Reflective Parenting by Curious Neuron
A parenting podcast that doesn't tell you HOW to parent your own child. We teach you how to think during parenting challenges and help you build emotional intelligence skills to lower your stress and help you cope with those challenging emotions that come with parenting.
Neuroscientist, Dr. Cindy Hovington can help you parent your child with confidence and feel competent by helping you understand your triggers, recognize and break your emotional patterns and teach you how to model healthy emotional coping skills for your child.
Cindy is the founder and CEO of Curious Neuron, is an internationally recognized emotional well-being resource for parents with their evidence-based educational content being consumed in over 70 countries! She is a leading thought expert in emotion regulation and parental well-being as well as an international speaker on well-being and emotional development in children.
The goal of this podcast is to help parents gain awareness of their emotional triggers, build your confidence as a parent, understand how their past influences behavioural patterns they can stuck in and help them learn how to model healthy emotional coping skills for their children. We do this by discussing the science of emotional intelligence and effective parenting practices.
Join us every Monday for conversations with leading researchers and best selling authors in parental well-being, childhood adversity, attachment, emotional development, stress management and emotion regulation skills. Past guests include Dr. Bruce Perry, Dr. Marc Brackett and best-selling authors Dr. Ramani Durvasula and Stephanie Harrison.
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Reflective Parenting by Curious Neuron
Exploring Perimenopause with Dr. Kristina Calder
Dr's Cindy Hovington and Kristina Calder explore perimenopause, the hormonal transition that begins in women's 40s and significantly impacts mental health, energy, and body composition.
• Perimenopause often starts in your 40s but can begin as early as late 30s
• Symptoms include irregular periods, insomnia, anxiety, joint pain, mood swings, and diminished stress resilience
• Declining estrogen affects the GABA-ergic system in the brain, explaining increased anxiety and mood changes
• Strength training becomes crucial during perimenopause to maintain muscle mass and metabolic health
• Most women need significantly more protein than they consume (aim for your ideal body weight in grams)
• Practical supplements include magnesium for sleep, omega-3s for inflammation, creatine for muscle and brain health
• Heart health requires special attention as declining estrogen increases cardiovascular risks
Visit curiousneuron.com for more resources or join the Reflective Parent Club if you need more personalized support with emotional regulation.
Follow Dr. Calder on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/drkristinacalder/
Sources mentioned by Kristina:
https://www.drstacysims.com/nextlevel
https://www.lisamosconi.com/the-menopause-brain
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39077777/
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Hello, my dear friend, welcome to the Reflective Parenting Podcast. My name is Cindy Huffington and I am your host. If you are a parent that has never learned how to regulate their emotions, maybe you grew up in an environment where there was a lot of emotion dysregulation and now that you are a parent, you are struggling to know how to model healthy emotional coping skills for your child, or teaching them how to cope with stress and that's also affecting your level of stress and your level of happiness then you are at the right place. My name is cindy and I am a mom of three from montreal, canada, and I have a phd in neuroscience. My goal, through this podcast and everything that we do within the curious neuron company, which I am the founder of, is to support parents in learning about their emotions, learning how to regulate your emotions and learning how to model this for your kids so that you can teach them healthy emotional coping skills. All of these skills are known to protect a future, our child's future, well-being and mental health, and so I know that we don't have enough support as parents and I want to make sure that Curious Neuron and this podcast, the Reflective Parenting podcast, is a space for you to feel seen, to feel understood as a parent, to gain some awareness in terms of why some things might be affecting you and, more importantly, to be that space where you can learn how to cope with emotions, know what impacts your emotions and feel good about what you are teaching and modeling for your child.
Speaker 1:Today's topic is going to be specifically for women. Sometimes I do topics specifically for moms, specifically for dads, today's for moms. And the reason why I wanted to cover perimenopause is because, well, first, I'm 41 and many of my friends, people around me, are going through the first symptoms and signs of perimenopause, and so are the people that are part of this community. I'm talking to lots of parents. I keep talking to parents so that I know the struggles that you're going through, and some moms have asked me like why am I feeling more depressed during some parts of the month? Why am I feeling more anxious all of a sudden? Why am I feeling more anxious all of a sudden? Or why am I anxious all of a sudden when I wasn't before? And I know that all of this impacts how we are going to cope with our emotions, and so it's extremely relevant to us as moms, if we can understand that maybe, perhaps something is happening with us that we don't have control over and maybe, as we will see with them, as as we talk with Dr Christina Calder, maybe we need to speak to our doctor about this we will see a positive impact on how we cope with our emotions, how we cope with stress and how we can do this around our child, because we know that it matters, and so I want to give you this information to help you Before I move forward with my conversation with Dr Christina Calder.
Speaker 1:I do want to thank the Tannenbaum Open Science Institute, as well as the McConnell Foundation, for supporting the Reflective Parenting Podcast. I am so grateful that they believe in the importance of science, as I do with everything that I do here, not only for the Reflective Parenting Podcast, but Curious Neuron as a whole. I want to make sure that you have access to free material, and you can do that. You can get access to our latest articles on CuriousNeuroncom which, by the way, you will see a big change later this week, and so if you haven't visited CuriousNeuroncom, I encourage you to wait. By the time you listen to this on Monday, if you wait by Wednesday, then the website should be up and running, and so, kirstenroncom, you can now create a login so that you can save the articles that matter to you. There are different categories. It's so much more accessible than it was before, and I'm really excited for you to see the new website. It's taken almost two years a year and a half. We had a pre-launch. Anyways, you'll see it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1:And for those parents who are listening to this and saying, well, I follow you on social media Facebook, instagram, curious Neuron and I listened to this podcast, but now I need a little bit more. So if you're a parent who says, who feels like you've been listening to this and now you know that you struggle with coping with emotions or regulating your emotions, you're seeing the impact of this because your child struggles with coping with their own emotions, and this is seen by a lot of behavior that you can't control or support then maybe it's time for you to take that step into joining the Reflective Parent Club. Take the three months to learn how to regulate your emotions, to understand how you usually cope or regulate, understand which thoughts you get stuck on or which emotions you get stuck on, and to get the tools to model effective coping skills for you, for your child. That is what the Reflective Parent Club is all about, and so I want to make sure that there's a space for parents. There's so many parents that are coming into the Reflective Parent Club that score low on a scale that they take. That is, the parental competence scale.
Speaker 1:Many of us get stuck in this over-education mode where we're reading every single thing about parenting to try to know or learn and feel confident that we're saying the best thing for a child, when, in the end, it's part of it. However, a bigger part of that is trusting your instincts, trusting yourself, and that is what we do within the Reflective Parent Club. I'm not following a certain model. I'm following research. I want you to have access to these studies, which we summarize inside the Reflective Parent Club. I want you to have access to these studies but, more importantly, as you're working your way through this three-month program and, by the way, it's about 10 to 15 minutes a week, if you can.
Speaker 1:If you have less time one week, it's fine. If you have more time one week, it's okay, but that's the time you take on your own, and then, if you really don't have time, you join the weekly calls. I'm here with you every single Tuesday at 12 pm Eastern time, montreal time or 8 pm Eastern time, and you can come onto the calls and say hey, cindy, I did the activity on values, but I'm stuck. Or you could jump on the call and say this was a really shitty week and I don't even know where to begin. My friends are busy, I don't have family members to talk to, and so you come on the call and I'm there for you to walk you through it, gaining you perspective, ask you questions to help you reflect, to see where you're getting stuck. That is what the Reflective Parent Club is all about. We are slowly moving into clinics, both in Canada and the US, and so if you run a clinic, or if you or your child's at a clinic and you want our services to be part of that clinic so that all parents are taken care of, you, going to the clinic should not just be about your child, it should also be about you. It's about time that we start changing pediatric care so that we look at the parent and say how are you? Are you okay, do you need some support? Because we know from research that when the parent is struggling, so will the child, and so I am excited to see what is coming up for Kirsten on the next couple of months and this year, and I hope that you join me and share Kirsten on anywhere that you can, including this podcast. All right, that's enough chit chat.
Speaker 1:Dr Christina Calder is actually somebody that I met when I was doing my master's degree at Queen's University many years ago and I was in rehabilitation science. She was doing her PhD in rehabilitation science and we clicked. She's awesome, so fun, and what happened is that we reconnected on LinkedIn. She's doing such amazing work, similarly to what happened to me, where we got our degrees, we did the work that we needed to do and then realized that we also had a passion for something similar to our area of focus, but slightly, a little bit to the side, and so she has been doing a lot of really important work. I put her handle down in the notes for the show notes of this podcast episode so you can follow her.
Speaker 1:If you are a mom that is really struggling and understanding. When do I exercise? How much? What do I eat? Which vitamins do I take? Am I going through perimenopause? What does this mean in terms of my diet or the way that I'm working out? Do I do less weights? Should I take heavier weights?
Speaker 1:Christina Calder is the person for you, and so I hope you enjoy my conversation and, even if you're not a mom, if you're a dad listening to this podcast I know that there are many dads that listen to this podcast.
Speaker 1:You know, one thing that I heard from moms many times and I which is why I think it's still important for you is understanding what we are going through. I think that it's so important in the postpartum phase, after giving birth, some fathers don't understand, and it seems like it's coming out of nowhere. How can you be this sad, or why are you so? Why are you raging all the time? It's our emotions and our hormones and it takes over, and so, as you're going to understand through this conversation, the same thing is starting to happen in perimenopause now, as if we have not gone through enough, and so I think it's really important for all of us to understand what happens, and so I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr Christina Calder about understanding women's health, especially in our 40s. See you on the other side. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Curious Drone Podcast and, as promised in the intro, I am here with Christina Calder. Welcome, dr Christina Calder.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Cindy. I'm excited to be here. I'm so happy that you're here.
Speaker 1:So just to give everyone a bit of a backstory about this we know each other. We've known each other well. We knew each other from a very long time ago, but we did. I was doing my master's and you were doing your PhD right when we were studying at Queen's University. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we had Tatiana here on the podcast and now I have you, and it's just interesting how life happens where I'm reconnecting to those people that I, you know. We connected and I really loved spending time with you and we played soccer. You played soccer too, right, right? Yeah, yeah, no-transcript. And I know you have an Instagram account and we'll share that in the show notes. How did you get into this area?
Speaker 2:Well, it's really lived experience and I feel like a lot of people kind of get into it once they've gone through something and then they want to share what they've learned. So for me personally, it was entering my forties and all these changes that were happening and I was just what is going on. Um, you know, personally for me it was like I was at the time doing triathlon, so I was getting like I found my muscle was kind of wasting away. I was really fatigued and tired. I wasn't recovering as well. Um, I was getting all these injuries. So it kind of started in that area and I started doing research because, again, my background is on neuromuscular physiology and part of my doctorate thesis was looking at, you know, muscle related injuries and what's going on at the neuromuscular level. So, of course, being like you a scientist and loving research, I really started to dive into it and it was.
Speaker 2:It was a book that I read. I don't know if you've heard of Dr Stacey Sims and Celine Yeager, but they're really big in the women's space and exercise science and women in perimenopause and so I read this book that a friend recommended to me and it was just eye opening. It was just talking about all these symptoms that were related to perimenopause and I was like what did I? Like I didn't know what it was at the time, like I hadn't heard of it, right? Like you know, we kind of remember maybe that our moms went through this phase in their life where, like I remember, my sister and I explained it as when, like mom would go crazy is kind of what we say right, like she would just lose her, you know, and it was just that's kind of all I really knew about it and I knew it happened when you turned around 50.
Speaker 2:So when I started noticing things in my 40s I was just kind of like, again, I thought I had 10 years till that phase. So again, yeah, it was really like reading the book it was called Next Level. That just opened me up to like all these different symptoms and I was like checking all these boxes and so I just kind of went down this journey of learning everything I possibly could listen to, all the podcasts you know, reading all the articles I could and then it ended up me going kind of back to getting a coaching certification. So it was a year long program to become a women's health coach and functional nutrition, and then I've specialized in perimenopause, menopause research. So I've taken some additional certifications in that area and then you know, getting my personal training certification, kind of getting back into the space of women's health and more muscular, skeletal.
Speaker 1:And honestly like so I'm 40, I'm going to be 42. And I remember when I turned 40, it was like maybe a couple months after that I started developing insomnia and I spoke to a friend of mine. I was like, wow, something's going on. I didn't think I was stressed, but I was getting these really one week long insomnia stretches, and they were happening every month that I didn't realize stretches, and they were happening every month that I didn't realize. And then, at one point, after like the eighth month of this happening, my friend was like hold on a second, I just took a course on perimenopause and it's possible that this is linked to it. And so I started taking notes and I realized it was the week right before I was at my period that I would get insomnia.
Speaker 1:And I spoke to my mom, I spoke to my mother-in-law, I spoke to some women in my life that for sure like they're in their 60s, and I'm like well, you went through this, so I'm going to go see you and seek some advice from you. And they were like oh yeah, we didn't know anything about that. We didn't like why didn't? I was upset that they didn't. Why didn't they warn me about this? But they didn't know, and so they were looking for like signs. They were thinking like the menopause aspect was what you know they were waiting for, but nobody had explained perimenopause to them. So can we understand a little bit more about what perimenopause is and, like this, the changes that you saw as well in your body? What age does this start? And and and what is how? Why are we seeing these changes?
Speaker 2:yeah, like honestly, I feel like if you're in your 40s you could, could be perimenopausal, right, and some people start early as their late 30s it's. You know, our 40s are really this kind of pivotal time. There's what's happening biologically. So we have all these hormone shifts and it's really interesting If you look at like a chart of like your estrogen and your progesterone when you're going through puberty, they look pretty similar to what's happening at perimenopause, like they're kind of all over the place, so they're pretty consistent. When we kind of, you know, reach our kind of 20s through, you know, kind of into our like mid 30s, and then they're kind of erratic again. So we've got these hormonal shifts that are happening, these big all over the place estrogen, progesterone. So these fluctuations kind of cause a bit of havoc on our system. We also kind of we start to see body composition changes too, right, kind of happening in our 40s. You know, a lot of people say what used to work for me isn't working anymore If they're maybe trying to lose some weight that they've put on. Another big thing is, you know again, and it's kind of related to the body composition there's, these metabolic changes are happening. Some insulin sensitivity could be also happening and it's related to, again, the declines in estrogen and also our muscle mass is declining, right, and and again that's a big part of what I was studying was like muscle and when people got injured, how you'd have atrophy or you know, you talk about sacropenia as you get older. So, again, I never thought about women in their 40s, how much losing that muscle could be impacting all these factors. And the biggest thing too, if you think about our 40s, it's a huge kind of lifestyle things are happening.
Speaker 2:So, again, for a lot of women, this is kind of when they're at the peak of their career, right, this is maybe when they're kind of making that senior level management position, so it's more stressful, so they're dealing with potentially more stress at work. However, their hormones all over the place, so they're not able to kind of it's just, it's just, it's almost like this perfect storm that's happening. And then, and then add on top of that and this is personally how that happened to me you have teenagers in the house, so not only are my hormones all over the place, but my teenage daughters are all over the place. So it's just this, it's just yeah, and it's the sandwich generation, right? I don't know if you've heard this term, but it's like we also then have our aging parents. So not only am I worried about my parents, I'm stressed about what's going on in my career. Then I have my children, and again, nobody ever told me this.
Speaker 2:Like when your children are little, you kind of you know you're worried about feeding them and making sure they get enough food and sleep properly and they make friends and all that. But then when they become these teenagers, it's this emotional, it's like this psychological world that I'd never, even I didn't even realize was coming my way right, but it's like, it's constant. So again it's. It's perimenopause is typically in our 40s. Again, it could happen as early as 30, it could last like five to 10 years until you reach menopause. And like menopause is when you've had 12 consecutive months with no period. So once you've had no period for 12 months, then you're that's menopause. Like that day is you're in menopause and then. So everything after that is kind of post menopause.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay. So this perfect storm that we're in maybe somebody's listening to this and says, well, okay, you know, maybe I was already moody a little bit, or you know, the rage happened to me and that's part of what I always experienced. What are some signs and symptoms that we should be looking out for in terms of like? Maybe this is perimenopause.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there it's, it is insane. Actually, if you look at the symptom list, like you think the typical, right, you're like you hear, okay, so perimenopause, menopause symptoms, it's hot flashes, yeah, it's mood swings, right, and those are kind of like the biggest things you hear, maybe increased anxiety like, but there's this, there's a, there's numerous amount Like it's kind of again, when I read this, the book, and I was like, oh my goodness, I have like all these things. So really, when I work with clients, the first thing cause they always say, how do I know, can I take a blood test? I'm like, well, blood tests don't really tell all over the place. That kind of looking at your hormone levels isn't the greatest way to do it and it's not recommended by um, a lot of doctors. So step one is kind of like are you, do you have irregular periods like, are they shorter, are they heavier, are they like lighter? So kind of start tracking. I always tell my clients to kind of track and I and I kind of have a worksheet that I work with them to help this.
Speaker 2:And again, a lot of people now have like their Apple watches or whatever they have to track a lot of how they're feeling, and so that's kind of the first sign is if your, your periods are changing, hot flashes, night sweats, so that's another thing I experienced was more night sweats and my inability to handle wine. I used to be able to have a glass of wine and sleep, no problem. That's things I started noticing in my early forties. I couldn't if I have wine. Now I know I'm not going to sleep. Well, right, and and again it's. I'm a data person. So then I look at my I have my aura ring the next morning. I look at what's the you know, your HRV, and I can see that my parasympathetic, sympathetic system is not working that great because of wine, right so you see that you're not able to handle that type of out of stress.
Speaker 2:Um, you kind of said the mood swing, so like this is the big one is the increased anxiety and mood swing. So and again, if you have these symptoms, kind of when you're younger, the chances of them coming back and coming back full swing when you're in perimenopause is like the research shows it's like twofold right, like it's just like if you had it when you're in perimenopause is like the research shows it's like twofold right, like it's just like if you had it then you're going to get it now, type thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm happy that you said the anxiety part right, because it's not just mood swings there. I know many people my age that experienced severe anxiety that came out of nowhere in the early 40s. Well, it felt like it came out of nowhere. So, from what you're saying, that very possible. It's not about mood swing at that point. It's about your mental health being affected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and and honestly, that's like that's one thing that I experienced. So I I never really had anxiety and I would notice we would be up at a cottage and normally if my kids went out tubing I would be like have fun, but I was crippled with this fear and all I could think about the whole tube ride was they were gonna flip and another boat going to come and kill right, like it was just like right, and I could not enjoy myself and it was just so there. I had a lot of, I experienced a lot of kind of anxiety, like stuff that I never really had before. So that was another thing where I'm like check, you know. I mean, um, I did get the bit of the weight gain around the midsection, which again kind of happens as well, and the other thing was joint pain. So it wasn't just like general joint pain injury, it was kind of over the whole body and it was.
Speaker 2:This is brought dr bonda right as someone who talks about this a lot. She's an orthopedic surgeon and she coined the term um, I'm gonna forget the name of it right now.
Speaker 2:Again, another part of menopause is you because you forget yeah, we can add in the show notes for everybody after yeah yeah, but it's just this general, like muscle pain, like I would get up and I feel like an 80 year old person, like not being able to get out of bed.
Speaker 2:So just having this joint pain, um, and another big thing that women go through is just having, you know, general decrease in their libido. You know vaginal dryness is another thing that kind of happens. Um, I also had like itchy ears, like really itchy ears, like it was just like I would be in, and so again, I kind of had my own journey and then once I personally decided to go on HRT and once I started estrogen my I'm lucky, because it doesn't not everybody has the same reaction, a lot of people do go but my joint pain went away. I don't have the itchy ears anymore. You know, my mood has stabilized more. My anxieties come down a bit, like I feel like I'm kind of back to my old self, yeah, so those are kind of, I think, a lot of the main symptoms that you would hear about in perimenopause.
Speaker 1:Again, it's just, yeah, that general anxiety, mood swings, some night sweats, hot flashes, um, joint pain, yeah it's, it's a lot, and and it doesn't mean that we're going to get all of it right, because I think for myself, it was really just the insomnia that like came up, and I did have um other little things here and there, but it wasn't it's so hard, and I'm glad that you said to track it, because, as much as it's going to feel like work for us, it's actually going to help you understand what's happening to you a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Right, that's only when I started noticing when this insomnia was happening, and so I do think that it's important that we kind of come back to that and collect some data so that we understand what does it look like for us? I I you know you spoke about the anxiety and, like I said, so many women have experienced this. Um, I, I want us to get kind of get like a little bit nerdy and go into this gaba ergic system. You spoke about this on social media and I think that it's really important for many parents to understand that. So what is gaba, what is the gaba ergic system, and and why do you think, um, what should we know about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So again, this is something that I kind of came across when I was doing a lot of the research, because there's a researcher I don't know if you've heard of her, dr Lisa Moscani, and she's really big with women and brain health and what's happening during perimenopause, menopause, and so what she's finding in her research is that this decline in estrogen it's having an effect in the brain.
Speaker 2:Is that this decline in estrogen it's having an effect in the brain, and so estrogen is known to be, you know, it really kind of helps with our I believe it's the, it's the inhibitory neurotransmitter, so it's that calming in the neural activity. So, well, that is what GABA does, right, like, gaba is something that is in the brain and acts as a neurotransmitter, so it is what is our calming. So if we have a decrease in estrogen and estrogen is known to have a, you know, a really profound influence on the gaba function, um, you know, it does help regulate the production and the activity of gaba and the receptors. So if we don't have as much estrogen in there, we don't have the same calming effects, right? So that's, I think, one of the biggest thing that's coming out with her research is kind of looking at that relationship between the two. So yeah, so during perimenopause this fluctuation it can really disrupt. You know that GABA system.
Speaker 1:Well, it's so important to know this because sometimes there are things that, just by knowing, you feel a bit more normal, right, like? I think this is one of those things where knowing this is not going to change how you function tomorrow. However, knowing that this is happening in your brain, at least those thoughts that we have, those negative thoughts, are like what's wrong with me, right, like? I hope that helps somebody who's listening, because there are so many changes happening and these changes are leading to you not having the same control over certain things like your emotions and mental health, and it's really important, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I totally agree. I had this conversation actually with a client the other day because you know we were talking about you know kind of what's going on with her, and she was just saying, again, it was just all these things were happening in her life that were really stressful and she was feeling, you know, fatigued and these things were happening in her life that were really stressful and she was feeling, you know, fatigued and you know she was saying that she had some symptoms of like thought or period was coming, like breast tenderness, all this stuff and that, and she wasn't able to handle a lot of what was going on in life. And I was like you need to give yourself grace, like yeah, like you're saying right now, you have all these symptoms, so you know you're going to be getting your period soon, so that that, so you know your hormones are all over the place. You're in perimenopause, you know you, you have to like allow people around you, to like your husband and you know to be like I right now am feeling this way, right and to, and I think it's really getting the support from your network and who's around you and like I know I do that with my family. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:If sometimes I'm like, you know, I'm just having a bit of a day, you know what I mean, I just need a bit of time, and they're fine with that. Well, they hear me talk about it all the time, so you know, they're quite very much like oh, mom needs her moment, right. But I do think it is acknowledging it and knowing that what you're going through is because of these hormone changes. It's not because, you know, I mean like you're losing it. There's a reason for it, right, and it's okay if we all go through it. We all go through it if we're lucky to go through it, right, if we're lucky to be around at this time and it, and once you get over that hump, like it is better on the other side, and this is what I've heard, right. So it's just kind of getting through this storm and and yeah, and I think, as you say, it's getting it out there. So people know what to expect and how to support themselves during this time as well, right going through these changes.
Speaker 1:all of these changes leads to us having to be a little bit more mindful of our diet. I see so much online in terms of like eat just beef, like eat a steak every day, three times a day, or vegetables are bad, or eat these vegetables, or only eat vegetables and eat this much. It's just, it's really overwhelming, and so I could only imagine people out there saying like I don't even know what to, I don want to eat anything anymore because everything's bad for me. And is that changing for me as a woman now that I'm in my 40s, are going through perimenopause? So what are some things that we should know? Some overall, you know general things when it comes to diet when we are going through these changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you know, absolutely Like, this is, I think, this one area. There's a lot of misinformation that is out there and it makes me really angry because I do feel, like a lot on social media, that people are really targeting and taking advantage of women during this perimenopausal stage. You know they're trying to sell them like this, we can fix your menopause ballet or these are like all this stuff. I think with anything and I always say this like you're an N of one right, like we're all individual what works for one person is not going to work for the other.
Speaker 2:So the biggest thing that I see when I work with my clients, it is protein, and you do hear this all the time like protein, protein, protein. It's like a full time job, I think, to try to eat enough protein. But if you think about it, as we age, as everyone ages, man or woman, we're losing our muscle mass, and the way to maintain our muscle mass is to eat enough protein and to work out right, to strength train right. So the one biggest thing I say whenever I'm working with any of my clients is, honestly, like, if we could do anything, let's have breakfast right, like, let's like we need to support our system Like we wake up and with our cortisol levels like we should eat breakfast, and in making sure that we get around 30 to 40 grams of protein in that breakfast.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? Or look like?
Speaker 2:so you know I've done a few posts like this. A lot of people ask like, how do you get that? And and whether you do it without protein supplementation. So I do use whey protein. I do find it's just an easy way to to do it. So I, every morning I have the same thing. I'm pretty boring.
Speaker 2:I have my oatmeal because it's got my healthy carbs and my fiber. I put a scoop of my protein powder in it. I also add some Greek yogurt which is high in protein. So, again, some people could just have a big bowl of Greek yogurt with some fresh fruit and nuts and stuff like that. That's another great way to do it.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I always throw berries on it, like blueberries, raspberries and to get magnesium and like the healthy fats. I love pumpkin seeds, so roasted pumpkin seeds I always throw in it. So I have this bowl every morning and it's got around 50 grams of protein in it, right. So the one good thing about it, too, is it helps, keeps you satiated. So that's another big factor with protein is it's like there's a lot of benefits to it. And and again with with women and I find busy women is a lot of people skip meals, right, and because they're busy, they're running around, there's a lot that's going on and so, again, working with people, I always try to say having a meal every three to four hours, so really trying to have that breakfast, lunch and dinner at least, and with each of those trying to get around, you know, 30 to 40 grams of protein is really it's something that I think is really important. That and the fiber, so getting enough fiber, which we don't right.
Speaker 1:I've only recently become aware of fiber. I've been trying to be more mindful of what I eat. I was getting the protein. I have my bowl of Greek yogurt beside me. I was having before we started chatting. That's an easy part for me, but the fiber I've noticed I don't have a lot. How do we, how can we be more mindful about fiber? Because I've noticed that when I'm more conscious of bringing more into my diet, that I feel better. I don't know what changes, but I just feel better.
Speaker 2:I don't know what changes, but I just feel better. Yeah, well, it's because again, our like our gut, our gut microbiome, as we age, our system's aging, so things are changing. You know what I mean? Like what you might have been able to use to eat before your stomach could handle. You can't anymore. So there is a lot that's going, so it's supporting all that stuff. So, like again, anything that's high in fiber, or like a lot of lentils are higher in fiber I know some people that that supplement so whether they take, like my parents did, this all the time, they still do.
Speaker 2:Metamucil, right, like doing stuff like that to kind of help get the fiber up. So I'm I like tracking and a lot of times with people I'll say, just do it for a few days, like, I know it's a lot. But even if you do it for a few days, like, use something like MyFitnessPal and just scan the barcodes, measure stuff, know what you're putting in, just to have an idea of how much protein are you actually getting and how much fiber, right, because it would tell you that. Because a lot of people I talk to I'm like they're like oh no, I have a healthy diet, I get tons of protein.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, like, tell me, like what, what's your, what's your breakfast? Like they're like, oh, I have like two eggs and you know this, and that I might keep two eggs. That's almost like 14 grams of protein. It's not enough. I'm like, again, they don't. A lot of times I just say trying to get what your ideal weight is. So for me, let's say, my ideal weight's around 160 pounds. I should be eating around 160 grams of protein, which is a lot right.
Speaker 1:In a day. That's your total In a day yes.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, and I know somebody who's listening to this might even feel uncomfortable at some point hearing this, because I think, like the go-to when we were younger or growing up, it's like I'm going to skip breakfast. I want to lose weight, I want to, but you're saying eat breakfast, I need the protein, I need a lot of protein, but in the end we're trying to build muscles. It's not about the weight anymore. Right, we need to let that go, maybe, and focus on I don't know, maybe change or shift our thinking around that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's the. It is. It's the change, the shift, and that's kind of like kind of where I come up with my company name. There's a lot of shifts that are happening with our hormonal shift right, and a lot of women I find aren't eating enough. So that's the first thing too. Like they're not even getting what their, their basic metabolic rate is like, what they just need to function as a, as a person, just sitting all day Right, like a lot of people are just cutting the calories so aggressively that they're putting on more weight, like it's working against them. It causes even more fatigue. That can happen. It can happen and and and honestly, that that is kind of what happened with me, because I was no-transcript and I and I looked into fasting and I read a few books about it, but the more I've heard people talk about it, I really like Peter Attia, I follow him a lot.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like, in the end, what is your goal? And my goal and a lot of people's goal should be to maintain their muscle mass Because, again, the more muscle you have, the more, the higher your metabolic rate is so you know what I mean the more you can keep a healthy body composition. So if I'm skipping breakfast, then that could be impacting my muscle mass. I might be losing it. Because I'm skipping breakfast, then that could be impacting my muscle mass. I might be losing it because I'm not getting in enough calories and I'm not getting enough protein right.
Speaker 2:So again it really comes down to kind of what your goals are and again I work very kind of individually with each person I work with to kind of be like well, what are your goals like? Are your goals to have body composition changes? Is it to put more muscle on? Is it to like what? Where do you see yourself in the year for your health? Like, where do you want to get? And and a lot of times it is that shift of kate. You need to. You need to eat more. You know you've stopped doing all this cardio, cardio, cardio. You need to give yourself rest, right, a lot of people have to work out every day and no, your body rest, especially in perimenopause, when you're not sleeping, you have this heightened cortisol.
Speaker 2:You know there's just a lot of factors that come into play and they're all individual and you know you got to look at people individually and kind of what's best for them in their current state and what's going on in their lives.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy that you're bringing all these points up, because I know there are parts of discussions that I've had with people and there's a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation out there. Right, if we can dig a little bit deeper into the workouts, I think it's really important to understand. You mentioned muscle and our resting metabolic rate, so for those who might not understand what that means, this is like the energy, right, that our body is spending by just sitting. Yes, yeah, just functioning. Yeah, exactly Just functioning. So not even thinking about working out, but just sitting down. The more muscle we have, the more energy our body is using, right, in simple terms, yeah, and this is why you know it's.
Speaker 1:It's really important to to kind of understand this, because I've had discussions with older, like women in my life that are in their sixties and there's this misunderstanding of, like I don't want to have big muscles, right, and so they do the cardio, they walk for three hours a day, which is fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think they're supplementing it with the intake for calories, right, the food and the protein, and so this again. That's why I even said like, we have to shift that sort of idea of like less calories, more workout, more cardio and all that because I think we are stuck. Even for myself, it's almost like we've been told that so often that it's really hard to disconnect or disassociate from that and say, no, I need to work out, I need to lift weights heavy weights, not just five pounders, yeah. So what does that look?
Speaker 2:like You're right. It's like it's's this, it's and I have this conversation all the time with women and they're just like well, I don't want to get bulky. Like I don't want to lift heavy weights because I don't want to get bulky. And I'm like you're not. Do you know how hard it is to put muscle on? Like it is hard. Like I train four or five times a week to try to put muscle on, been doing this for years, but I'm still not bulky. Um, so a lot. It is that education.
Speaker 2:It's around letting women know that lifting heavy weights is not going to make them bulky. Like a lot of times, when you ask them what they want, they're like well, I want to be stronger, okay. Well, what's a strong? Look to you. Well, I want to feel toned, I want to be able to lift and do all these things. I'm like, okay, then that's weight. Like you need to do resistance training. You're not going to feel strong by being on a running, on a treadmill five days a week. You know what I mean. Like that's great for your cardio, which you need, but but yeah, so again, it comes down to you know the two biggest things I think with health and like health span is you know your strength, so your muscular strength, and like grip span is you know your strength, so your muscular strength, and like grip strength is a great grip strength and your vo2 max are the two big kind of predictors of health span. And so, with those two variables, is strength training for grip strength and then vo2 max, so your cardio ability to you know, take in and utilize oxygen is your cardio, so they're both important. So, right, a lot of times with my clients it's kind of again, it's personalized like how, how often can you get in a workout right, based on their life and their lifestyle?
Speaker 2:So really, the minimum level I would say is two times a week of trying to do weight training. So, and and if it's two times a week, then just do two full body days, right, and and you know kind of what does that look like. So for some people it would be like it's the main movement, so it's the main compound movements, like the squat, the hinge, the push, the pull, and then you kind of do these accessory movements to help with that. So you know you could. Only you only need to spend like 20-30 minutes sometimes doing these workouts but lifting heavy. So what that would mean is, let's say, I tell you to lift something five times.
Speaker 2:If you lift it five times and at the end I'm like, okay, like do you feel like you could have done a couple more, or could you've done another 510? And if you say another 510? Well, that's not heavy enough, right, like you almost want to lift where you could maybe have only done two or three more, and that called reps in reserve. So lifting heavy is getting to the point where you're, you're almost topped out and you know, I see this a lot at the gym. I'll be at the gym and I'll see women on equipment and once they leave I'll go on the equipment and I'm like they might have only been doing like five pounds. I'm like, again, it's great that they're there, it's great that they're at the gym and they're moving their body, but they, they could be so much more efficient with their time, right, if they just kind of knew to just push themselves a little bit more. They're not gonna become this, you know this bulky person, yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's like, and it's something called progressive overload. So it's kind of like if you, for example, go to the gym today and you, let's say, you're 20 pounds, you're benching, and you and you do that, you know, let's say, three sets of five and at the end you, you know you're feeling pretty good, you've got that two to three reps in reserve. So progressive overload means the next time you go to the gym you go either a little bit higher in your weight or a little bit more in your reps. So again, you're progressing right. And so every week you see this increase and cause you need to put the stress on your body to get a response.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of people might just go and keep doing the same thing over and over again. But well, you're not going to get stronger. Yes, you're building the neural networks, you're maybe becoming more efficient and proficient with the movement, but are you actually getting stronger, right? So increasing that weight or increasing that resistance? So a lot of people just need a bit of education around that and that's why I I always recommend, whether you talk to a personal trainer, you know, at the gym there's a lot of great kind of free kind of YouTube apps you can even kind of use as well if people want to do home based workouts. But but yeah, two times a week minimum doing resistance training I think is key and then and then doing other activities that support you Right? So my big thing is a lot of kind of the mental health and kind of what's going on with anxiety and mood. So I'm a very much outdoor person. I you can probably see on my Instagram I'm always like get outside is my hashtag. It's just a big stress relief.
Speaker 2:And, and and even if I like someone's like, well, I don't really like to walk.
Speaker 1:I'm like, just go to your end of your driveway one day, if you're feeling, just go outside into your driveway and back. Maybe the next day you'll maybe walk to the end of your road, right, like it's just a starting point for some people, but trying to get that 10 parents, it can be hard but we have to find ways to prioritize it.
Speaker 2:But it is challenging for a lot of parents. Pushing a stroller and you know, it brings me back to the days and that was me with, like, when I had was out with the kids and I'm like this is, this is what happens with women in midlife when their children are older, like I used to be hoisting, you know, a 20 pound baby and pushing the stroller, so I was essentially weight training, right, if you think about it like carrying this load or carrying these bucket seats.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing that anymore, right? So, again, this is when you see a lot of changes happening at perimenopause because you're you're not as active as you used to be, right, unless you are being intentional about it. So you know, that's another big thing I think to think about too, is, you know, we really do have to kind of be intentional with our, with our, with our working out and training and taking care of our body physically and mentally at this time.
Speaker 1:And you know what sort of advice would you give somebody who says, well, I haven't done this in a long time. I have kids now that are, like you know, maybe preteens or a little bit older. So I do think I have time, but where do I begin? I know you said the two times per week. I want to also bring up, like, the idea of like it's not an all or none thing, right, like you don't have to do seven days a week, two hours a day, because I know that some of us might go towards the extreme. Well, if two days is good, then I'm assuming seven days is even better. Right, but there's a what's the word? Like not a plateau, but at some point there's no more returning I don't know why, I can't remember the word right now Like there's no return to investment, right, if you're working out and muscle training seven days a week, yeah, and again it comes down to rest, like again there's a like during this, this time your body needs to rest, right.
Speaker 2:Like if you're putting strain or stress on your muscle, it needs recovery time. That's how, when it gets stronger, right. So you know again. When talking with, again it's individually, so it's like if you're saying a person's coming like I haven't done this in a while, what, what do I do? It's kind of like, well, what do you enjoy doing? Like it's kind of trying to figure out, because you don't want to make it hard for them if they're already busy and life's busy and like they have a lot going on. It's kind of like, well, what have you done or what have you done in the past that you used to enjoy? Like you know, I mean like find something that's easy.
Speaker 2:So if they're like you know I have weights in the basement or yeah, like just something like just like just start with one habit, maybe just one thing they could do, that's making them be a bit more active and getting into this kind of routine, because they'll realize how it makes them feel good, right, and it's so. Again, it depends on the person's time and what's available and you know what you think they're actually going to do, because it is a tricky time. There's a lot going on. We're really busy at this time, so it's kind of finding what will fit in your life, um, and not add an extra stress right, like you don't want to add that extra thing to do so again, if it's only two times a week, that's great.
Speaker 2:If you could do four times, that's great. Like that's, that's good. Like four times, I would say, is like that's it, mac, that like you know, I mean. And then you could get really fun with your workouts, doing kind of more like split type workouts one day you focus just on upper body, the next day lower body, right versus like a full body, or you know. And then there's a there's this whole research out there around um, hit or sit training, which is a way to again help our cardiovascular system.
Speaker 2:So it'd be something like if you're walking on a treadmill, um, you're just walking at an easy pace, you know you can have a conversation, you're kind of zone two, uh, and then all of a sudden you just increase it where you're kind of out of breath for 30 seconds like a sprint, like a sprint, and then you go back down for another four minutes, like if you can add stuff like that into some of your.
Speaker 2:Or even walking on the street, like you see a light post all of a sudden, walk really fast to the next light post, like it's kind of like an interval training, right, it's another way to kind of so that you can play around with it just by doing your simple walking around the neighborhood. Add some variation to what you're doing to increase, you know, your vo2 max and and I'm a big proponent of wearing weighted vests, so I've. I have a lot of my friends now, like a lot of people in the neighborhood are all wearing weighted vests. So I have a lot of my friends now, like a lot of people in the neighborhood are all wearing weighted vests. Again, it's just something you can do that can help with your muscle and bone health and your overall health and I love what you're kind of saying is like just see what works for you.
Speaker 1:There's no like set formula. It's just about moving your body and finding a routine that works best for you. And before you alluded to the fact that it doesn't even have to be an hour, you said 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes, right, and so it's possible for us to fit that in and everything that you're talking about for me from my background. Now I think about mental health, Like when we feel like we're stressed and we're just kind of like keeping the stress inside our bodies. But when we work out and we exercise and move our body, we mobilize that stress. We feel better after.
Speaker 1:I just think of the mornings. I prefer working out in the morning, before the kids wake up, and I do it from home and there's so much on YouTube that you can follow and it's simple to do. But the days that I don't do that, I'm not my best self In terms of emotions. It's harder to cope. So I do think it's important for us to get in some sort of routine of whatever works best for you, but finding that routine, because it's not only that you're going to notice your physical health feel better, but your mental health is going to feel better too, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like exactly what you just said, like you've identified what works for you, right and and it's and then it's around having boundaries, like that is your time, right, and it's kind of like and you let your husband know that, and you know what I mean Like it's just like my husband knows if I don't get exercise and I'm going to be miserable, right. So it's very much like. It's very much like mom needs to go for her bike ride, or you know. I mean like it's just, it's something it's a non-negotiable with with me and because I know how how much it impacts me positively when I do get out for whatever I need to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that. You know another thing that I see a lot on online and that it's really difficult to know what's best is these supplements or shakes, or you know, and you mentioned whey protein and so I have whey protein. And it's funny because maybe two months ago, somebody who's a weight who does weight training in my family reached out to me and said stop it, just stop the whey protein. I was like, okay, now what do I do? And they're like eat like five eggs instead of like two eggs and your protein shake or whatever it is. And I was like I'm just so confused and so what, what does the research say? Or what do you know in terms of, or what can you share with us really in terms of like, what can we do to supplement Because we're working out? Do we take what's the other one I hear a lot about With a C? Oh, creatine, creatine, like what are all these things and do we need them?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think the big thing with supplements is to really understand. That's the name. It's a supplement, right Like it's like. So you should really try to have a solid foundation with your nutrition and your exercise and your sleep and then supplements are then used to help if that needs to be helped in those areas.
Speaker 2:So with respect to protein, yes, it's better to get it from the real source, but if you can't like for whatever reason, then supplementing with whey protein you know what I mean. Like it's just like I will have my one scoop a day and that's what I do. Some days I might not because I can get it through other ways, but it's I'm not having like that in protein, but like I'm not having a bunch of that kind of bad stuff. But you know what I mean. I I've I've heard a lot of kind of exercise physiologists, nutritious, talk about. You know it is okay to supplement with whey protein. It's been researched, it's. I think it's a. It's a. It's, I think it's a. It's a. It's a safe way to kind of get in that extra protein if you need to.
Speaker 2:There's so much research around creatine, so I do take a five milligram scoop every morning. I put it in my water, like I have it in you know, I always have it in like my water and with a little bit of electrolytes, and there's a lot of research out there about how it does really help with with muscle performance if you are strength training and also brain, and that's one thing I've actually noticed is, you know, I did have a bit of kind of brain fog and stuff like that, and I have noticed that the creatine has helped and again, I don't like taking supplements, so I really researched it and there's a lot of support and it keeps coming out about it being beneficial. So I do think creatine is a great thing to have as a daily, a daily dose in your water.
Speaker 1:Um the other one is it what is creatine? Yeah, what is it helping with?
Speaker 2:creatine is something that is naturally in our muscles, and so my understanding of what creatine actually is is it kind of just helps with, you know, kind of muscle contraction?
Speaker 1:um yeah, okay, I think, yeah, I was just curious, yeah because we have it stored naturally in our muscle.
Speaker 2:So it I think it is more around kind of the muscle contraction part of it, I, but the whole brain thing. That's a new area, like I didn't know that it could help with that.
Speaker 1:But there is all this research supporting. I'm gonna dig into it. Yeah, yeah. And what about like vitamins or minerals? You mentioned the electrolytes in your water. I started doing that as well. Maybe somebody is hearing this for the first time. Why are we hearing about electrolytes all of a sudden now?
Speaker 2:Well, it's and this is another thing that I learned with kind of just learning as I've been doing is like if you just have plain water, it's not actually being really absorbed, absorbed right. Like you need to have that osmosis, like you have to have either whether it be a little bit of salt or like something in your plain water for it to actually get into your cells. So, for me, just putting like I have put a little scoop of like electrolyte in my water, just again to help with that process, right, to help with hydration, because if you're just having plain water with nothing else, you're not really hydrating yourself, that great, um, but if you have water with like, when you're just having plain water with nothing else, you're not really hydrating yourself, that great. But if you have water with like when you're eating food, obviously in your food you've got salts and all these other things that will help it pass. So, yeah, so that's a big reason why I have electrolytes and it's because I do typically work out every day, right, so I am kind of replenishing that, and it's another thing that happens actually in perimenopause and menopause we're not as thirsty Like we kind of that thirst.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that, yeah, so it's a big thing with my again clients I'm like make sure you're drinking enough water, because you might not feel thirsty but you still need to make sure you're drinking enough. Another big thing you might hear is magnesium. So people who again have issues with sleep. They would say, try having magnesium and see if that helps, and it could go. Either way, I've had some clients that felt like it actually made it worse for them. So then I would recommend not maybe taking it right before bed, but maybe a little bit earlier, like kind of play around with it, because again, everyone's a little bit different. But it's the magnesium glycinate is kind of good for that and I don't know if you tried that too when you were kind of having a bit of the insomnia I did it stopped my insomnia.
Speaker 1:That's great, yeah, yeah, it literally stopped when I started taking it. I it stopped the insomnia that I had. I'll have like about make one like night every once in a while, but it's it stopped because I would have three nights straight that week and that was hard. But yeah, I take my anisim. What else is there that maybe we should know about? So?
Speaker 2:omega-3s are big. So you know I mean, so that's that's one thing that you know, my, you know my doctor kind of always says to me is like the biggest thing is again omega-3s and again, why are they important? So it's really good for brain health and it's also for the inflammation, right, and because again, I was having a lot of kind of joint pain and I'm very active and I kind of have this knee injury that does get inflamed. So I take the omega-3 specifically for that. And then vitamin D.
Speaker 2:Again, living in Canada, you hear that all the time and you can get your vitamin D level tested and you know mine's pretty decent, considering I wasn't supplementing with it, because because I'm outside so much I think but and I love the sun, I'm a bit of a sun baby but I, yeah, vitamin d, so like the only supplements I really take, well, I kind of take those now. I take creatine, I take omega-3s, I take my vitamin d. Um, my sleep's pretty good and I get I eat so many pumpkin seeds I get a lot of magnesium between that and like my spinach and stuff like that, that that I don't take magnesium, but my sleep's really good now. So, yeah, it really. And then there's there are some women that take different types of adaptogens during perimenopause too to deal with their symptoms, that they don't want to try hormone therapy. The big ones that are kind of talked about is ashwagandha is one. I don't know if you've heard about that one I've never tried it.
Speaker 2:I have, but maybe somebody hasn't heard about that yeah, like ashwagandha, there's rhodiola, those are kind of the two big ones and they're supposed to help kind of with your, your stress resilience or energy levels and kind of some cortisol regulation. So you know there is research around that that it can help with that it's you know. So I think a lot of people who might have some type of like chronic stress or fatigue type thing could benefit from it. Um, and a lot of people will try these things like adoptogens before they maybe go on to hormone therapy.
Speaker 2:Right, it's kind of trying what can you supplement or do naturally? Like, again, if you, if you've tried to get a really good like sleep routine and you've done everything you can but you still can't sleep, then then maybe you know, then you try magnesium or you eat magnesium, rich foods, right, and then if that's not working, then maybe you can try, you know, taking something like an adaptogen to see if that can help with sleep and if that doesn't help, then maybe then you go to formal right, like it's kind of like there's so many tools, I think, in a toolbox that a person can use and it's just trying out and seeing what works for you, because, again, what might work for someone might not work for someone else, right?
Speaker 1:Right, and I know that somebody listening to this might say like, wow, that's a lot of testing on myself, right, like that end of one. There's a lot of work there, right, in terms of, like the right diet, the right amount of exercise, but it really makes a difference in terms of getting to know what you need. Like you said, maybe increasing just the foods that are rich in magnesium will help you, you know, in terms of your insomnia, but maybe that's not enough, and so you move on to the next. It just really is important. I want to, kind of I want to be mindful of our time. You know, what do we need to be mindful of? When it comes to our heart, too, because you talked about changes that are happening to our body that might impact our heart health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and this is something that again, I learned kind of with the research, like like, like heart disease is the number one killer in women, right, and then again I didn't like a lot of times it's other things that are kind of, I guess, more out of the media, but I didn't really know that heart disease was the number one killer. I didn't know. So that was, yeah, I mean either, right, so that was kind of the biggest one. And then the other thing that I learned about is that how estrogen plays a really protective role of your cardiovascular health. So when we have these decreasing levels of estrogen that are happening in perimenopause, this is now where we see changes. So a lot of people will talk about their blood pressures getting higher during perimenopause. They have the higher that LDL, so the bad cholesterol. They might have lower in the HDL, so the good cholesterol. It's also a time where you can have an increased buildup of plaque. That's happening. So again, like during peri and menopause, it's a higher likelihood for women to have heart attacks and strokes, and that involves, like it's kind of like this is a time that changes are happening because we've lost the protective mechanism of the estrogen. And the one thing that I found really interesting was that so and I had friends I don't know if you did, or know some women that when they were pregnant they might have had gestational hypertension or they could have had preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, like. Those are almost pre-markers, like if you had those when you're pregnant, the chances of you having the kind of issues with your heart going through perimenopause, menopause you're at higher risk, right. So again, I didn't know this. So, and a lot of women I don't think know this because they kind of treat you at the time when you're pregnant but then that they don't follow up after, like it gets.
Speaker 2:I was listening to cardiologists talk about how it should be. Those women should be followed and it should be monitored, right, because if, if that stress on their body of being pregnant cause these issues in their system with their heart or blood pressure etc. Then you know we should track them and see what's going to happen at perimenopause. So, honestly, with the heart health and it was February too, right, so that's why I'm talking a lot about heart health but it's just like having regular annual checkups looking at what your blood is, looking at your blood pressure, right. You can easily go into any shopper's drug mart and sit in one of those machines and just have an idea of what's going on with your blood pressure, right, yeah, so I think those are the biggest things, so kind of knowing what your lipid panels are looking at, like your glucose A1C.
Speaker 1:As you were talking, I was saying to to myself I need to book an appointment with my doctor. I can't remember the last time I had a blood test, but it's important and you just reminded me why we need to look into that. Yeah, I do every birthday.
Speaker 2:It's like my birthday is in january so every january like I love it that it is the beginning of the year. So I'm like, okay, yeah, new year here we go, like let's do all the testing and yeah and yeah, and this is now like this is I just turned 49.
Speaker 2:Right, so this is my last year in my 40s. So like my goal is to be in the best shape of my life when I'm 50. So like I got all my blood markers. You know I've got everything. I know. I know I did a VO2 max test. I have all these goals. So then when I redo it in a year, like I just want to do that much better.
Speaker 1:Right, like, yeah, that's so good. It's so good it really is. I think to close off our conversation, maybe this is a good segue, talking about, like the doctors right, at what point do we say I need to explore other options? You know, magnesium and supplements aren't working. I've tried everything here and my not just mood, my anxiety is high, my body's in pain, I'm not doing well, I'm not functioning properly. And I want to kind of add to this you know that not all doctors might be as educated as we think and to kind of be your own advocate.
Speaker 1:The reason why I'm saying that is because when I was going through the really severe insomnia again, three nights straight was a common thing for me every single month. And I went to the doctors and he said here's a sleeping pill. You know, take a little bit every month and whenever it happens and you'll be fine. And I said well, don't you want to ask why or what's going on? Or aren't there any other follow-up questions to me telling you I have insomnia besides that? And so I really felt frustrated by our system. It's not everybody. I work with doctors and we have like collaborations with clinics to cure sterone, and I know that they're not all like that, but when it comes to paramenopause and menopause, I feel like we have to be even more of our own advocate and stand up for ourselves, right yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent. And like this is, honestly, I think it's a big issue right now. And and you know I'm lucky that my doctor is someone who is my age and well educated and up on top of all this and you know, when I went in with my concerns, you know I brought in like my book and I had it all like paid flag to like all the like these are the symptoms I have. And then this is, and I tried this and I and I laid it all out and I'm like, and I was, I was waiting for her to say no, because this is all I've heard about, like whether you're gaslight where they're, like oh, it's just part of aging to deal with it, right, like I and I've had friends who have gone through that.
Speaker 2:I was lucky that my doctor did not. She was very much like 100%, let's put you on whatever. You know what I mean Like she was fine with it. So my advice a lot of times, like if you, if you've done everything you can, you have this checklist, like go in with the questions that you want to ask, like you know. And and if they're, there's places, like I know in burlington, where I live, if a doctor is not listening to them, then I could send them to other, like there's, there's a place where they're nam certified, so north american menopause society, so they're pharmacists, so you can book a consult with them and and they could prescribe you certain things too right, or they at least can write out something for your doctor.
Speaker 2:Like if your doctors, a lot of doctors, are scared and they, because of what happened in the WHI study, you know, there was a scare about, you know, estrogen and it's linked to breast cancer, and so it kind of caused this big scare factor about women taking hormone therapy, um, scare factor about women taking hormone therapy.
Speaker 2:Um, and again, it's like I do feel like it's out there more, a lot more people are becoming educated. A lot of doctors are not a lot. Some doctors are taking the time to kind of re-educate themselves, um, but there are and I've noticed this on social media there's a lot of private clinics that are being opened up. There's a lot of doctors kind of going more into that you have to pay for. For it it's not going to be covered, but there are women's health centers now that you can go to and, I think, be heard right and you will be talking to people who specialize in this area and will support you for what you need if your doctor's not. But again, that's a huge barrier because some people might not be able to afford that right.
Speaker 1:So it's yeah, at least the education piece and keep bringing it up. And you know, hopefully with the conversation that we had today it offers everybody some sort of foundation of where to begin. Try with the exercise. You know, monitoring, data collecting, you know for yourself, I think we've covered so much that I'm hoping somebody can say like I can start with this. And then you know, if I see, for mental health we always say like when you're not functioning. So I'm assuming it's similar to this point, right, where you're losing a lot of time, you're not going to work as much, you're taking a lot of sick days, you're not well, you're not yourself with your family. I would assume that's like the kind of flag that you want to look for in terms of like you really need to ask for help. But everybody will experience the symptoms very differently, right, there's a range of how severe or how many of them. So just being aware of that, I'm assuming, will at least help you with the next steps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and burnouts like burnout is a huge thing that happens with women at this age because of, again, everything that's happened. I know that you've had people on talking about burnout before, so that would obviously be good for people to go back and kind of listen to that as well. But, but, yeah it's, there's a lot going on, but there is also a lot of help, support, and I think the more that we talk about it and the more we educate ourself about it and and you know everyone just taking a small step that might help them move in the right direction. So, again, whether that's just walking out the front door getting some air, doing some deep breaths, that might be enough to help you. It doesn't have to be a 5k weighted vest. Walk right like it just could be some simple steps to just kind of right, yeah, supporting yourself with nutrition, eating enough, getting enough protein and rest and sleep.
Speaker 1:It's so much important getting good sleep. Yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. Where can we learn from you? I'm going to put everything you talk about in the show notes. You mentioned some books. You have an Instagram account. What is it, and is there any other way that we can continue learning from you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the best would probably be looking at my Instagram account. I'm pretty active on that. So that's at Dr Christina Calder, which, again, you'll put in the show notes. I also do have a website that I post the odd blog on there, but my Instagram is probably the place that you can find me the most, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the people you mentioned that you work with, is that only locally or is that also online?
Speaker 2:So that's online, so I do both kind of. It's mostly via Zoom, but if you are in my area, then obviously there could be more kind of one-on-one touch sessions and training sessions in person. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks again. I really appreciate it Me too, cindy. It was great to see you and talk to you. See ya, thank you, bye. If you haven't done so yet, make sure you are subscribed to the Reflective Parenting Podcast. Save it, share it with your friends and make sure that you help us grow the audience and, by sharing it or leaving a review or a rating, you are helping us grow and get the word out. This is not your typical parenting podcast. I want to make sure that you have a space that supports you and makes you feel seen and validated and supported, and so I hope you have a wonderful and beautiful week. Happy reflections, my dear parents and I will see you next Monday. Bye.