The Unfiltered Health Podcast
The Unfiltered Health Podcast delivers real, authentic conversations about health, wellness, and longevity. We break down complex health topics, sharing evidence-based insights, practical advice, and personal experiences. Our mission is to educate, inspire, and build a supportive community committed to living well and thriving together—no filters, just the truth about what it takes to achieve lasting health.
The Unfiltered Health Podcast
89 - Embracing Fitness and Health After 40: Navigating Menopause and Perimenopause Challenges
Women over 40 face unique challenges in their health and fitness journeys, particularly due to hormonal changes during menopause. With actionable strategies on nutrition, strength training, and mental health, we aim to empower women to embrace this phase of life fully.
• Discussion on hormonal shifts and their impact on metabolism and muscle mass
• Common health issues faced by women over 40, including weight gain and joint pain
• Importance of strength training for overall well-being and resilience
• Recommendations for dietary adjustments focusing on protein and healthy fats
• Emphasis on rest, recovery, and the need for lifestyle changes
• Importance of blood work to monitor health and nutritional needs
• Encouragement to seek support through coaches and community resources
• Call to action for women to start making positive changes today
Contact The Unfiltered Health Podcast
- DM us on Instagram or Tag us @theunfilteredhealthpodcast on Instagram
- Please give the show a 5⭐ review if you are a regular listener on Spotify or iTunes
Today we're diving into a topic that so many women over 40 can relate to why achieving fitness and health goals feels different, and often harder, than it did in their 20s and 30s. From shifting hormones and slower metabolism to changing priorities and lifestyles, the journey to feeling stronger, healthy and vibrant takes a new kind of strategy and mindset. So here's the good news it's absolutely possible. In this episode today, we're going to uncover what's really happening in your body, debunk some common myths and give you some actionable tips to feel your best at any age, mostly at 40, though. Today, whether you're looking to build muscle, lose weight or simply stay active and energized, we've got you covered. So, possibly, grab a coffee, throw on those headphones and let's talk about thriving, not just surviving, after 40. So, steph, I thought let's maybe just discuss some common things that we see after 40 with some of our female clients.
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest things I see is a change in hormones, especially because the body is getting ready to go through menopause. So we often see a loss of collagen. We might see loss of bone density, elasticity in the skin um, I tend to see bursitis. So the tendon issues uh, based again, that's based on the loss of the. Yeah, go.
Speaker 1:I learned something about this the other day, shit. So a common reason why women who are in well menopause essentially is the end of menstruation, so you no longer get a full period. Um, women who have gone through that and they no longer have a period, they're menopause. They're not just menopausal, they're done like you're. I don't even know what the end of it would be like, because menopause is essentially like it stops. Yeah, you've gone through menopause.
Speaker 1:Anyway, let's just call it that you've gone through menopause a lot of reasons why they get shoulder yeah, post-menopausal reasons why they get shoulder injuries or bursitis is because apparently there's a loss of a lot of estrogen sites on the, the muscle in the shoulder yes, so essentially gets dried out.
Speaker 2:Yes, so think about, like all the fluid liquid that's in that area, it tends to dry, which means it's not lubricated as much, so in a sense, it becomes rusty isn't that amazing, isn't that so, like, crazy and strange?
Speaker 1:it's in our shoulder, like, why? Our shoulder which?
Speaker 2:is, yeah, that I do not know, but, um, that is why we tend to see a lot of tendon issues shoulder bursitis, hip bursitis, um being the top two that I I tend to see that and Achilles tendinopathy um, I tend to see women over 50, 40 to 50, yeah, yeah, we have a bunch of clientele in their 40s and 50s and sometimes occasional 60 year old and it's amazing like these women who are coming to us in ladies at lift are typically women who have lost hope.
Speaker 1:Their body's not changing. They've gained so much weight the symptoms like of hot flushes is quite common. Um, just, their body is just changing and not responding how they used to. I'll get a lot on. I get a lot on the phone.
Speaker 1:You know, used to be able just to not eat all week in my 20s and I'd look amazing at the weekend and I was like, oh, you know, that's bad, that you had to do that at that time and obviously not a good practice. But what you're trying to say is that you can't do that anymore and I think, um, it's very common for the metabolism to be spoken about. Um, it just it's just a change in the estrogen, because estrogen is essentially a steroid hormone and it's like a stress buffer, but it also gives you that energy and the ability to build muscle and now, with menopause, your estrogen tanks. So if you haven't had muscle before, you haven't built your muscle. Your body's ability to lose weight is now relying on low muscle mass because you don't have much and no estrogen.
Speaker 1:So how do you build muscle if you don't have much? That's really the question. I think that comes to my mind with this age group and I don't have the answer. But I think you just need to start training because you do have some estrogen. It doesn't completely go from 100 to 0, it goes over time and it kind of just stagnates at the bottom and you see 80 old, 80 year olds, 90 year olds in the gym lifting like it's obviously the body's just not the same, obviously physically, appearance wise, but your body is still doing its thing in other ways. So the hormonal shifts is what we're pretty much touching on and I think it's quite interesting that we don't know much about it and as young people we didn't learn this in school. Steph no.
Speaker 2:I don't remember this. No, we didn't. And, to be honest, I'm learning as I go with each client that comes in and their experiences, so I'm really learning a lot from clients. I have been seeing a lot more 40-plus females coming in and the symptoms are all very similar. So I'm noticing patterns and I'm noticing very common complaints. So I am learning a lot. I'm learning a lot as I go.
Speaker 1:I think that's. The benefit for us as practitioners is that we get to see the certain problems that people face in their life, and especially in the later years in life, and we can go oh, I really don't want that to be the case for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and especially if you know females are having kids or if there is osteoporosis in the family. Common things that I do see is bone density, brain loss. They start to lose density through the bones, lack of calcium, and then they start to have a lot of joint issues. Um, and I've seen that with quite a few females and over a 12 week block of just getting them into some strength weight based training, they go for their brain density scans again and their brain density has improved so much they're feeling better, they're feeling stronger, they're not getting that joint pain. Feeling stronger, they're not getting that joint pain. So I'm a big, big, big advocate for women over 30 plus 40 plus lifting weights because I think it is so, so beneficial for them. And this is not even talking about aesthetically being aesthetically beneficial, it's all the other things internally, yeah with um, our generation.
Speaker 1:We are quite lucky that we have so much knowledge, but we also already had an interest in this area, with movement, so we are already double lucky, because we're not lucky, but just our interest peaks in this area. We're very passionate about this area. So, for the rest of our generation, though, with social media, the influx of fitness and like the reasons why young people need to do fitness there's so many people and young women in the gym. I love it. So I'm so like I'm excited for our age group to go through the next phase of our lives and see what comes up.
Speaker 1:But research is so behind, funding for women, women in studies it's so behind, so you know who knows what's really going to happen there. But I do, thinkotally, like we can already tell, the women who are training as a young person have a lot, usually a lot easier symptoms with most things better resilience, better bounce back in injury, better bounce back in mental health. It's an antidepressant and I think the mood shifts for women in menopause is something we could also touch on, because when you go through menopause, estrogen, like I said before, it's a stress buffer. It helps buffer against stressful physical situations and also against mental situations. And not only that, but you have progesterone that also drops, which is your like calming mood hormone.
Speaker 1:And then you've got cortisol, which is always there for us. It's part of life. The cortisol is the common one that gets the blame for stress, but we do need a little bit of it to to deal with stressful situations. So fight or flight, but usually in menopause the mood symptoms are worse. So you have no estrogen, no stress buffer. Your cortisol goes up, your body's going through changes, these hormonal shifts are happening, you've got, you're going through symptoms, and if you don't have any muscle mass or don't have any healthy habits you're going to especially with food and training and maybe some social connectedness you're gonna have a tough time you definitely have a really tough time.
Speaker 1:so I think with our generation it'll be interesting to see what we go through and how we handle it, because there's so much more information. There's also more naturopathy and less Western medicine influence for some of our generation because we're interested in a more natural way to heal our body. What do we do? What is our advice for women who want to get into strength training, interested in the area in their 40s, feeling all these mood swings, changes in bone mass, changes in just their symptoms? Maybe the hot flushes is obviously the most common one, but weight gain, frozen shoulder tendon issues what's some advice that we could give them to get into the gym or start something now?
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest is if you don't feel comfortable going to a gym by yourself, hire a coach, invest in a coach, get some one-on-one personal training. You know, some semi-private sessions, so you build a bit of a community. You feel comfortable with like-minded um individuals. I think that's probably your best bet, because looking on the internet can be very overwhelming, especially if you're in your 40s and you may not be tech savvy or you may not be really into instagram. You might jump on instagram and you see all these people with all these different exercises, all these different programs and you sit there like what do I do? What's right, what's wrong? You know where do I start?
Speaker 1:it can be so overwhelming it's overwhelming for me sometimes, like when I jump on some Instagram, tiktok, facebook, I'm just like, oh my god, every single thing you look at is somebody else's perspective, somebody else's experience. That's great, but you got to think context is this relevant for you? Um, you said something about actually, yeah, the scrolling on information and seeing different things, but there is that I think that generation also had a lot more cardio influence and like, really liked and enjoyed cardio and moving into the strength realm is quite daunting and scary and I do get feedback at times where there is that age group of women who are like I don't fit in here, like I don't look like that, like how can I be in the gym like this? There's all these pretty girls in shorts and leggings and I don't want to wear leggings, I don't want to wear shorts, like you don't have to do what every other young person is doing in here. This is not where you start, right?
Speaker 1:Let's debunk that. First off is that you need to start where you're at and if coming into the gym and hiring a coach, like you said, doing something with that coach and obviously the right tailored program, ideally to maximize results, because you will get results it's just going to take a little bit more time. And what I see with women over 40, who've had a really hard time a lot of weight gain and not much muscle mass, um, um is they really struggle to change their body because they're not consistent in the gym. They have no muscle mass. I've already said that like six times. But they're also not eating the right foods and because your hormonal balance changes, you need to have the right foods, the the right fruits, the right, the right foods in your diet that are anti-inflammatory, are not inflammatory, not highly processed. You need to shift that because you're not going to lose weight if that's your goal and build muscle, you're not going to do it the best way.
Speaker 2:it's going to take a lot longer and I know the most common alternative or the go-to, we'll call it for women of an older generation is medication. I know that's sort of one of the first things that they'll go to their gp and they'll say I'm experiencing x, y and z, you know, hot flushes, fatigue, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:And then generally the gpa will say cool, I think it's time for you to go on, so, hrt yeah yeah, hrt description and I've had countless females actually say to me I don't want to go on it, I wanted to have something different. Is there an alternative? I'm actually training a um client at the moment. I've been training her for a number of years and menopause actually came up the topic and she's already gone through menopause. She's post-menopausal. She didn't take any medication.
Speaker 2:She very much went through a natural way in terms of all the supplements were natural. She saw a naturopath on the right vitamins, on the right supplements. Her eating was incredible no processed crap, eating really healthy foods to help nourish her body during that time, and she did not have very many symptoms and she actually had a really I guess good we'll call it experience during that metabolic process because of the way she looked after herself. So it's definitely possible.
Speaker 2:It's definitely possible to have a good experience where you're not bogged down by the fatigue.
Speaker 2:You know you're not losing sleep every single day because of the night night sweats or the hot flushes. You don't have migraines that are absolutely killing you um, you know you don't feel extremely overwhelmed and your mental health isn't heavily impacted, because I hear all these symptoms quite a bit and I know there are some clients that do struggle with some symptoms quite a bit and it's starting to impact their life and they're starting to become very frustrated. So there definitely are options and it you know it is case dependent, because I know for some people they found it really beneficial to go on medication. Other people didn't. It is a it is a tricky one, you know. I'm not a GP so I can't really it's out of my script to turn around and say don't take it or do take it. But I do believe that you know, try everything natural first in terms of looking after yourself, fueling your body right, nourishing your body right, and then, if that doesn't help and you've tried all the things, you know that might be an option.
Speaker 1:But I definitely look to that as a last resort I think another thing for people to really do is do more investigation, research themselves with practitioners or podcasts and people that you can use to learn from, because this information, whilst your doctor might not know, somebody else will know. And there are specialist doctors who specialize in menopause. There's ob-gyns who specialize in female health and go down the menopausal pathway and really understand what is going on, rather than going to the doctor and going I'm having xyz, what do I do? And they go here, have this hormone replacing therapy, which is hrt, right. So I think you need to go investigate. You need a team of people around you. You need to.
Speaker 1:Obviously, it is non-negotiable as a human to not move like. You need to move. You need to eat properly. I'm really hard on this topic sometimes with people because there's no easy way out. You can go take a zen pick. Sure, you can lose some weight, but what happens after, like we need to be very clear here is that you need to have healthy practices that allow you to have a much healthier transition in your life.
Speaker 1:And that's not to say you know I'm being hard on anyone in their 40s who hasn't done that. I think what I just want anyone in their 40s who's listening to this, or anyone who might be perimenopausal listening to this is that there is no time better than now to start changing and start changing your life for the better and making those healthier decisions. You know you might have kids, you might be studying, you might be doing both. I know a lot of mums who are studying and have two kids on the side or three kids, and they want to have time for themselves. And you know, some parents call up, parents mothers call up and they're like I feel bad, blaming my kids, that I don't have time, and I think, if that's how you're feeling, change it. Can you just do 15 minutes of a walk. Can you do 15 minutes of squats, push-ups and some lunges on a youtube and do it in the house with the kids while they're around, like it doesn't have to be so hard to access social media. Whilst there are things that you know maybe we wouldn't recommend doing if you've got injuries and whatever and whatnot, but if you know your body a little bit and you're willing to try something low impact you can go low impact workout and see how you go. You know you can start there if you, if the access, accessibility and getting somewhere is too hard. Start low, really low. Ball those expectations, ladies, and start changing at home. Start doing it.
Speaker 1:You don't always need to pay for something, if, also, that might be a problem. You know money, you got kids, they're in school, you're studying. You can't afford it. All right. No one's asking you to pay for anything to change you it's. It's free to change. As a human, you have that power to make a decision today, next minute, next 30 seconds. So I would highly encourage anyone listening to this podcast who's feeling the feels of menopause or perimenopause, or knowing they're going to go through it one day, and start making some active decisions for yourself so you have a much better third of your life, because apparently menopause is one third of a female's life, which is huge it is.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is, and I think, like you touched on before with social media, there are so many good free resources out there. You have so much access to so much information on these platforms now, so definitely do your research. Definitely there's too much. We're like go look, go look, don't you know it's, it's good to just look, you know. It's like I said look, ask questions, you might learn something. There is a whole lot of crap on there, but there is also really good stuff as well. There are good practitioners that are promoting good education and they've got some you know great posts, great resources that you can have a look at. So if something Google has heaps, google, google, google has heaps. And you know, if cost is something that is affecting you and is impacting making the decision to train or to exercise or to work with a coach, start off with your youtube videos. Start putting something on instagram. You know there are free apps. Um, you have access to the world on your phone.
Speaker 1:Start more than more than people realize.
Speaker 1:I think like we don't use it that way and if you are in that age group, I think, start using it in that way. I do find, with my parents, age is that they're really happy with what they know and that's just what they know, and I'm grateful my parents, because they are quite healthy. But there are some things that they might say occasionally, or some things whether it's about health or fitness or finances, or where you put your money in, whatever business. There are some things that I think this is an old way of thinking. I encourage you to go look at this, or maybe have a look at this or read this. Do like listen to this. There is so much to learn in life and you can. You're like Steph just said you have access to the world, which is so empowering when you think about it. You have access to the world, which is so empowering when you think about it.
Speaker 2:So to, I guess, to wrap things up, I want to dot point some tips that we could give females over the age of 40 and anything to do with recommendations on how to combat certain symptoms, with recommendations on how to combat certain symptoms, how to, I guess, how to get the best what's called the best experience during the menopausal journey, because obviously we can't avoid it. We can't avoid it, but what are some tips we can give them to help? What are some tips we can give to help that we strongly recommend?
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this yesterday and I was like oh okay, um, I would definitely start with making sure you're eating a high protein, high fat diet. Fats are essential for hormones. If you are not having enough fats in your diet now, you need to be looking at the olive oils, avocados, coconut oils, ghee, tallow butter, meats, especially red meat. Um, you need to be ensuring you're having plenty of protein and fats in your diet to help your hormones transition and also do their job properly. If you don't have enough fats in your diet, your hormones don't do their job properly at all.
Speaker 1:So, number one protein in every meal and fat in every meal. Chicken, butter, steak, avocado, random mixes, doesn't matter. No protein, fat, protein, fat, protein, fat. Um, also, fats help reduce inflammation, same with protein. So if you're eating lots of sugar, uh, high fructose foods, a lot of women who come to see us usually start their day with something with lots of fructose. Lots of smoothies, pineapples, pears, mangoes it's, it's good, but I would probably go more towards berries and having a smaller portion and pairing it with protein as well to stimulate the carbohydrates better. So that's my first tip, or two tips cool.
Speaker 2:Tip. Number two we've spoken about it literally this whole episode strength training. Weight training is so good for your joint health, your bone health, collagen, elastin, your tendon health. It helps with mental health as well. The amount of clients, um, that give me feedback on how good they feel and how they come out of sessions feeling less stressed, and that their training is helping them so so much with their mental health it's just ridiculous. So strength training, you know, if you don't like strength training, do some form of training that you enjoy. But I highly recommend at least one session, minimum a week, of strength training, weight training, um, and then, on top of that, picking exercises that you enjoy, or training or working out, or any type of routine that you find fun to encourage more movement.
Speaker 1:Motion is lucian motion motion motion is lucian, I think three is um, rest.
Speaker 1:So when you are in perimenopause or postmenopausal, your stress, your cortisol actually I would probably say more to the words the perimenopausal, your stress is probably a little bit more heightened. You're going through some changes. Ah it's, you know a lot. So I would definitely say resting and recovering and prioritizing your sleep. If you do struggle with sleep, maybe you need to see more daylight.
Speaker 1:Daylight viewing has been linked to better sleep habits and getting to bed earlier. So this is just one suggestion, it's just something of throwing out there. It might not be the magic fix, but really ensure you are incorporating some daylight viewing early on in the day so that your weight, your sleep time is actually regular, because when you sleep, you rest, recover, your body gets the nurturing it needs and I think that resting allows you to properly go about your day without having such major mood swings, because when you don't sleep even those of us who are menstruating women we have major mood swings if we're not sleeping enough, if we don't sleep good. But my brain does not work the same yeah, I like that sleep.
Speaker 2:And number four anything else, um, I think the last one. I would recommend getting blood work, getting blood tests. I like that, just to have a look at what areas you are lacking in. Are you lacking in vitamins? Are you lacking iron? What are your home? Where are your hormone levels? That way, if there is something obvious that you can fix on your own through supplements and vitamins, you can get on top of it.
Speaker 2:If there's something that needs a little bit more digging, then you can take that and go and see a naturopath. But at least you know. If you are experiencing things like brain fog, you're feeling very fatigued, getting migraines, um, you're struggling with weight loss, you're feeling really bloated, you know a few of those things. You're getting a lot of joint pain. Definitely do some blood work to see whether or not there is something that you can do or something that is off that you can then go investigate further and actually implement vitamins or whatever it may be to help address it there's so much more I want to add to this, but just without like going too over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you've hit it on the head. There's so many aspects that we can dig so much further into, but I just for time purposes. I think you've hit it on the head and if you do what we've said so far, you'll be in a really good space.
Speaker 2:I think so, and at least a good position to feel like you have a bit of control, because you can feel like you don't have control of what's going on because your body is going through such a big, big change. Bit of control, because you can feel like you don't have control of what's going on because your body's going through such a big, big change. Yeah, uh, so at least addressing these you know four factors and and really getting on top of these four factors, I think will set you up in a really good position yeah, I hope that helps everyone.
Speaker 1:I hope you guys have got some really good tips out of this today and if you did enjoy this podcast, please make sure to message us, leave a five-star review on spotify as well, and if you have any comments in spotify, you can actually add a comment now to episodes. So if you did have any questions, please feel free to leave a question in spotify. It is on a public um like your name will be public, so just fyi. If you don't want to send your question there, please d DM us and we'll get back to you and we'll talk about it. We don't have to make your name known. We will make it anonymous as well. So you're more than welcome to ask more questions. We have more episodes coming for the year and we are changing the schedule. We are going to make this fortnightly. Both Steph and I are drowning happily, happily in work.
Speaker 1:Yeah we do we. Our last episode was about podcast, um, about balance, so we are trying to find a little bit more of that ability to juggle all the hands at once. So, um, these will be coming out a little bit less frequently, but you'll still be able to listen to our episodes whenever you like. So that's all.
Speaker 2:Thanks, everyone see you on the next episode.
Speaker 1:I was waiting for you to say something bye.