Latest / Healthy, Period. / Ep 27: Perimenopause Series #1

Transcript

Ep 27: Perimenopause Series #1 · Healthy, Period.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, welcome back to Healthy Period.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Coach Kate, and to today's episode, which I'm really excited about because when I'm recording this, I'm actually leaving for Colorado to go on a retreat with a bunch of women who are women in business, who have kids, who are in perimenopause or likely coming up to it.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited because I get to be a speaker at this retreat and share my thoughts and my brain with these women on what is happening in perimenopause, why is it happening, nutrition concepts.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna be a really cool thing.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to record this podcast on perimenopause.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually going to be doing an episode series on perimenopause because I think there's just a lot of wild information out there that just is wildly untrue because as women, you know, we have these issues and we just want to fix them.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to spend money to fix those problems.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I feel like it's actually way more simple than what the wellness industry is claiming that perimenopause is.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, perimenopause is complex, but I think it's more simple than people are making it out to be.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what we need to do to reverse perimenopause symptoms is more simplistic.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk to today in episode one of the perimenopause series.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many episodes there are gonna be.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, I have three drawn out with different topics within perimenopause that I want to talk about, but it could go longer.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a lot to say.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna kind of jump right in.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are thinking, I don't need a perimenopause episode, I am too young for that, or I still get a regular bleed, so it can't be me.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want to challenge you with this because I am a big believer that perimenopause is an expression of symptoms that have been kind of brewing over the last 20 years.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a very intense, chaotic perimenopause experience, it is an expression of what has happened over the last 20 years.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You guys know that for me, I believe that your period, your bleed week, is an expression of what's happened over the last 30 to 90 days.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, your perimenopause symptoms and that transitionary period will the expression of those symptoms will be more chaotic, will be more awful if there's a history of chronic dieting, underfueling, nervous system dysregulation, all the things that we talk about all the time when it comes to a regular menstrual cycle period life, they will compound over 20 years, 30 years, and express themselves in perimenopause.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think you're too young.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that if you are still getting a regular period, you need to hear about this.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the other thing, too, perimenopause doesn't start when your period becomes erratic, it starts when your sleep becomes erratic.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So perimenopause is just not one little moment where your hormones just drop off a cliff and suddenly we're waking up with hot flashes.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: It really is a transition, and for some women, it can start in their late 30s or 40s, and for others, it starts a little bit later, and it can last years before menopause, which menopause is officially defined as your the day of 12 consecutive months without a period.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you've hit menopause when you've hit that one singular day, and then anything prior to that day we call perimenopause, and anything after that day we call postmenopause.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've been feeling more tired, more anxious, more bloated, more reactive to stress, waking up at 3 a.m., maybe you're having heavier periods or regular cycles, mood changes, weight changes, or suddenly you feel like the routine that used to work for you is not working anymore, you're literally not crazy.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: But also, I want to be very clear that not every symptom you experience is perimenopause.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be very clear with that because there are there's a lot of nuance in this topic, which again is why I want to make multiple episodes on perimenopause because I think it can be pretty simple, but I think there's so much nuance that understanding different directions we can go and the different the different body systems and the things that are affected by this hormonal transition is important, but how we support that hormonal transition is very simple.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the biggest mistakes that I see is that everything gets blamed on hormones.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're doing research online, whether you're going to your doctor, you're exhausted, it's your hormones.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: You've gained weight, it's your hormones.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Your hair is shedding, it's your hormones.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: You have anxiety, it's your hormones.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And could hormones be part of the picture?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But iron deficiency, thyroid issues, sleep apnea, underfueling, chronic stress, insulin resistance, medication changes, depression, dozens of other things, they can overlap with perimenopause symptoms.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you deserve someone who's gonna look at the whole picture, not someone who's just gonna throw you a supplement or a medication and just call it hormone balance.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say hormones in this context, I'm talking about sex hormones because thyroid hormones are real.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Insulin is a hormone, cholesterol is a hormone, right?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked a lot about how hormones compensate for each other.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the biggest mistake is that everything gets blamed on your estrogen tanking or your progesterone leaving the room.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: But we need to look at the whole picture.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is actually happening when we get into perimenopause?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, in your reproductive ears, your brain and your ovaries are in constant communication.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain is going to send a signal through the hypothalamic pituitary ovarian axis.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: We call that the HPO axis, which is basically your brain-to-ovary communication system.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what regulates ovulation and your menstrual cycle.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So during perimenopause, that communication becomes less predictable because ovarian function is changing.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So ovulation may happen less consistently and estrogen progesterone can fluctuate dramatically before estrogen eventually settles at a lower level after menopause.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is why perimenopause can feel so confusing.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: You may not simply have low estrogen.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, in perimenopause, estrogen can be ridiculously high before it drops off, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or it can be high one month and low the next and fluctuate within the cycle.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And also progesterone becomes less predictable because it's produced after ovulation, and ovulation becomes less consistent.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if ovulation is happening less often, we often see that progesterone leaves the room before estrogen does.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that fluctuation is one of the reasons why your symptoms feel like they come out of nowhere.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are asking, why was I fine last month and now I feel completely different now?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very real experience, but it doesn't mean that you need to panic, that you need to run to the doctor.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: You just need a smarter framework.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to go through some myths and truths of perimenopause.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you understand your body better.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: You understand if you're not in perimenopause, what is coming and you'll be able to support your body better.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then also, you know, if you feel like you're in chaos right now and you don't know where to turn, understanding what is true and what is not true is going to be really important.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the first myth that I want to go over is perimenopause only starts when your period disappears.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that is just not correct.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can be in perimenopause while you're still getting a period.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Changes in cycle length will happen.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: They will be heavier or lighter bleeds, skipped periods, sleep disruption, mood shifts, uh, vasor motor symptoms like hot flashes or night sweats, all are gonna happen before your period stops completely.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: The other myth that I want to go over is if my labs are normal, I'm fine.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you guys know that I do not believe this.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I am not a believer in normal labs means you're fine.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: One blood draw does not capture the day-to-day or the month-to-month hormonal fluctuation ever.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you are a cyclical human being or you are your cycle is being all wonky.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Normal lab values don't take place of the real symptoms that you're experiencing.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Labs can be useful in the right context, especially when we're checking things like thyroid function, anemia, glucose, lipids, or other causes of symptoms, but we need to interpret them alongside your medical history, your cycle pattern, how you're actually feeling, your symptoms, right?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is a pattern to these things.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just what is the data, so then what my experience is doesn't matter because that doesn't match what the data says.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: We need to put those two things together.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So normal doesn't mean you feel amazing.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Normal just means that that result, which often in a conventional medicine standpoint, is based on the averages of a sick population.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And our population is sick.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: We live in America, or I live in America, and I don't want my normal range to be based on normal people in America.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's absurd to me.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know if my lab ranges are optimal because I want optimal metabolic health.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want optimal hormone health.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to function and do things and push hard and recover well, right?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So normal labs often mean that the result did not flag outside of the lab's reference range, where in conventional medicine is a much broader range than we see in functional medicine.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not the same thing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here's another myth.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to eat less and work out harder now.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this one makes me want to scream because so many women hit their late 30s or 40s, they notice body composition changes and immediately go back to the old playbook of skipping breakfast, cutting carbs, doing more cardio, tracking everything, pushing harder, and they're shocked when they feel worse.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like that traditional move more, eat less approach often turns into restrictive eating and excessive exercise, which are the two things that made your consistency, your recovery, your sleep, your energy, and muscle retention harder anyway.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And your body is not asking for more punishment when you get to perimenopause and it starts acting out.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: That acting out, your body is just asking for support.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about blood sugar because if you've been here and you've been around the block, everything that I teach I find comes back to blood sugar.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm known as the period queen, but I really feel like I should be known as the blood sugar queen because blood sugar is not just a diabetes conversation.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Blood sugar regulation affects energy, hunger, cravings, mood, sleep, workout recovery, the way your body responds to food.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And during perimenopause, when sleep may be worse, stress might be higher, muscle mass might be declining, life is usually very full.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Blood sugar support becomes even more important.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what it can look like in real life.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna wake up tired, you have coffee, but you don't have breakfast, you're running out the door, by 11 a.m.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: you're shaky, starving, irritated, and suddenly the office snack drawer looks like your best friend.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you grab something quick, maybe you skip lunch because you're being good, and then you hit 3 p.m.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: exhausted, eat whatever's available, get home starving, overeat at dinner, and then wonder why your sleep is off.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a discipline issue.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You literally are under-supported.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So where you need to start is not a supplement protocol that these online hormone gurus are going to sell you.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's regular meals that are including protein, fiber, carbs, and fats that actually satisfy you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Protein is gonna support your protein is going to be satiating and it's gonna help with muscle maintenance.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Fiber is gonna support fullness, digestion, cardiometabolic health, and hydration matters too.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to make sure that your body, just like I talk about in all these other podcasts about PCOS and regular period conversations, just because you hit perimenopause doesn't mean that that conversation changes.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that it's more important for you to do those things.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to talk about muscle.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: If there's one thing I want more women to understand going into perimenopause, is this muscle is metabolic protection.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Muscle helps your body use glucose, it supports insulin sensitivity, it supports strength, function, balance, bone health, and the more muscle you have, the more independence as you age you're going to have.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So as estrogen changes, and we naturally lose muscle with age if we're not training it, preserving and building lean mass matters even more than it did when you were 20 and 30.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't mean that you need to train like a CrossFit athlete.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you need to go six days in the gym.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it definitely does not mean that you need to punish yourself with burpees because someone told you that that was a secret to lose belly fat.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: It means we need to stop treating strength training as optional.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to start and meet yourself where you're at.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of women that I work with do really, really well on two to three strength sessions per week.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: They walk consistently and we're building over time.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're letting our body adapt.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing what's called progressive overload, right?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not to destroy yourself and punish yourself.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to become stronger, more resilient, and more metabolically supported.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you have more muscle, you have more capacity.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: More capacity for blood sugar management, more capacity for everyday life, and more capacity for the hormonal transition you're moving through.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the big takeaway that perimenopause is hormonal, but it's not only hormonal.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Your hormones are changing, but your nutrition, your blood sugar, your sleep, your stress, muscle mass, movement, medical care all shape how supported you feel through the perimenopause transition.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't need to earn relief by being perfect.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to wait until you're miserable to ask for help.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't need to choose between foundational support and medical care.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Menopausal hormonal therapy can be highly effective treatment for hot flashes and night sweats for appropriate individuals, and it can exist alongside nourishment, strength training, sleep support, and stress management.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when we think about perimenopause, I want to challenge you today is not how do I get rid of my symptoms, but what are your symptoms telling you?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why are they so intense?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: What have the past 20, 30 years looked like?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Have you been chronically dieting?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Have you been overworking out or under-recovering, right?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to work out hard.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to push my body.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do really hard intense things like run marathons and do crazy things.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I can only do those things at the capacity that I can recover.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say recover, I don't just mean I'm sleeping all the time.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I'm eating more than enough.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm eating to support my output.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of women I work with are not supporting their output with the food that they're eating.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm supporting rest days.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not resting when I'm dead, right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Rest days are a real thing.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Getting in walks are a real thing.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Supporting my nervous system is recovery.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can only perform at the capacity that you can recover.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't need to add more and add more and add more just because body composition is changing.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: We need to support you where you are.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I know what all the women that come to me are tired of trying random supplements.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: They are already eating 12 to 1,500 calories, which is not enough, by the way.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they wonder why their bodies are not responding the way they used to.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what we do inside my program, Hormone Balance Accelerator.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been around the block, you know what Hormone Balance Accelerator is.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: We look at your patterns, we build foundations around food, blood sugar, strength, sleep, stress, symptom tracking.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this program helps you feel more prepared to advocate for yourself medically too.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Hormone Balance Accelerator was created for you to build the foundations that you need to understand your body and fully support it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want you to remember that just because your body turns into chaos or it might turn into chaos when you hit perimenopause, it's not failing you.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not creating havoc for no reason, it's not just deciding to revolt, it's communicating.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I really challenge you to take a look back at what has happened over the last 20 years.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: How have you treated your body?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have you nourished your body?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: What has been happening?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what can you do to support it moving forward?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope this was helpful, and I'll see you in the next one.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.