Episode 180: 3 Things I Wish Every Peri Menopausal Woman Knew

If I could go back in time and give every woman one conversation before menopause, this would be it. I'm sharing the advice I wish more women heard earlier, so you can avoid years of metabolic damage and give your body the support it needs before menopause arrives.

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond, and schedule your schedule your free 1-1 Strategy Session right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 180: 3 Things I Wish Every Peri Menopausal Woman Knew

Speaker 1  0:00  
Welcome back to the Becoming Mindstrong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of Mindstrong, where we only work with perian-postmenopausal women because I know how confusing the stage of life can be. We go to our doctor, we leave feeling gaslit. We scroll through social media. Everyone's telling us what to do. We're like, I freaking am, and it's not working, and we can feel like all hope is lost. As an educator, I'm here to tell you: you are not broken. All hope is not lost. What we need is what we call a new tool bag. The tool bag of our 20s, 30s, early 40s doesn't work. If it did, we wouldn't be here. That doesn't mean we're broken. It means we need a new tool bag for this menopausal body in which we are now living. In working with over 7000 menopausal women for almost a decade now, you see some trends. So in today's episode, I want to speak directly to the women who are still in perimenopause, and here's why: to date, our most mature member that we've had go through ignite our 12-week program is 78 years young, and I am sure that let's call her Sally Smith. If Sally Smith, at 78 years young, could go back to her call it 44-year-old self, there would be a lot of warning signs that I'm sure Sally would want to share with her younger self, right? A lot of tips and tricks of hey, at 70-eight, I'm trying to get my metabolism back. If someone had told you this at 40-four, I probably could have avoided a host of issues. So in this this episode, I wanna I wanna give a writings on the wall have a have a writings on the wall conversation with those women who are still in the perimenopausal stage of life in the name of saving you a world of heartache in making things easier and more streamlined as we get into this inevitable stage of menopause and postmenopause coming up, so before we dive in too deep for my perimenopausal women, I want to just take a second to define some terms. If you've hung out here, we talk about this a lot. We can always use a refresher. If you're new here, this is important. Menopause itself is one day. It's the day you have gone 12 months without your cycle, I always say I feel like there should. This is a big deal. There should be cake. There should be confetti. We should all come in wearing menopause party hats. The reality is, most of us don't know that it's happening. But menopause itself is one day. The rest of our life, after that one day, the rest of our gorgeous life, we are in postmenopause. You are never post postmenopause. You never get to the other side of post menopause. You are menopausal until you leave this earth. Perimenopause is the time your body starts changing leading up to that one day of menopause, and there are a lot of misconceptions about perimenopause. Perimenopause, as of the latest research, and I'm sure this will change because girls are getting their periods younger. Society changes. As of now, the generally accepted stat is that perimenopause can start as young as like 34, and a lot of women gaslight themselves or their doctors accidentally gaslighting them because of that. They're like, "Well, I'm under 40. I can't be in perimenopause. We're seeing more and more that women are going into perimenopause younger, and I have podcast episodes about this. But it's worth noting here: perimenopause is not a blood work diagnosis. So when I say that so many women are being gaslit by their doctor, this is why, because they're saying my body's changing. I don't feel like myself. I feel more irritable. I'm suddenly gaining weight in in places I never had it before. My body's doing a recomposition. I don't even recognize it. I'm having sugar cravings I never had before. I'm having joint pain I've never had before. Right? We're listing all the symptoms. We're going to our doctor. They're doing some blood work. They're saying you look fine, and then we feel crazy. Perimenopause is not a blood work diagnosis. It is a symptom diagnosis. My joke that's not a joke is if you suspect you are in perimenopause because you feel these changes in your body.

Speaker 1  4:15  
Welcome to perimenopause. It's not a joke because you know your body better than anyone else. You've been living it in all these years. You know if it's changing, and if you think it is changing, it is changing. We do not need to gaslight ourselves, even if our own doctors are gaslighting us. If you think your body's changing, it is, my love. Welcome to perimenopause. Now, a little while back, I did an interview with an Ignite alum who was was graduating, and I'm gonna I'm gonna reiterate I'm gonna kind of cliff notes her story here because it's gonna lead into what we're gonna talk about for my perimenopausal woman. This member was to me one of the coolest stories I'd heard for this reason when she. Came to us. She had just lost 20 pounds on a diet from another company. Now most people would hear that and be like, "Sign me up with that company! Like, let's go! I want to lose 20 pounds. She's in perimenopause. She still had a functioning metabolism, so she was able to do that. Here was the problem: she was online, she was seeing my content, she was watching my video, she was binging this podcast, binging it on YouTube, wherever the case may be, and she was hearing me talk endlessly about shooting your metabolism in the foot. And when she looked at what she was doing with this company, she was like, "Well, of course, I just lost 20 pounds. Really, I think it was in like six weeks. Something that you do not want to do. It was very quick, very unhealthy. She's like, of course I'm losing weight that quickly. I'm eating 1000 calories a day. Now, what I love about her story is that we live in a society of instant gratification, right? Most of us want to have lost this weight yesterday, last month, 10 years ago, but this member was able to think of her future self and say, "Wait a second! Yeah, this is lovely that I just lost 20 pounds, and the writing's on the wall. I'm doing it in the exact way that Rachel keeps talking about is going to bite me in the behind as I start creeping towards menopause. Right now, she's in her mid 40s. She knows it's not a. She even says it in her interview. It's not a matter of will this happen. It will happen. If I keep going down this path, I will be yet another woman who needs to heal my metabolism. I'll be yet another woman eating 500 calories a day by that time and not losing weight. So yeah, it's lovely. I just lost all this weight, and I want to think about my long-term health. I don't want to do it the quick and dirty way. I don't want to do it the instant gratification way. I want to do it in a way where I'm taking care of my metabolism. And true story, she talks about it openly in that interview. She quit the program. She came to us. She healed her metabolism. She's continuing to lose weight, but now she is setting herself up to-I don't want to say sail through menopause because I don't know if any of us sail through-but she's going to lose weight sustainably. She's not going to have to ever heal her metabolism again. And we got to get to work on the big three: cortisol, inflammation, gut health. I love her story because I don't know many people who would have the discipline to do that. I think most of us would take the win. Would be like I'm losing weight really quickly. I don't really care. Future me will deal with that, and that sounds great until future you is here, right? Because then when you're 60 years old and you're postmenopausal and you're eating 500 calories a day and not losing weight, and now this six inch hole that we could have gotten you out pretty quickly has become 60 miles deep. Sure, we can still get you out, but man, oh man, are you going to be kicking yourself for the choices you made when you were younger? So, I want to speak directly to the women who are still in perimenopause. Meaning, your cycle might be a little wonky. It might not be consistent. Your body might be weird, but you still have a cycle.

Speaker 1  8:01  
If that is you, this is for you. I'm going to tell you the the three things that I wish I could go back in time and teach every postmenopausal woman woman before she hit menopause, because we could nip this in the bud faster. We could get through a healing stage if she needs one easier, and most importantly, we can nip this in the bud when it's a six-inch hole before it becomes a 60-inch hole. I love working with perimenopausal women. You get faster results, you get better results, and we set you up for a lifetime of success. Like what's better than that? I love working with all women. Let me be clear. I love working with all women. I love being able to give postmenopausal women their spark back because of a results-based efficiency. Perimenopause is really fun to work with because the results are so much faster. I love all humans. I love all women, and from the standpoint of getting you results faster, I love perimenopause. So three things that I wish every single perimenopausal woman could hear. Not only I wish I could hear, but I guarantee you, if you were to interview the the over 7000 women who have been through our program, the ones that are postmenopausal, they would want to grab you by by the face and be like, "Listen to this. If I could go back in time and talk to my past self, this is what I would tell her. Thing number one is you cannot stay low calorie for a prolonged period of time, and that is the one sentence that I pray we start teaching women in their maybe 20s. If we would listen. I don't know. I was invincible in my 20s, but at least in our 30s, if you stay low calorie for a prolonged period time of time, and we'll dig deeper into what that means, your metabolism will adjust. Your metabolism will say, "Oh, she's been eating 1200 calories. That must be our homeostasis. In our world, we call that. This is the reason that we have seen so many women come to us eating 500 calories a day and gaining weight. If the question is how in the world is that possible? I'm only eating 500 calories. How am I gaining? The answer is very simple. Your body thinks 500 calories a day is your maintenance because you've been there for so long, and if you go above maintenance, you will gain weight. So, what does low calorie mean? Textbook definition is under 1,600 calories a day. That's shocking to a lot of women because we live in a 1,200 calorie society. In our world, we have seen if you are eating under 1,800 calories a day and not losing weight, you also need a baby mini healing stage. It's not going to take as long, but you need one. If you are under and just very easy way to tell, eat normally, pop it into an app, ignore the app's goals, just eat normally, pop it into an app for five days. If you see in an average week of eating that you're already eating low calorie and not losing weight, stop cutting calories. You cannot stay low calorie for a prolonged period of time. Your body will adjust. You will need a healing stage. You do not want to be someone eating 500 calories a day. Yes, we can heal it. It takes so much longer, which leads to number two. So number one is do not stay low calorie for a prolonged period of time. By the way, 12 to 14 weeks is the max. When when you are going to drop low calorie to lose some weight, 12 to 14 weeks is max. When I say for a long time, I mean not longer than that. Real quickly, if you are loving my content, I want to invite you to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team. On your session, we'll talk about where you are, where you want to be, a game plan to bridge that gap and see if one-to-one coaching is a fit, you can use the link below to access the two-minute application, and we'll see you on your session. Thing number two leads straight into that. You heard me say, do not stay low calorie for a long period of time.

Speaker 1  11:53  
If you're already eating low calorie and not losing weight, stop cutting calories. So I'm going to tie these two together to better explain. Let's say you did what I just said. We're going to ignore their goals, but we're just going to download any any any tracking app. In our world, we use macros first. A lot of people use MyFitnessPal. Does not matter any app. By the way, if you use the term the code MindStrong with macros first, extend your free trial. Does not matter me what app you use, but we have it there, so I'll put it here. Eat as normally. Track your food for five days. Do not pay attention to their goals. We just want to see in an average week of eating. These apps will show you your weekly average. If you see that you're eating under 16, 1800 calories, okay. Number one, do not stay there. So if you can say no. This is how I've been eating for years. Cool. We can't keep doing that. Number two, the point that I'm talking about right now: do not keep cutting calories. So you do your five days of tracking. You see that you're eating 16 to 18. It's not working. The worst thing you can do is go cut down to 1,500, down to 1,200, down to 1000 You are digging like literally. You've got a shovel, well, figuratively, and you are digging the hole deeper. It is making the problem worse. Okay, if you do see you are doing that, you need a mini healing stage. If you see you're eating like 1500 calories, don't cut them. We need to heal your metabolism. I have lots of podcast episodes about that. We can help you with that, however you want to go about it. The purpose of today's episode are the three things to avoid. If I go back, if most of these women could go back in time, if I can catch you early, don't stay low calorie for too long. If you are low calorie, do not do not keep cutting calories. And thing number three that I want to shout from the rooftops to every perimenopausal woman is: Do not cut out carbs. If you've been eating low carb for a really long time, even if it's still working for you, right? Because sometimes in perimenopause, it will still work for you. By the time you are postmenopausal, not only will it not work, but introducing carbs again is going to be a slow, tedious process. So, if you're at the brink right now, where you're like, I don't know what else to do, so maybe I'll cut carbs, or if you're still eating them, but you try to shy away from them, or if you haven't been eating them for a long time, we want to start reintroducing them slowly. This is where your five days of tracking come in. Meet your body where it is. Slowly increase carbs do not make you fat. They do make you hold water, so you want to do it slowly. And you will not lose weight, even if you still are in perimenopause. You will not lose weight in a postmenopausal body without carbs. So the sooner we can get your body used to them, the easier our work's going to be on the other side. The more energy you're going to have in menopause or postmenopause, you're going to save yourself a host of problems. So many of the issues that we see postmenopausal are because we we've been under fueling and we've been cutting carbs for so many years. So all that to say, I'm not going to get deep in the weeds about what a healing stage looks like in this episode. I have a five part series that I refer back to a lot. Episodes 99 to 104 of this podcast goes deep into this thing we call the weight loss cycle. For the purposes of today's episode, we're going to recap. Here's the cliff notes. Here's the bullet points. If you are in perimenopause, which again is not a blood work diagnosis, it is a symptom diagnosis. If you are somewhere in the early mid 30 ish, and you still have a cycle, even a wonky cycle, but a cycle. Welcome to perimenopause. If you feel like your body's changing, it is okay. Not blood work, symptom diagnosis.

Speaker 1  15:29  
If you are in perimenopause, you are in prime real estate. You are in the prime time of your life to nip this stuff in the bud to set yourself up for success because menopause is coming, right? It's not like we can sidestep this. It is going to happen to all of us, and the sooner we can start tackling this stuff, the better results you're going to get straight out of the gate right now, and the more you're going to set yourself up on the other side. So, thing number one: eat as you normally eat. Pop your food into an app. Do not use their goals. Just see your weekly averages. If you're already eating low calorie, anything under 1,800 calories, you cannot stay there. Continuing to stay there is going to make the problem worse. It's going to dig the hole deeper. Thing number two: certainly, do not move in the other direction. Do not keep cutting calories. If you're not losing weight at 1,500 calories, I promise you, you're not going to lose weight at 1,200. You're going to take a shovel. You're going to dig that hole deeper. Okay. What we need is to flip the process. We need to get your metabolism better at burning calories. We need a healing stage. The good news for you is it's going to be a little baby healing stage. It's not going to be a I'm starting from 500 calories a day healing stage. And thing number three, you're going to need carbs. You need them right now, but you might be getting away with it because we have more cortisol resilience in perimenopause. Once you get into a postmenopausal body, you will not lose weight without carbs. So if you're thinking of cutting them, if you're already cutting back on them, if you're not eating them now, now is the time to start reintroducing them because as we get to postmenopause, you are going to save yourself a host of problems. Okay, in terms of next steps, if you're listening to this and you're like, "Ooh, that's I'm doing all three of those, Rachel, beautiful. We can nip this in the bud. Again, one of the reasons I love working with perimenopausal women is your results are faster, and we set you up for success. So if you haven't already, go check out the five part series episodes 99 to 104 It gets deeper in the weeds about what the work looks like. Number two, if you haven't checked out my free workshop, how to fire up your metabolism and mental health and beyond, that's a great next step. Number three, of course, this is something we can always help you with. This is who we are, what you do. We always start with that. Check out the workshop first, and then you can apply for a strategy session from there. The end of the day, I I can almost guarantee. I don't want to speak for other people, but I can almost guarantee if you were to interview every postmenopausal woman that we've ever worked with, and there are 1000s of them. There's way more than than we've been advertising all this year. There's 1000s of them. I would place my money on the fact that the vast majority of them would want to hold your face in their hands and say, "Do this work now, right? If I could go back in time and talk to myself in my early, mid, late 40s or whatever the case may be, you could be in perimenopause later than that. By the way, one of the biggest factors to when you go into menopause is when your mom did. So if you have a relationship, if your mom's still around, if you can ask her, ask her. It's not foolproof, but it is the biggest indicator. Anyway, I will. I would place my money on the fact that most women in the postmenopausal stage of life would want to cup your face in their hands and say, "Honey, listen to me. If I could go back in time, I can almost guarantee that the vast majority, if not all, of the women we work with-and there are 1000s of them, way more than we've been advertising-but there are 1000s of them. If they could go back in time and talk to their younger self, they would tell them, "Do this now.

Speaker 1  18:57  
Don't stay low calorie for too long. That is the biggest sentence that I hope we start telling women younger: If you're already eating low calories, certainly do not dig the hole deeper by continuing to cut calories and start reintroducing carbs, or don't cut out carbs now. You will number one see results faster at this stage of life, and number two set yourself up for success for the next step, which is inevitably coming. Menopause is coming. Postmenopause is coming, and we can nip it in the bud now. For more information on Mind Strong Fitness or to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team, visit www.mindstrongfitness. www.mindstrongfitness.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai