What it’s like to be a Hormonal Woman!

Hi everyone, it's Sheree here from Spice Fitness. If you are not already in our group, there's a Strong Beyond 50 group that you can join that I talk about all sorts of stuff to do with older women, where we deal with hormones and strength training and diet and all that sort of stuff. I'm talking about hormones this morning and what it's like to be a hormonal woman.

Hormonal women in menopause have to go through quite a bit, but you know what? I want to make hormones more of a normal thing this morning and not this big, ugly beast that we have to deal with when we come to menopause, because from the time we're born, we have hormones doing things to us. So little babies are often born with swollen breasts because of the extra hormones that are passed on to them from their mum.

So they have little swollen breasts and sometimes some stuff are coming out of their breasts. Then we go into puberty where we have more hormones affect us again, and we have surges of hormones and we start to get pimples and start to get things happening to our body. And then we go through life, we have more hormonal changes when we have babies.

So again, hormones play a part, but they're not this big, bad enemy. And I just want to stress that this morning, hormones are part of everyday life. And sometimes we just have to deal with them if they're not affecting us too much.

Good morning, Kate. And so, yeah, so as we get into menopause and perimenopause, so often, no, we'll start to get effects from hormones way before we get into menopause. So perimenopause can be about, oh, it can start about 10 years before we actually go through menopause itself.

And so we've got all these hormones affecting our body the whole time. Hi, Norlene, good to have you join me. And so just think when you get to perimenopause, which is premenopause, and we get into menopause and postmenopause is kind of officially when we haven't had a period for about a year.

So when we get into menopause, yeah, the lowering estrogen does affect us to certain degrees. So we'll get our weight gain, our mood swings, our sweats, our hair loss. I know that my hair, every time I went like this, I was getting big, like that's only one right now, but big handfuls of hair.

And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be going bald. This was in my 40s. I'm now 58 in the next couple of few weeks.

But I'm thinking, I'm going to be bald by the time I'm in my 60s, you know? So far, so good. But yeah, and then we get our brain fog, our sleeplessness.

There's a whole pod of things. And we get a dry vagina as well. So things that were moist before get dry.

Had a lady, one of my clients say to me a few days ago, getting a really dry mouth these days, is that normal? I said, you know what? If we get a dry vagina because we don't have the hormones causing us to have all the mucus that we once did, then, yeah, having a dry mouth would actually be something I could see could be part of normal hormonal changes as you get near, so into premenopause and menopause.

Hi, everyone. Hi, Tracy. Hi, Sonia and DC Stanford.

Yeah, so as we get into menopause, you go through physical and emotional turmoil. Now, some people look to groups or to specific things to help that. And I just want to show you, just go through some simple things today that help both me and my clients when we come to menopausal problems.

And quite a bit of that is weight gain. What do you do about weight gain? What do you do about the fogginess?

What do you do about the mood swings? So there's things that you can be doing that can ease all of that and normal, simple stuff. So yeah, I always think back.

I like to think back to tribal times, way, way back before we had all these hormones and hormone replacement that we give these days. I go to a wonderful doctor. I've been to see her a few times now.

So Sally Chapman is a doctor in my local area, Hobart. And she's fantastic. She deals with menopause ladies now really well.

And she talks about quite a few of the hormone replacement tablets made at horse farms. So they farm these horses. They get the mares pregnant and take the wee that they pass out to make into the capsules that you take as part of your hormone replacement.

And she said to me, I don't know, would you really want to take that if you knew what they were made of? And I'm thinking, well, no, I wouldn't. But that's not to say that all things are the same.

I think the biosynthetic, the ones that are as natural to our own hormones are the way to go. But so some women will look to that awesome supplement or menopause program to get some sort of relief. But it's a part of a cycle of a life.

It's part of the cycle of life. And going back to the tribal times, we would have just had to deal with it. And I think the way they dealt with it is by how they eat and how they move and what they do.

And so we do have some sort of control over it. Don't let you think that when you come to menopause, it's all downhill. So there's some simple, simple things.

So those hormones will fluctuate over our lifetime. And I see the results of that. So being a nurse, and you look after old ladies that haven't taken care of themselves.

And they do. You start to lose your muscle mass. So we start to get sarcopenia.

So as we get a bit older, the muscles that we once had that gave us shape and form, they start to shrink. And then our skin starts to get saggy. It loses its tone, and we get saggy skin.

And that's not good. We start to think about, we don't actually look at our diet as being one of those main things that's going to hold us looking healthy and good, skin nice and firm and so supple. Unfortunately, one of those things from menopause as well is where we get less hair here, we get more hair here, more hair here, as some of you would have found out.

Bonus is you don't need to shave as much, but we do get hair in other spots as well. So menopause can start any time from our 40s to our 60s. And as I said before, will affect us in various ways.

How many women have I talked to that go, I just go night after night where I'm sweating. I get all my, I just drench in sweat. And so there's a whole pile of things.

The main thing for me is that I get my hot flushes. And I know if you live in the States, you'll call it a hot flush. Hi, Mel.

Hi, Hayley. Hi, Sonia, 45 years old. My period stopped one year ago.

I don't feel anything, which is good. The doctor told me that, if I can say that I'm, yeah, pre-menopausal. Okay.

So there's stuff that you can be doing. Ladies, I'm a 58 year old in the next couple of weeks. And I train ladies all the time about my age and they all feel pretty fantastic.

Why is that? Because some of the lifestyle things that we do. So post-menopause, when your hormone production has ceased and level of hormones are low.

Now, let's just think on this. Let's think, so many people take menopause on low hormone levels as being really bad. It's a bad thing.

I've got to now go through menopause. And you hear all these bad stories. It's almost like when you're going to have a baby and you hear all these bad stories and everyone tells you their worst things.

But do they tell you good things? You don't hear that too often. They tell you the worst things about menopause.

Oh, yeah. I got so angry and had mood swings all the time. I sweated the night away, had to strip off my sheets and I got so hot and I was always throwing off clothes.

That can be a part of it. And you know what? One of those simple things that I did, I was running a gym at the time for women of my age.

Hi, Carmore. Hi there. Hi, Kay.

Great to see you there. And post-menopause, well, now, yeah, it's a good place to be. And some of us sail through menopause.

Others find it hard. So I just want to come up to some simple tools and tips that I find are good. So at the time I was running a gym, when I started to go through my menopause, and I remember I thought, now, all of these ladies are a little bit further ahead of me.

Let's see what they do. So I had quite a few of them say that they just took a special menopause supplement. So just like a multivitamin tablet for people that were in menopause.

So I went on to one of those. I can't remember the name. It's Harmony Menoharmony or something.

But I'll put a picture here after I finish this, so you can see what I'm on. And that just seemed to take away my hair loss from the amount of hair it was falling out. Because I often think, too, that we're deficient in probably certain vitamins and minerals as we get into menopause as well, because we're getting a bit older as well.

And our body doesn't absorb things probably as well. So the first tip I would give you, the first tip I would give you is quality food, quality food. So find yourself a great little place to shop that sells either organic or just really, really, they turn over the food quite quickly.

So you're actually buying food as can be. Even better than that, go plant it in your own garden. That would be even better.

But if you can get good quality nutrition in your body day in and day out, yeah, you're going to have days where you fall off the wagon, and that's perfectly fine. But if you can, on the whole, be getting good nutrition in lots of colourful vegetables and in their natural state as much as you can, that is your first line of defence, if you want, against menopause and having all these things occur to you. So good nutrition is huge.

It also helps your digestion, your bowel habits as well. Who knows? I said to a patient at work the other night when I was doing a night shift, because I am a nurse as well, and he'd done a big poo, and he'd also had a good sleep.

And I said, you cannot beat a good poo, can you? A good poo, a good sleep are two things that send you on your in a great way. So good nutrition will help in so many ways.

It will make your skin look good. It will help you to do a poo. It will keep your inflammation in your gut down.

And I think what the talk I might do tomorrow will be on gut inflammation and gut health, yeah? So stay tuned for tomorrow. Alcohol intake.

We all know that alcohol puts our body under stress. So if you're just having a drink at night, hey, cool, and that makes you feel good, that's great.

And I'm not saying in any of this to take away everything entirely. It's just having everything in moderation. If you can cut down on some things, great.

So if you love it, three glasses of wine a night, or you've gone from the two glasses you did have to a whole bottle of wine a night, maybe cut back a bit and come back to the two glasses of wine a night.

So it's really about taking the things that we love, still doing them, because who wants to go to their grave going, oh, I've had to just eat steamed chicken every night and not have my favorite wine or favorite chocolate?

I think you need to include all those things that you love. Hi, guys. Hi, Janet.

Great to have you join me. So alcohol intake. Our livers become far less proficient at processing alcohol as we get older.

So it's just one of those things to think about.

So nutrition, good nutrition, as whole as it can be. So clean foods going into your body and having the odd breakout of someone invites you over for dinner, go for it. But trying to keep that 85% of the time, good nutrition.

Then alcohol intake's the second one. The third one is commit to regular exercise. And I think this has been my thing for years.

I have committed to that because it's something I'm passionate about. I mean, because I'm a fitness instructor, fitness trainer, I get people, if they do a walk, come home and do some strength training because you can't beat it. I just took five ladies this morning in my home gym for a workout.

We did AMRAPs. So we went for three and a half minutes, three exercises, three and a half minutes, 10 reps each, and we didn't stop for three and a half minutes. And you don't need anything much.

We just had a band and a football and body weight on the floor. And they got a great workout because I was just telling them what to do and they did it, but they went home feeling good. So you can't beat exercise and not just walking.

Can I say to some of you ladies out there that are getting a little bit older? Yeah, Carmel, good on you. It sounds like you've committed to some good stuff.

And Verna been going through it since I was 42 years old. Yeah. One good thing, you don't get your period anymore.

Although for some ladies, I think before they get to no period, they do bleed even more than normal. So regular exercise, make it fun, get together with a friend, crank up your favorite songs, and then pick some things that you can be doing and go for it because it feels good. So if you're somebody that just walks and you don't do strength training, you're doing yourself a big disservice because strength training keeps your body looking toned.

It keeps your body moving well. It's not just about the way you look. It's about the way you move.

And Carmel, I agree, your weights are so important. You don't need to do massive weights. Don't think about a bodybuilder sort of person.

It just needs to be maybe a band you might have at home, a weight of some kind, like maybe a kettlebell with a handle on it and doing things like that. So our online program that we have, which is Undespiced Fitness, is $5 a week. And so we put in all these things where you just need a band, a fitball, or a weight.

And that can be a weight from your garden. It can be a rock or a milk carton filled up, so you don't need too much. And Bridget, yeah, hi there, Bridget.

Yeah, and it helps the hormones. Absolutely. Hormones are made by muscles.

Yeah. I'll tell you, our muscles do so much. They're also your fat burner, because when you build up some muscle as well, they are active.

And so they pump away. So if I've just done a strength training session, it will burn off whatever I have for the next few hours. It'll keep pumping away and boost my metabolism up for at least the next 12 hours, even while I sleep.

Whereas if you just go for a walk, it's nice while you go for a walk. It does give you fresh air. It makes your head feel good, but it doesn't quite do what weights will do for you.

So weights is so important. And modify if you have to. One of my clients here this morning was a 76-year-old, and she was in with my 30-year-olds.

So we modified for her, but she's gotten so strong. She was one lady I'd love you to hear her story, because she's a 76-year-old who three years ago couldn't walk without sticks due to her osteoarthritis and an autoimmune disease as well. She was in a bad way.

So she used to sit on a bed at night and just cry. Her sons got sick of it, decided that she needed to get some stuff happening. And so they called around the gyms here, found me, and then she's been with me since.

And her body's great. So she was throwing around 10 kilogram kettlebells. It's all a place you start.

You don't need to be fit to start strength training. You just start wherever you're at. Hi, Carmel.

Yeah, it is so awesome. And Bridget, yeah. And just going on.

So exercise is important. So you should do resistance training at least two to three times a week minimum. Look, I really don't work out more than that.

I don't have time. But two to three times a week. If I even go on my bike ride, I'll even pick a bench out there, and I'll do some push-ups on the bench.

Then I'll do some tricep dips and some mountain climbers on the bench. So I've got some upper body and core stuff happening as well. Number four, learn to love your body.

Love yourself. Love who you are. If you have gained some weight over the years, don't despise yourself.

Love who you are. It's who you are. Look, I've got a baby belly.

And one day I'll be bold enough to show you all. It sits there. I had four babies that stretched way out to the front.

And now I'm in my older years. It still sits there. I know that my physio pulled it out one day, my excess skin, and said, Sheree, this one never go.

It doesn't matter how hard you work. And I'm okay with that. But you know what?

I can't do anything about that unless I want surgery. But I can make the rest of my body the strongest it can be. And that's what I do.

And that's what I promote for every single woman I see. Because we can do so, so much. Hi, Yvonne.

Great to have you watching. So learn to love your body, except you. You've done amazing things in your life probably.

If I met any of you, you would have had kids. You would have carried those kids. You would have done stress to your pelvic floor at the same time.

But even if you haven't had kids, you've done amazing things with that body. It's carried you around. You think of how many steps we do in a lifetime and how many things we carry.

I mean, it's pretty cool when you get to our age, you kind of go, I am woman and I am so proud of who I am. So it's pretty good. So learn to love your body.

Schedule recovery. You need recovery. We all need time out.

And if you've had stuff going on, look, a lot of us have got aging parents and parents are dying, parents are sick. And we've got to deal with that on top of maybe still kids at home, on top of a job that we hold down, on top of trying to take care of ourselves. And we, what I found with women, we're always the last ones to look after us.

We don't care about ourselves. Well, we do actually. We want to have more time to care about ourselves, but we're so busy caring for everyone else out there that we come a very back, back of the end, back of it.

And it's quite sad. So schedule, schedule time out. If you've got a full-time job and you're looking after parents on the side, and you've got kids that want your time, schedule time out.

I think sometimes that's the only way. Schedule time for sex. You know what?

Once upon a time, it was just something that happened, but now I've got to schedule time. I go, right, tomorrow night at eight o'clock, we're doing it. I mean, I don't know if that's what I'm meant to share on here, whether Facebook or wipe that, but it's what you've got to do.

You've got to schedule time for exercise. Don't just assume it's going to happen. Next week, I spent a big week this week.

Next week, I'll schedule time to do some, a little bit of strength training or some exercise. No, schedule. Schedule it in.

Schedule good food in. Schedule when you're going to go to the shop and buy your good food, when you're going to cook it, and schedule time in for exercise. Schedule time in for your relationship with your husband or friends.

Schedule it in because otherwise you won't do it. We get really, really busy. So schedule time in.

Next thing I'd say is deal with stress. Stress is huge. Do you know that even doing night shifts, I still work two nights to three nights a week as a nurse, as well as training clients.

And when I work night shift, I just know that my body is under stress. So night shift, so lack of sleep will stress your body. Stress will stress your body.

Alcohol will stress your body. Not looking after your body will stress your body. And when we're under stress, it just slows everything down.

So the cortisol levels rise and our body holds on to fat then because it believes we're under a stress, something's going to attack us. So it holds onto everything it can hold so that we're prepared for that thing that's going to come, the mammoth that's going to come back in the day, but we don't have those now. So we hold onto this stress and we hold onto it for too long.

And therefore, the weight holds onto us as well because our body's preparing for that primal thing of fight or flight. So if you're not taking away the stress, now a simple stress reliever, I'll end off in just a couple of minutes, but I'll show you a good stress reliever that you can do because stress needs to be dealt with and it's as effective. If you start to look at some ways to deal with stress, it can be as effective as a pill, as popping a pill.

And for stress, if you're under immense stress, find a good counselor, find a good psychologist, look after you because if you don't look after you, you can't look after anyone else. So look after you because menopause can be menopause can be draining, but it can be a great time as well. Empowering.

You've learned so much. You've become a wise woman. You don't care what people think about you anymore.

Hello, wouldn't you love to have felt like that when you're a younger version of you, but we get to that older version. Hi, Linda. Great to have you join me.

So we get to that older version of us and we don't care what people think anymore. So there's some bonuses about coming to menopause, but you really need to look after you, look after your head, make sure you get enough sleep. I know sleep's a hard one because I do not sleep well and I think it's because I've been a shift worker my whole life, but try and stick to the same time each night.

We're meant to, by rights, go to sleep when the sun goes down and wake when the sun comes up. Effectively between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. in the morning is when our body regenerates. Thank you, Carmel.

Regenerates the cells, regenerate, and we feel good. So something like me that works shift work where between 2 and 6 in the morning are my bit busy time. If someone gets up to do a wee at 2 a.m. in the morning and I've got to weigh them, I'll do all their weighs and I'll zen rather than wait till 6 o'clock. So stress can be from so many factors. It could be from someone in your family passing away. It could be that you've got kids to look after, full-time job and all those things I talked about before.

So look after stress as well. Try and get sleep. I know that's easier said than done.

I think sleep is a hard one. And because I've been a shift worker, as I said, sleep can be tough. But I want to ultimately remind you that menopause is a normal stage of aging.

Don't be afraid of it. Try and deal with things as they come. Find a really good doctor in your area that deals with things like that.

You can sit down. I've got a wonderful doctor. If any of you live in the Hobart, Tasmania, Australia area, Dr. Sally Chapman's fantastic. But if you live in other areas around the world, and I know some of you do, find yourself a good doctor who can totally take you through that journey. If you need a good psychologist or a good counsellor, go find one. Get yourself in a great place.

And ultimately, running over to gain, do strength training because that does make your body feel so incredibly good. My body, if you asked me to now and you wanted me to lift up a big couch and carry it for half a kilometre down the road, I could do that. I feel good all the time because of that.