Latest / Empower Your Menopause / Episode 34: Reclaiming Your Inner Rebel So You Can Ditch Diet Rules That Don’t Work For You

Transcript

Episode 34: Reclaiming Your Inner Rebel So You Can Ditch Diet Rules That Don’t Work For You · Empower Your Menopause

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Ah.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: I put the wrong thing in the wrong place.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right, just a minute.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: No worries.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I'm gonna do that all again.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Challenge outdated health advice and empower women to thrive in midlife and beyond.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's coaches James and Julie here, and we're really excited to dive into a topic today, rather, that often frustrates women in menopause.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: So if you ever feel like the world of dieting is just a never-ending maze of rules, restrictions, and frustration, this one is for you.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: We know that one day it's cut out carbs, the next day it's eat six meals a day and graze rather than gorge.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: And before you know it, you're drowning in all these different kinds of food rules that make no sense to either you or your body.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's really time to break free.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: In this episode, we're gonna help you reclaim your inner rebel and ditch all those diet rules that don't actually serve you because let's be real, most of these so-called rules were never designed with you in mind anyway.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna debunk the biggest diet myths that are keeping you stuck.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna learn how to trust our bodies again.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, your body knows what it needs, and we're gonna create a sustainable way of eating that actually feels good with no guilt, fear, or all that all-or-nothing stuff that comes with it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because menopause changes everything, and clinging to all that outdated advice is the fastest way to stay stuck and exactly where you are.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: So grab a cup of tea or a snack you actually enjoy and let's dive in because, of course, I've got my favorite cereal ex-dieter with me, Julie.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Julie, why don't you tell us a little bit about you know, what is the problem with all these diet rules anyway, and why do they not work for women at this time of life?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's talk about that a little bit and give some flesh to the bones there.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, the biggest thing, and I I can say I call myself a recovering dieter because I really have tried so many different diets throughout my life, and it wasn't until you know recent years really that I finally realized that this just isn't it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I might as well beat my head against the wall because it's just not working.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of women are there.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: We have this this these the diet industry, first of all, is worth about$90 billion, and they aren't worth$90 billion because they're creating solutions for people, they're creating repeat customers, and the diet rules they put in place are basically one size fits nobody, and especially not in midlife.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're in your 20s, maybe even into your 30s, and you follow some of these restrictions and rules, you may find that you have some short-term results.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But once we get into this phase of life, our hormones are changing, our stress levels are changing, we have a lot of different things going on in our lives, and our bodies are completely different.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't respond in the same way to simple calorie restriction.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention the fact that it doesn't have anything to do with long-term health.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So they're setting you up automatically to fail so that you come back for the next shiny great thing that they want to sell you.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it it they have an amazing way of turning it around and making it look like it's your fault, right?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The diet didn't fail, you just didn't do it right.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time we just try harder and harder.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is that a lot of the research that these diets are based on is really maybe I I hate to say false science, but in a lot of cases, they they make it sound really medical and like they very science-y, like they know what they're talking about, but it's just really a bunch of garbage.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And at best, it's outdated research that was done before really understood how the how the body functions.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we're not just small men.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that one of the mistakes that that's made frequently is a lot of the research that's done isn't on women at this stage of life.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't a lot of research on women's health specifically anyway.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when we look at these diets, we're talking about younger people, we're talking about men, and obviously our bodies, our biologies, our physiologies are much, much different.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when we look at all of the things that that are changing in our lives, and it also teaches you all or nothing thinking, right?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You you have to have this relationship with food that's quite um can be quite difficult.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So food is good or bad, and therefore you're good or bad for having eaten it or not having eaten it, or you make yourself eat things that you really don't like, like at all.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then you end up depriving yourself of things that you really want, which leads to binging, which leads to guilt, which leads to a lot of shame and self-blame and self-flagellation.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this cycle we create just feels really bad.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when we look at these rules, especially the ones that are like, you know, just graze all day long, or what if you're not hungry?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: How what what about tuning into your body's actual signals and learning to see what foods make you feel really good and energized?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: When do you feel satisfied?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's okay to feel hunger sometimes to get that empty stomach and allow your body to do what it needs to do in between, allow the blood sugar balance as you know.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So there's when you learn, and I've had this experience with clients before, that's like when you get rid of all these food rules and you don't have this constant restriction going on, you actually feel much more free to enjoy the food that you eat.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do decide to eat the cookie or have the crisps, you can do that guilt-free.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that, okay, this is a decision I made for right now.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the next thing I do is going to be a healthier choice.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there are a lot of different things that happen, and and I know there are a lot of other lies that that kind of keep us stuck here.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna, you know, toss it back to you, James, to to start on that topic.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think if there was one phrase I could ban in the English language, it would be falling off the wagon, or I've fallen off the wagon.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's it makes any deviation away from these strict rules and regulations just laden with this huge drama that doesn't really need to be there as though we're doing something wrong.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: So if you know, falling off the wagon, the wagon's running away from us, and we can't grasp back onto it as it's fleeing off into the distance and never to be climbed aboard again.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: It is just a really, really negative phrase that I really, really hate.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: As I also hate that phrase of labelling food's good and bad.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now I know that that's shorthand sometimes.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good fats and bad fats.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: We all slip into that sometimes.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I think as soon as you start demonising any kind of food, that is another thing that leads to some of the challenges.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, that is just me ranting away a little bit off the actual structure that we've got in our show notes, which is to talk about some of the diet lies that keep you stuck.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the best way to do this, we've got kind of four of them that we want to talk about, four main ones.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: There are many more, obviously, and we'll probably just outline them a little bit and then chew the fat about how they uh what what both of our thoughts are.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one, which is my favourite, is you've got to eat X a certain number of calories a day to lose weight.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really, really challenging.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, let's you know, just rewinding a little bit here, you know, we need to remember as well, within this whole conversation, I think, that weight tells you one thing, and that is your relation with gravity.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't tell you anything about what's going on internally, it doesn't tell you anything about your body composition, it doesn't tell you what's going on in your heart, and it doesn't tell you what's going on certainly in your mind.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: It might inform what's going on in your mind because that number becomes such a sticking point for somebody.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: And because that number is such a sticking point for somebody, I feel this is kind of where this X calories a day comes from.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people have spent a lot of time working on this idea of there are certain formulas that work for certain people.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when they first did it, it was a formula that worked for everybody.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: We were all lumped into one thing.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, somebody spent hours working out these these uh calculating what your basal metabolic rate is, that is the base amount of calories you need to just keep breathing, living, etc., if you're in a catatonic state, and then multiplying by activity levels.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Then they thought, oh, let's try and add a male-female element into this as well.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: So there are other multipliers thrown into those equations to work out whether you're a male or a female.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Then they thought, oh god, we forgot to add in age.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: So then they put in age as well.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the truth is that wherever you go to find one of these calculators, you may be working on one of those really outmoded calculations, anyway.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: But the one thing that you don't fail that they really fail to take into account is that everything comes from, according to the calculations, a fixed number that just works carte blanche across the whole wide world.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you're a woman in your 90s or you're a kid who's 14, you know, the same kind of things apply.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Apart from that minor tweak for age, it doesn't take into account anything else, it doesn't take into account a lot of your movement, and when it does take into account movement, these calculations tend to take into account purposeful movement, so they'll include things like whether you go to the gym or how long you've worked out, how many miles you've run that day, all those kind of things.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: They fail to take in less if you've got a let's say a manual job, or you're on your feet all day, or your job involves you know, lifting or whatever it may be.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: None of those things tend to be factored in.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then it doesn't take into account things like stress levels, it doesn't take into account hormones, it doesn't take into account sleep.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: So all of those things, all those things that we know that play into a weight loss, fat loss journey, whatever you want to call it, these calculators don't take into account.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: So this idea that it's just sort of a rigid amount is based on really outmoded science, really outdated science, and tries to take everything down to just a simple calculation.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not saying that that simple calculation might not work as a starting point for some people.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I used to be very orthorexic about this when I first started my own personal weight loss journey, and I know that I'm not a woman in midlife, but back in my mid-30s when I did this, I would literally walk around with my phone with my fitness pal open 24-7, and I would scan every barcode, I would enter every walking step that I took into it, and I would try every day to hit this specific number of calories.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: And while it did work for a while, I was absolutely angst-ridden obsessed with it, and I think that is the wrong way to look at not only does it not work necessarily from a weight loss point of view, and particularly for women in midlife, because it doesn't take into account all those extraditional things that come from hormones, but also because it just breeds more all or nothing thinking.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: I remember getting to a stage where I was 100 calories off my goal on a daily basis, and I'd be like, right, does that mean I can have three squares of dark chocolate just to cram in that last hundred calories?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because I could not, I had to hit the calorie amount, not eat just below it or just over it, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Or if I ate just over it, then the next day it was shave it off because otherwise it's not gonna work.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Eat calories a day to lose weight.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, as you can tell, mine are pretty negative by the rant that I just went on.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I'm 100% in agreement.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And number one, who has that kind of time?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who wants to have to deal with that kind of fussy, fussiness?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is we can we can gauge how much to eat in a much simpler way.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: But but when it comes to calories, we have to also remember the calorie calculators are not necessarily accurate.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know how fresh the food is you've eaten.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't if you're not exact about portion sizes, if you're not weighing and measuring everything, and even then you you may not absorb all of the calories.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it I find it very similar to BMI.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: According to my BMI, I'm significantly overweight, but I'm not.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at a healthy weight for me.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I just happen to have a muscular body for my height.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I when I wasn't strength training, I know this is kind of off topic, but not really.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I wasn't strength training, I didn't have so much muscle.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so my BMI was listed as healthier, even though I was much bigger and carrying more body fat.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we have to look at these calculators, you know, kind of lightly, maybe as a guideline if for the general public who doesn't know much about nutrition or hasn't worked with a coach who doesn't really know where to start, maybe you can use that as a guide.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: But again, if you have a sedentary job, you need a different amount of calories.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you have uh more activity, and going to the gym for an hour a day, by the way, doesn't make you an active person automatically.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, how are those calories being determined?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: How is your activity level being determined?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the quality of the calories?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because they never talk about that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: You could have 1200 calories a day worth of chocolate bars, or you could have 1200 calories a day worth of whole foods, fruits and vegetables and lean proteins.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have, if you opt for the whole foods, you're gonna get way more volume of food that you get to eat than if you concentrate it all on more heavily processed foods, and which ones are going to give you better health.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So calories don't think about your health as a as a whole, they just think about you know, how much heat do I need to burn this much of this food, right?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my next two are two two favorites of mine, um, and I think we kind of need to almost run these into to one another.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: The first one is you know, let's talk about the demonization, let's go with carbs first of all.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: We'll do the demonization of fats afterwards, yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: But this idea that carbs are bad.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Discuss, Julie, what are your thoughts on it?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, a lot of people might not realize that vegetables are carbohydrates, fruits are carbohydrates.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Whole grains are carbohydrates, and your body processes them differently.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your blood sugar reacts differently to whole grains versus processed grains.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So carbs are not bad.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: We we need to have carbs in our life.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: We need fiber, we need lots of different nutrients that we get in vegetables and fruits.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I say cods wallop.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, whatever, that's probably not the right term for that, but it's it's a bunch of garbage.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, carbs are okay.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I mean, aside from all the good things that you mentioned there, fiber, um vitamins, minerals, all come from, or mostly come from carbohydrates, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, those colourful fruits and vegetables, all the phytonutrients that we need, particularly for women at this time of life, you know.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, again, mainly from carbohydrates.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: You need carbohydrates for energy, you need it for muscle maintenance, hormonal health, really, really important.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and immune health as well.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, your immune system doesn't function very well without carbohydrates, and so they're really, really important.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't times where you might want to eat less.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Generally, active people, people who might take part in endurance sport and those kind of things, probably need to have more carbs in their diet from a fueling perspective.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: But here we're talking about you know, as sort of like general sort of like guidelines on whether these things are absolutes or not, and it's absolutely uh not an absolute that carb carbs are bad.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that leads us into, I guess, the other the other one, which is that fats are bad.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this is one, it's my absolute favourite because this is totally based on really outdated science from the 1950s.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I still speak to many of our clients today who beat themselves up for buying a low-fat mayonnaise instead of a high-fat one or a regular fat one, or they buy a low-fat milk or a skimmed milk instead of a semi-skimmed milk or whatever it may be.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And the truth is that fats are not bad at all.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, they're absolutely essential, and they're probably more essential at this time of life for a woman than anything else, because hormones are actually partly made up of fats, and so they need to be in a healthy diet.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that doesn't mean that some fats might not serve you, and some fats might not be downright poisonous almost.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if we're talking about trans fats and things like that, where a fat has been so chemically altered beyond its basic state that people are actually getting sick because of them, then that is a different matter altogether.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: But those fats that do serve us, things like omega-3 fats and things like that, absolutely, absolutely essential.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the other thing to think about as well is normally when a food starts to be moved away from its natural state, either the goodness that nature has imbibed that food with, the taste of that food, or even some of its health-giving properties are being removed from it, or something else is being added into it as well.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I find a lot when people say, Oh look, this is a fat-free dessert.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's fat-free because all they've done is just packed it full of sugar instead of instead of instead of fats, because flavor comes from two places mainly.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, fats is one, sugars is the other, and they're the kind of flavors that our body tends to crave as well.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it's all very well taking the fat out of things, but you really need to look at what that fat is being replaced with when it comes to a flavor perspective.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And fat I think you know, fats, we forget the fats are important to help us absorb specific nutrients or fat-soluble, soluble vitamins that we can't really absorb properly without taking in fat.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing, and um because I was having sensitivity to dairy, but I liked to have a bit of cream in my coffee.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And my doctor said to me, if you're gonna do it, have whole cream, whole fat milk if you're gonna have a splash of that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Because you need the milk fat to help you digest the milk proteins.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of what we find and what we face is that because we've removed essential parts of what naturally occurs in some of these foods, we have difficulty digesting them.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, so yeah, so when fats are taken away from their natural state and they're they're fractured basically, fractured nutrients, our body's going to have a lot more trouble digesting them and absorbing them.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And again, because they're taken away from their natural state, we may not absorb the nutrients that we need, the fats to help us absorb.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think fats are really good.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again, quality matters here, right?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got stuff that's been sitting out in the light, like there's certain ways to store healthy fats.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's certain healthy fats that can be used for cooking and not cooking.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: We won't get into all of that complication.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the quality of the fat really, really matters.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the things that you mentioned before there really struck with me, and that is that reminder that without fats, there are four vitamins that you can't digest A, D, E, and K, particularly D and K.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Are really, really super important at this time of life.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's not because all vitamins and minerals aren't super important, but particularly at this time of life, because D mimics in some way estrogen in the vitamin D receptors around tend to be around the body at similar places to where estrogen receptors are.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there is some kind of a link there.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: But also vitamin D and vitamin K together are protective against osteoporosis.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: And osteoporosis, we know is one of the biggest challenges that women face beyond menopause as a result of the lack of estrogen that comes with menopause.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really, really super important to have some fats in there.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a really, really good point.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for making that one.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go on to our fourth lie.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Then this is one of my favorites, but I'm going to throw it over to you to discuss, given that you are the uh recovering dieter.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you're not losing weight, you're not trying hard enough.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Julie, was that ever you were you not trying hard enough to lose weights?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I tried harder and harder and harder and restricted myself more and more and more.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, maybe it was this food or that food, or oh no, a little bit of the flour or the sugar fell onto whatever it was I was eating.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I should just throw the whole thing out.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we do really go to extremes sometimes.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is it's easier if you stop trying so hard.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that feels really counterintuitive.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I found that when I started eating the right foods for my body, I can eat, I would say basically as much as I want, because I know now I know how to tune into my body's signals.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: So when I've had enough, I really don't want anymore.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when I'm eating the right things, I don't have those cravings like I used to.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally, of course, because there's still emotional attachments to certain foods or certain celebrations or what have you.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: But as a general day-to-day thing, I don't worry now about which foods I'm eating or how much I'm eating, because I let my body tell me when I've had enough.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that it's so much easier when you have that kind of food freedom.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because the the harder we force, you know, it's anything.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can't force somebody to do something.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: We can't force our bodies to do what we want them to do.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to respond the way that they respond because of the way that we're treating them, because of and and the harder you try, the more stress you're going to cause yourself, which raises the your cortisol levels, which makes your body want to hang on to fat.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it it really becomes a vicious cycle.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, and especially in menopause, when we change, I mean, I've I've got the double whammy of menopause and Hashimoto's.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I have managed to lose weight and feel much better and have better energy and all this stuff.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen many people do it, and a lot of our clients are having these kinds of successes because they're letting go of this forcing themselves to do things or overthinking it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's talk then about how you can or how some of the listeners can do that thing of reclaiming the inner rebel that we've talked about, you know, breaking free from some of these rules.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned a couple of times listening to your body's cues when it comes to hunger.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if you could just delve into that a little bit more and maybe give some insight to the listeners about how to actually do that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what kind of practice can you put in place to listen to, and how do you better listen to your hunger cues?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have different kinds of hunger.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there are six, and I'm not probably not going to be able to remember all six of them, but we have head hunger, where you know, we have that mindset where we think it's a certain time of day, or there's a certain kind of food, or we're in a specific place where we have the the our mind is driving us to eat something.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have emotional hunger because we're taught from a young age, you know, you fall down and skin your knee, and mom gives you a cookie.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty soon we know that cookies make us feel better.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we have emotional ties to food that we may not recognize.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um we have in back in our caveman days, cave woman, caveperson days, whatever you want to call it, we we were eating foods that were much higher in water.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I know people say sometimes you confuse thirst with hunger, and other people say, well, that's a that's a bunch of crap because I know when I'm thirsty versus when I'm hungry.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: But that isn't necessarily true because we haven't evolved enough yet to completely have completely gotten rid of that desire for water and water-based foods, lots of plant kinds of foods.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times we do mistake thirst for hunger.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we can we can recognize, we can learn to recognize, maybe drink a glass of water if you feel hungry and see if that staves off the hunger pangs.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't, then you're probably physically hungry, which is is the next kind of hunger, which is a physical hunger.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And real physical hunger is going to happen in your stomach, which is right under your um rib cage, not down in your below your belly button.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I I know that sounds kind of funny to say, but I had to be taught that because a lot of times I thought that the growling in my belly was hunger when it was actually the digestive process going on instead of that empty stomach hunger.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when you have true empty stomach hunger, then we can decide, okay, first of all, it's not an emergency, but what's gonna happen if I don't eat?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, if I don't eat, I'll probably feel hungry.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in some cases, we may start to get a bit hangry, right?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: If our blood sugar is dropping and and we really um feel like we need to eat.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: But food is not an emergency.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Our bodies can go a really, really long time without food.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when we wait until we have that true stomach hunger, rather than force feeding ourselves at specific times of day or specific situations, my favorite is well, eat now in case you're hungry later.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we need to give our bodies the space to actually digest and do what they need.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we don't feel hungry at lunchtime because our food hasn't finished digesting from the morning or we've been snacking throughout the day.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, so true stomach hunger is something that we actually have to learn how to tune into.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, writing down some of the things that you notice physically, some of the things that you're noticing mentally.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: It took some, it took me certainly some journaling to go through this.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this has helped a lot of other people to just note down and and then ask yourself, what is it I truly need right now?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times the the head hunger, I call it, is a matter of boredom, or there's something stressful that we're trying to avoid doing.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it seems like a good time to get a snack.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with the emotions.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is food actually going to satisfy my feelings right now and after I've eaten?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or do I need to talk to a friend?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do I do am I lonely?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Am I am I um sad?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Am I angry?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what is it I'm actually feeling, and how can I more constructively deal with that?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really taking apart piece by piece the different ways that we may feel hungry.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then once we decide, even if it is one of those other hungers, if we choose to have the food, eating that slowly and mindfully and paying attention to your body and have I it will tell you when it's had enough.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's a skill that's learned over time and it takes some practice to do.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: But by eating slowly, it helps you properly break down your food in your mouth before you swallow it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: It mixes with the right digestive enzymes, it gives your stomach time to tell your brain that it's had enough because that's a 20-minute gap.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're shoveling our food in, a lot of times we don't even know we're full uh until after, and you get that feeling like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I ate all of that.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, who hasn't been there before?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, so yeah, just slowing down, I think, really is a good way to learn how to tune in to what your body is actually telling you rather than eating at your desk or standing at the counter or in the car or wherever else it might be.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think sitting down with intention as well, you know, putting away phones, computers, whatever it may be, having a good old-fashioned conversation around the dinner table helps with connection, all that kind of thing.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Tons of other tricks like putting your knife and fork down between each meal, that can slow things down as well, just to so we're eating more mindfully.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when it comes to that mind thing as well, a big part of this for me is also kind of reiterating some of the things that we've talked about, but some of the language that we use around food and trying to deprogram some of that out of us.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we talk people about the idea that food is either good or bad.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think terms like you know, I'm starving or I'm famished aren't helpful in this journey as well, because you aren't starving, and you aren't famished if you're living in a sort of like regular Western society and you know you're in a family with jobs and food in the house and things like that, you are never starving, you are never famished.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's absolutely not.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I think just trying to decondition some of those um terms can help as well.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's worth as well trying to learn some skills.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Meal planning, being able to sit down once a week, plan out what you're gonna eat, go and go and buy it from the supermarket.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: I know that sounds quite restrictive again, but just because you've written a meal plan doesn't mean that it's set in stone, right?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're trying to find foods that you like.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if it doesn't always have to be Taco Tuesday, Chili Friday, fish and chip Saturday or whatever it may be.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: You can you can move a meal plan around.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: Foods these days, we've got things like refrigerators, we've got tin foods, we've got freezers.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing's gonna spoil if you decide to change your meal plan around from one day to the next.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I think having an idea of what you want to eat when really helps with the whole hunger conundrum as well and stops you know if you are one of those people who sometimes reverts to inappropriate snacking can help stop that as well.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because generally, if you know what you want to eat when you want to eat it, you're gonna open the cupboard and not be surprised by the bag of crisp or the bar of chocolate or whatever it may be, but by some healthy healthier snacks that you might have in there.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: So saying no to um cookie-cutter diets is really, really important within all this, too.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: So have you got any other thoughts then, Julie, before we start to wrap up?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, I think that you touch on meal planning, and I think one of the things I love about meal planning is that you can build in different kinds of foods that that you can repurpose into other meals.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a recipe you wanted to make on a particular day and that doesn't appeal to you when the time comes to prepare it, you have options for other things.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: If it's it's uh it's kind of a fun thing to do.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: I also find it gives a lot of freedom because it's one less decision to make at the end of a busy day.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: If we already know what's on the meal plan, we don't have to think about it.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and it just it just frees up that mental space and the time.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if you have the opportunity to prepare some things in advance, then it shortcuts that that whole process by by quite a lot.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think making your own meal plan is way better than the meal plan you get with a diet, because most of the time those diets are either created in with thinking that people have an unlimited amount of time to play in the kitchen with these complicated recipes, or they use ingredients you don't like, or they create meals that don't taste good because they're trying to sterilize them for whatever their particular restrictions are.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Food should bring you joy, food should taste good, food should make you feel good when you eat it.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: So as you're learning to go through this process, you know, think about how you feel an hour or two after you've eaten.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel bloated and lethargic, or do you feel good, energetic?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like you've got some good stuff going through your body?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that's a wrap then on today's episode of Empower Your Menopause.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: We hope you're feeling a little bit more liberated and ready to toss those unhelpful diet rules out of the window.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, menopause is not a time for restrictions.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's a time to tune in and to listen to what your body truly needs.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and if if today's chat sparked a desire to dive a little bit deeper, maybe into a way to eat that's crafted specifically for you, don't hesitate to reach out to us.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to help you with this.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we guide our clients on this journey, and we've got we can offer you great personalized advice that will help work with your unique needs during menopause because your experience is going to be different from everybody else's.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: And a really good way to do that if you want to get started is we do offer a free call service here at Fabulous Beyond 40.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's not a sales call.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: We take 45 minutes out of our days to speak to you and help you craft the beginning of a roadmap to get you on a journey that you're happy with.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: And to do that, we just look at three really simple things.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: We look at where you want to get to, what's serving you in getting towards that right now, and what's holding you back.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to what's holding you back, we'll step in and hopefully give you some tips and some first steps to move forward.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a really simple process.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: We'll put the link in the show notes uh below.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: So if you want to take advantage of that, then please do join us for one of those free calls.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Terrific.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, please don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and like the episode and feel free to share it with any friends you may you may know who need to claim that inner rebel once again.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because the more women we can empower to eat well and thrive and feel great, the better this whole menopause experience is going to be.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see you on the next episode.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And until then, stay strong and stay fabulous.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Take care.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: See you soon.