keys? Definitely hormones
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: slow down. Some symptoms are strongly connected to the menopause transition,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: and others are complicated. You're also aging. Your life might
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: be stressful right now. Maybe you're raising teenagers while helping
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: aging parents. Maybe you're leading at work. Maybe you're not
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: sleeping enough. Maybe your diet's been garbage for a while
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: and it's just catching up with you. Maybe you've stopped
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: lifting weights. Maybe you have another medical problem. Entirely and
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: unusual symptoms deserve actual medical evaluation rather than being automatically
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: blamed on menopause. Even abnormal bleeding during this season should
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: be discussed with a clinician rather than simply written off
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: as just perimenopause. So Pier's one of the principles that
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I want to carry through this entire series. Listen close,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: don't ignore your hormones, but don't blame your hormones for everything.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: We're going to deal with those things in truth. But
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: it's not all gloom and doom. Okay, for a moment,
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about something that I don't think
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: gets discussed enough, because when people talk about menopause, we
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: spend an awful lot of time talking about what a
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: woman is losing fertility, estrogen, muscle, bone, youth, And yeah,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: there's some losses. Aging definitely costs us, something that's true
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: for men too. But I want you to reject the
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: idea that the story of a woman's body after fifty
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: is simply a story of decline. I don't believe that biblically,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: God's not done with you yet, and I don't believe
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: it physiologically. I've trained so many women who have become
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: stronger in metopause, who have improved their cardiovascular fitness, who
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: built muscle and become more capable. I believe you can
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: learn to nourish your body better than you did when
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: you were thirty. You can become more disciplined, you can
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: become more confident, and perhaps most importantly, you can become
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: more comfortable understanding the body that God has actually given
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: you status spending the rest of your life grieving the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: body you used to have. It's a big difference. There
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: are freedoms in this season too, for many women. Eventually
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: there are no more periods. Can you imagine? No more
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: menstrual cycles, no more concern about pregnancy, no more planning
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: life around certain parts of the cycle. But I think
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: some of the greatest potential gains aren't hormones at all.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: They're spiritual, they're relational, they're emotional wisdom, perspective, confidence, a
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: better understanding of what matters, a willingness to stop living
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: for everybody else's approval, and awareness that your time is
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: precious in a deeper sense of your daily calling. Scripture
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: does not describe age as the gradual disappearance of human value.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Quite the opposite. Actually, there's honor and maturity. There's fruit
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: that comes from years. There's wisdom that simply can't be
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: microwaved time and time again. Training individuals older than me, yes,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: many of them women. I keep coming back to Proverbs
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: thirty one twenty five, strength and dignity are her clothing,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: and she laughs at the time to come. I love that.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Not because she knows exactly what the future holds. She doesn't,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: but she's not afraid of it. Strength, dignity, and a
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: woman who can look forward to what comes next without fear.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: That's what I want for my lady clients, and that's
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: what I want for you too. So let's dig into this.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Your body's not your enemy in menopause or perimenopause, and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: this is where theology matters. Psalms one thirty nine says
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And I don't
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: believe that that promise expires when you turn forty five.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: God didn't wonderfully make the twenty five year old version
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: of you and then abandon the project to age. The
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: body you have today is still his handiwork. Aging doesn't
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: change ownership. In fact, that's what stewardship means. Your body
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: belongs to God, and stewardship asks what does faithfulness look
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: like with what I've been entrusted with today? Not what
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: did it look like twenty years ago today. That's a
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: completely different question. Maybe at twenty five you could sleep
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: five hours, eat garbage, run yourself into the ground, and
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: somehow drag yourself through a workout. Anyway, congratulations, that wasn't
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: necessarily good stewardship. Then either you were just young enough
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: to get away with it. At forty eight, your body
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: might become a much less forgiving teacher, and that might
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: actually produce something good. It forces you to be honest.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: You need sleep, you need muscle, you need nutritious food,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: you need recovery, you need community, you need God. You're
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: a creature, not a machine, and sometimes our limitations are
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: what finally teach us how to live like one. Now,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: specifically to the men, guys, let me talk to you
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: for a second, because if you've made it, that's far.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: I think some husbands need to hear this. When your
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: wife is walking through paramenopause, compassion doesn't mean treating her
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: like she's fragile, and it certainly doesn't mean that you
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: start blaming every disagreement on her hormones. Don't do that. Seriously.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: You might find yourself sleep on the couch for reasons
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: completely unrelated to estrogen, But I don't want you to
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: make the opposite mistake. Either, don't dismiss what's happening in
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: her body because you can't see it. You know how
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: frustrating it is when you're exhausted or hurt and somebody
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: essentially tells you, yeah, it's probably nothing. Don't do that
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: to her. Her sleep might genuinely be disrupted. Her temperature
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: regulation might actually feel completely different than it used to.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Her body may really be changing and there's not a
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: lot of control she has over that. On the inside.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Sex can even feel different for her. Her emotions might
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: manifest differently. She may be actually trying to understand a
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: body that has suddenly become way less predictable after decades
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: of thinking she understood how it worked. You don't have
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: to fix all that, man, You probably can't, but you
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: can become curious. You can listen. You can encourage her
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: to get some help. You can help create space for
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: her to train. You can walk together. You can stop
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: bringing home food that actively undermines what she's trying to accomplish.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: You can go to an appointment with her. You can learn,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: you can pray, you can be patient, and that's part
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: of loving somebody. Compassion isn't pity. Compassion says, I see
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: that this is hard, and I'm not going anywhere. There's
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: a big difference. And now let me talk directly to
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the woman who clicked on this episode. Because something hasn't
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: felt right for a while. Maybe you've gained fifteen or
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: more pounds. Maybe your sleep is awful. Maybe you're embarrassed
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: by what's happening with your body right now. Maybe intimacy
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: has become for you. Maybe you look in the mirror
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: and don't quite recognize yourself right now. Maybe you're frustrated
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: because you're doing everything you know to do and it
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be working anymore. I need you to
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: hear me here. Do not disappear. Don't stop taking pictures.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Don't stop going to the gym. Don't stop swimming because
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: you don't like yourself in a bathing suit. Don't stop
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: being intimate with your husband without talking about what's happening.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Don't quietly suffer for five years because you're embarrassed to
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: bring it up with your doctor. Don't decide that strength
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: is something young women get to have and not you.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And don't turn your body into an enemy. Bring it
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: into the light. Ask questions, learn about menopause, train for menopause,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: eat well in perimenopause, get help when you need it,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: and give yourself enough grace to recognize that adaptation isn't failure.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Sometimes wisdom means changing the strategy. The Book of Ecclesiastes
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: tells us this for everything, there is a season and
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: a time for every matter under heaven. We love that
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: verse when the season's beautiful, right, But it doesn't say
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: that every season is easy. There's a time to be born,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: a time to grow, a time to build, a time
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: to weep, a time to laugh, time to mourn, a
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: time to dance. Seasons change, and part of wisdom is
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: recognizing when one season has ended so that we can
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: faithfully enter another. You don't need to spend the second
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: half of your life trying desperately to recreate the first half.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: There's work for you here. There's strength available here, there's
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: joy available here, there's service available here. It's also intimacy
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: available here. Finally, there's purpose here. God's here too. So
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: where we're going to go next episode has been the
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: foundation for the series. Menopause is real, Its challenges are real,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and some women barely notice the transition, while others are
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: profoundly affected by it. Your experience doesn't need to look
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: exactly like somebody else's experience to be legitimate. The menopause
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: transition varies substantially between women, both in symptom and severity.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And now that we know that your body's not broken,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: here's where we're going to move next. You have agency.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Agency is a fancy term. All it means is I
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: look at my life and I know there are things
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that I can control. It's actually the opposite of a
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: subject mindset, which looks at life and says, ow, life's
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: happening to me. You can't control everything happening in your body.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: But there's an enormous difference between what happens when a
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: woman enters the season of perimenopause and menopause passively and
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: what happens when she enters it intentionally. So in Part two,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about one of the most powerful
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: tools that are available to you training, and let me
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: be the first to tell you some of the advice
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: that women have absorbed about exercise and aging just needs
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: to die. We're going to talk about muscle and strength
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and cardiovascular fitness, bone density, walking, high intensity exercise, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: recovery and why I believe this may be one of
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the most important seasons of your entire life. To train
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: now because you're desperately trying to hold on to youth
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: and lose fat and be super awesome in a bikini,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: but because you're preparing your body for what God may
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: ask you to do with the decades ahead. I'm really
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: excited about where we're headed next. But before you go,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I want to give you two invitations. First, if you're
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: listening to this and thinking, Coach, this is me. I'm
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: wrestling with this and now and I really don't know
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: what to do next, I want you to reach out
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: to me. Email me personally at coach Alex at Faithfulfitness
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: dot co. Don't just write, can you help me? Tell
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: me your story, tell me some of the things you've
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: been wrestling with, tell me what changed, and tell me
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: where you feel stuck. I've spent a large part of
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: my career helping women navigate their bodies through this season,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: and I'd truly be honored to hear what's going on
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: and see whether I can help you find a way forward.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: And my second ask is, you weren't meant to steward
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: your body alone. Inside the Faithful Fitness Corps, we're building
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: an intentional community of men and women who are trying
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: to become faithful with the bodies and lives that God
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: has entrusted to them, and for the women in our
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: community especially, I want this to increasingly become a place
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: where you can learn to make the most out of
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: every season of womanhood, not just when you're young, not
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: just when losing weight is easy, just when life cooperates
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: every season. Because the goal was never to stay young forever.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: The goal is to remain faithful for as long as
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: God gives us breath. The link to the cores and
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the show notes, I hope you'll join us today. Remember
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: you're not broken, and there's a whole lot of good
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: work ahead of you. I can't wait to see you
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: in part two. Until then, this has been coach Alex
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: with Faithful Fitness. Train hard, but pray even harder.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: What's up, Faithful? This episode helped you share it with
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: someone who needs to hear it, And don't forget to
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: subscribe and neither review. Some more people can find Faithful Fitness.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: My dad's devotional Faithful Fitness is available now and you
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: can join our faithful fitness community by clicking the links
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: and the show notes. We all have a cross to carry.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Put it's lighter we we do it together. See how
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: later alligate either, But until then train hard and pray
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: even harder.