Menopause: Your Top Questions Answered| 209

Let’s open the door with this conversation.  We are talking about menopause, and I have spoken about it before in past podcasts, but I don’t think that we can speak about it enough!  It’s this multidimensional conversation and I feel like menopause right now is having a moment.  We never really talked about menopause growing up, right? Your Mom didn’t sit you down and say when you reach this age this happens, and all hell breaks loose!  One day you wake up and we don’t have our period anymore! NO ONE talks about this during the birds and the bee’s conversation! 

 
So today I am going to answer the top 10 questions I get asked. But please, if you have more questions and I don’t answer them, send me a comment or an email and I can try and get them answered on future podcasts!  I am also going to put a link in the bottom for my menopause symptoms checklist as well as something I created called the Green Chromatic scale. This is a way for you to track your symptoms and then be able to have an intelligent conversation about these symptoms with your doctor.  So, let’s dive into the top 10 questions I have had for myself and the questions I have asked others in the community!
 
What is menopause and at what age does it happen?
The classic definition is you go 1 year and 1 day without getting your period. That is how you know you are in menopause.  For the average woman, the age is around 51.  But what many of us experience is PERImenopause.  Before we hit that 12 months and a day all of the things that are happening to us can happen about 10-15 years before that actual date occurs!  You can experience it as early as our late 30s or early 40s.
 
Yes, there is a potential for surgical menopause prior to this.  If you’ve gotten rid of your ovaries and uterus, you immediately go into menopause.  But if you keep your ovaries, you don’t go into it right away hormonally.
 
What are the common symptoms?
●      Hot flashes
●      Night sweats
●      Weight gain
●      Anxiety
●      Depression
●      Mood swings
●      Insomnia
●      Dry hair & Loss of hair
●      Brittle nails
●      Libido may goes into the shitter
●      Osteoporosis
●      Memory loss
 
This is all driven because we are in a hormonal typhoon.  The dead-on way to describe it is like when we are teenagers, and we are all hormonal getting our period for the first time. The stupidest things pissed you off! Now the same thing happens, just on the backside. And 35-40 years later! You are also become less resilient to stress.  Our body just doesn’t know what month our estrogen or progesterone will be out of whack.   On top of that, our progesterone affects sleep so greatly and then estrogen affects our brain health!  Adding some more good fats to our nutrition – flax seed, chia seeds, oodles oil, and other things that aren’t coconut, peanut butter or olive oil are great to help with this.
 
What are the long-term health risks of menopause?
Everyone talks about hormones, they are messengers. These messengers can unlock the keys to multiple systems in our bodies.  One of the biggest drivers here is that if you get basic blood work, you may see your cholesterol start to increase and you always had low cholesterol or the same with your triglycerides. That is because our hormones are getting a little wonky.  With that, we are at an increased risk of heart disease.  We lose a lot of the protection that estrogen gives us. 
 
We are also at risk for osteoporosis.  Strength training is one of the number of ways you can help prevent osteoporosis.  The heavier you lift, the more your muscle pulls on the bone, making the bones nice and strong.  Weight gain is another. –  with this can come type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, joint pain from the weight, sleep apnea. UTIs can come with changes in estrogen and progesterone as well.
 
Does menopause affect your mental health?
YES, yes and yes! I had a woman on, and we talked about Alzheimer’s and one of the biggest protectors of our brain is estrogen. So, when your brain isn’t doused in estrogen, it’s very likely that someone who may not have anxiety or depression may get them now or they are heightened! 1 in 10 women perimenopausal experience suicidal thoughts who have never experienced them before!  It’s easy to lose your confidence during this time too which can cause this as well.
 
Are there treatments available?
Yes absolutely!  I know all of us want to have this – take 2 of these and call me in the morning.   But you have to kiss a couple of frogs!  It’s a puzzle with a-zillion pieces to try different things to see what works because our bodies are so complex! You can go the HRT route, or you can go the non-HRT route, and you can do a hybrid of the 2 of them.
HRT is making a resurgence that providers are prescribing. (Hormone replacement therapy) Many insurance covers it, but it’s a conversation to have with a doctor and health care provider to see if HRT is right for you.  Non-HRT options are mind-body work like hypnosis, breath work, walking, acupuncture and relaxation techniques.  Really really home in on your stress!
 
What kind of supplements can I take?
You can’t out-supplement your lifestyle!  If you are stressed like crazy, drinking and not sleeping supplements will not help.  Those are 3 things you can start working on right now!  We need to be able to find a way to chill ourselves way the hell down.  So, several supplements recommended to me are:  
●      Ashwagandha
●      Wild yams
●      Macha
●      Don Q
●      Evening primrose
●      B-pollen
●      Flax seeds
●      Vitamin D
●      Magnesium
●      Good fat oil
There are a lot of different supplements I can take out there but first I want to challenge every one of you to look at your life! Check yourself before you wreck yourself! You could be pouring thousands into supplements, but you JUST NEED SLEEP!
 
What are the dietary changes that need to happen?
Here is the thing.. Most people think the weight comes on overnight, but it was a slow creep.  This happened to me.  My food intake was healthy and clean, it was just too much of that good food for the activity level I was keeping up. I was very inconsistent with my workouts after I stopped competing because if I could not do 2 hours I didn’t work out.  And what I learned was that we need to scale back the expectations of our workouts.  Instead of a 2-hour workout, I would rather see you get in 15 – 30 minutes that you can do consistency 3-4 days a week.  Add in some walking and strength training!
 
When it comes to food, it’s not avoiding carbs, fats, etc. It’s about queuing in and listening to what is going on with our bodies.  Make sure we get in fibrous fruits, vegetables and beans.  Make sure we are limiting our alcohol.  Have fatty fish so that we can get those good fat oils into our system because our hormones love good oils! Instead of being very structured here, it’s about burning our bridges and talking about what is going to be structured with flexibility.  You don’t have to be a victim of your environment.  What are the things you can do in the said environment?
 
Our diet doesn’t have to change dramatically.  What are you getting right now and understanding how it feels? Learn about yourself and food.  Can you get more good fat oils in your diet? Can you find your carb tipping point? Can I decrease my alcohol intake?
 
When it comes to menopause, I like to break our health into 3 categories.
A lot of this boils down to our health. Looking at our health, things have to change but they don’t have to radically change! Here are 3 categories that we should focus on.
 
Exercise – Break up with the over-training. Instead of saying this is what I used to do, say what makes a good workout for me now?  The ACSM says we just need 150 minutes a week. 2-3 hours of cardio. Or 2-3 hours of strength training.
 
Stress – Your cortisol rises when this happens! Progesterone is the natural cousin to cortisol and helps calm you down and sooth you. If that is not around, then the cortisol lets loose!  Come up with other ways of relaxing than saying I workout to relax!
 
Nutrition – Make sure we are eating foods that are fueling our metabolism.  Pick your nutrition battles! If you are going out, go out and know how it is going to go down!  We need to feed this new metabolic health!  Brain and heart health!
 
Hormones.
As we look back on menopause and what we have talked about, our hormones are playing the biggest role in this.  This is what is causing this entire eruption in our bodies.  What does estrogen do? What does testosterone do? How does it influence insulin resistance and why do you have belly fat? These are all things that come from hormonal changes and imbalance.
 
How can habits help?
Now more than ever it is so important to dive into your habits. What is serving you now? What do you need to start to invest in moving forward? That way you can better manage your stress and it doesn’t spill into the way you make your nutrition decision.  Better flexibility is also important, so you understand your commitments and how that impacts your stress management impacts your time overall!
 
So many ways we can go on this, but I just wanted to open the door for you on the questions I get.  Menopause can be a beast, and it comes at all of us in all different forms, times, different ways, shapes, etc. but it’s definitely something that can be managed when we understand what it is all about.
 
 
LINKS
 
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/kimbarnesjeffersoncoach
 
Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitgirlmagic/
 
Website:
https://kimbarnesjefferson.com/
 
Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fit-girl-magic-healthy-living-for-women-over-40/id1476883661
 
Alzheimer’s Podcast 
https://chtbl.com/track/479199/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/fitgirlmagic/Ep2020420-20Final20Podcast.mp3
 
👋If you’re over 35 and curious about your menopausal status, I’ve got a handy checklist of symptoms to help clue you in. So grab this menopause tracker and take back the reins!
 
https://kimbarnesjefferson.lpages.co/menopause-checklist