#20: The Top 5 Things Every Woman Going Through Menopause Should Understand

Are you wondering if you'll have to deal with fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, poor sleep, mood changes, and hot flashes for the rest of your life?

Many women entering perimenopause and menopause ask two questions: Will I ever feel better? and What can I take to make these symptoms go away?

In this episode of Menopause Breakthrough, we explore five foundational steps that can help you better understand your body, address the root causes of your symptoms, and support your health during this transition.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

1. Understand What Is Happening Hormonally and Metabolically

Learn why menopause affects more than your hormones and how changes in metabolism, sleep, mood, and energy are all connected.

2. Test Rather Than Guess

Discover why comprehensive lab testing can provide valuable insight into what's really driving your symptoms.

3. Stabilize Blood Sugar

Understand how blood sugar imbalances can contribute to fatigue, cravings, brain fog, weight gain, and mood changes.

4. Support Your Stress Response and Adrenal Health

Learn how chronic stress impacts hormones, energy, sleep, and overall well being.

5. Address Nutrient Deficiencies and Inflammation

Find out why proper nourishment and reducing inflammation are essential for helping your body function at its best.

Key Takeaway

When you stop guessing and start understanding what your body needs, you can begin taking steps toward lasting improvement.

Reflection Question

What if your symptoms are not your body's way of failing you, but its way of asking for support?

Connect With Me

If you're ready to gain clarity about what's happening inside your body, learn more about my Metabolic Hormone Lab Analysis, designed to help identify imbalances and create a personalized roadmap for better health during menopause.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a woman who needs encouragement on her menopause journey.

To learn more about our program visit our website at

https://www.happinessinyoucoach.com/menopause-elite-program/

Also, if you are a woman going through peri-menopause, menopause, or post menopause and would like to be a part of our mailing list to stay updated about programs, resources, and more, send a message to ksmith@happinessinyoucoach.com and type in the subject line, e-mail list.

Don’t forget to download and share this podcast with other woman. This allows woman that need support to find this podcast more easily.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to menopause Breakthrough, the podcast for professional women who want to reclaim their clarity, energy, and balance while navigating perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause. I'm your host, Katina Smith, your menopause and wellness coach, and I also am a certified functional nutrition practitioner where I use nutrition and lifestyle to support women in this stage of life. I know firsthand how challenging this season can be physically, mentally, and emotionally, and what it's like to feel stressed and maybe even a little burnt out. Here you'll find education, strategies, and encouragement to help you thrive at work, at home, and in life. So let's dive in. Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the show. I'm so excited that you decided to join me today. So on this episode, I really wanted to just talk about, I would say, the top five things every woman that is going through menopause should really just know and understand right now because I've been working with um women in this stage of life and supporting them through this journey. And it's still this misconception about really what's going on in your body. So I first just want to touch on really understanding what is happening like hormonally as well as metabolically. Um we have to begin to think of our body as like a system of things that tend to work together. And, you know, the first thing I hear women say to me, I want to balance my hormones, but it's more than just balancing your hormones. Um it's not only about estrogen, but it's affecting your entire body, including your metabolism, your ability to metabolize food, your ability to break down um different um food supplements and so forth. Um so it's it's not just one thing. It's it's your blood sugar, it's your stress hormones, it's getting adequate sleep, inflammation in the body, as well as um energy production. And we really need to begin to think of it as there are things working in the body that are out of balance and they need um support so that they can begin to function uh at a more optimal level. Um, so it's like hormones working together, it's like a network of hormones and not just the individual things, um, an individual thing happening. And, you know, with of course estrogen, there's a lot of things that are happening, you know, with insulin sensitivity. Um, it can be difficult to regulate your cortisol, um, your stress hormone. And that's why a lot of women I'm seeing that they say to me, Oh, I'm I'm not stressed, I'm just busy and I have this going on and that going on. And we tend to think of stress as, oh, I'm worried, blah, blah, blah. But you can be stressed. There could be a physical stress, a mental stress going on in your body impacting you. Um, and these things can impact your cortisol. Um, getting sleep, a good seven to eight hours of sleep, I and I mean good quality sleep, um, is really critical. Um, and then too, there's of course the whole thing with inflammation. Um, women become a little more susceptible to inflammation in the body, um, and storing fat as well, especially in the abdomen. Um, a lot of women are like, you know, my body's changing, my shape is changing, you know, what can I do? What exercises can I do? What can I take? Um, but it's more to it than just exercise and taking something. It's really understanding again what your body um needs. Um, and then too, just a lot of things as it relates to our mood and brain function. A lot of women are coming to me with things like um anxiety, like they feel anxious and they don't understand why. And a lot of times it's we have these imbalances in our body, especially um during this season of life. And I just look at these symptoms as your body signaling to you that I'm out of balance, I need attention, I need support. Um, and I'm finding more and more women are just being ignored when they they go to the doctor and just told, oh, your symptoms are normal, that's just a part of it. Um, you know, this is just women what women experience, and just wait, you know, once you reach menopause, um, you know, you can consider hormone replacement therapy and just sort of stops there. And just imagine, like you're having all these different symptoms, but you're not getting any support. That is not um a great feeling, right? So um it's so important to understand that it's not one thing. Um, and two, I would say um getting away again from that mindset. I have this symptom, what can I take for it? Versus I have this symptom, where does my body need support? So we really need to get in that mind frame. And then also, I I recently did like a um a summit, a health summit, and I talked about, you know, stop guessing and to start knowing. Um, it's so important to really know what your body needs. And I think we are playing that guessing game a lot of times when we say, oh, I have this going on. I'm not sleeping, so I'm going to take some um melatonin so that I can go to sleep. Or, you know, I'm just not um feeling well, I have headaches, so let me just take this Radville for this headache that I have versus why am I having all these headaches? And that's how we function for so long. But when we don't really know like what's happening in our body, we're playing that guessing game. And I've shared this, I know before, but I will stress this again. It's important to have comprehensive lab work and the right labs. Um, unfortunately, a lot of doctors don't test for certain things, partly because of the insurance companies not wanting to pay um for certain tests, but getting the right test um is really important. Um, we just really have to get away from just taking all these um different supplements, but you know, symptoms can have multiple, you know, root causes from you know, things like nutrient um deficiencies. Um, I talked again about your blood sugar dysregulation. This is a big thing that I'm seeing more and more with women that are going through menopause, um, thyroid dysfunction, um, again, your cortisol, inflammation, your hormones are constantly shifting. So labs can help you identify like what's out of range in you know, in functional medicine, functional nutrition, the approach is about what is optimal. What are those optimal ranges for you? And you know, I have been um given the opportunity to partner with um a company so that I can help women see what those optimal ranges are versus just traditional labs, which they call clinical labs or pathological labs, which are often are based on a person that is could be in a diseased state. That's why you see those wide ranges. And I often give that example of vitamin D, how it can be from 29 to 100, and that's normal. But your body might need to be at 50 versus 29, you know, and you're told that's normal. And so I see this time and time again. Um, so it's really important to know what's optimal for you as an individual. Um, I would say, you know, trying to improve your health without labs is really like trying to fix a car engine without really knowing, you know, what's wrong with the engine, without like ever opening the hood of the car, for example. So just really think about that. Are are you playing that guessing game with your body, you know? So that that's the second thing there. And then two, again, blood sugar dysregulation. We must be able to stabilize our blood sugar. Um, I hear women coming to me saying, I don't eat a lot. That's that could be part of the problem. You're not getting adequate nutrition, you're not getting your macronutrients, protein carbs, and um your fats, healthy fats and healthy carbs. And, you know, for some women, it might be better to eat a little less carbs, even if you are eating healthier carbs, but it it's really going to depend on the individual. Um, and with the shifts in our hormones when women are going through menopause, it can really make the body, I would say, more insulin resistant. So your blood sugar can um swing, which can contribute to things like fatigue. Um, it might be, you know, one reason why you're feeling fatigue or you're having all these different cravings, or you're irritable, or maybe you feel anxious, or you're having that brain fog. And even again, you know, the belly weight gain is a big thing in poor sleep. So things like um stress and poor sleep, it can actually worsen your blood sugar um regulation. And then um, you know, again, we must get adequate protein and fiber in our diets. Um, movement is still important, but having balanced meals um, you know, throughout the day, um, for some people, you know, intermittent fasting might be a good thing, but that might not be the best thing for everyone, depending on that person's body and how it needs to be supported, especially if an individual has gone through a period of time where they have been under extreme stress. Um, and often, again, people don't realize that they're under a lot of stress because they feel, well, I'm not worried. I am busy, but I'm not worried. But it's not so much about worrying. Um, it could just be you, your body has just undergone a lot of stress from just daily life and the responsibilities that you have. Um, but um, I would say our, you know, our blood sugar, it's like fuel regulation in a car. If um fuel delivery is inconsistent, you might hear the engine sputter or something or struggle, and it just becomes inefficient. So um same thing, you know, with our our body and our blood sugar. Um, the same thing that happens with the car could happen, you know, with our blood sugar levels in our body. So just think about that. But also um, again, our stress response and our adrenal health. Um a lot of times, again, I'm seeing women saying, I'm not stressed. Um, I am just busy with life. I have a lot going on, but they're not getting adequate sleep, they're not eating, and they're not eating, I would say, the right foods to support uh their body. And we're more sensitive to stress. Um, our bodies with these changes, our bodies become more sensitive to stress. So that's why it's so important that I often say this we learn to slow down a bit during this season to give our bodies the support that it needs. And also our our nervous system can become dysregulated too. And our nervous system is a signaling system where it's telling our bodies, you know, we need to feel safe, we need to be in that safe place to heal. So if we are all over the place, our nervous system is just out of whack, um, it can make it difficult too for your body to heal because a lot of times we're not thinking about the nervous system, how that is being supported. So that is just another thing to consider, um, consider in our adrenal health as well. I talked about cortisol um before, but those things all kind of work together. And you can kind of think of our hormones in general as like an orchestra, for example. And your hormones are like the musicians, and your metabolism is the rhythm and the temple that is really just keeping everything moving efficiently, and like your adrenal glands and stress response are the conductor. So when the conductor is calm and balanced, the orchestra, what it what does it do? It it plays beautifully, right? So everything is just really coordinated and it's working together. But when stress becomes chronic, it's like the conductor is speeding up and panicking and just throwing the orchestra into just chaos. So things become unstable. So again, that's why it's so important to remember that everything in the body is working together. That's why you can't just say, Oh, I have hot flashes. What do I need to take for my hot flashes? If your body is not able to metabolize the estrogen properly and like get rid of the estrogen it doesn't need, it's not going to really benefit you to just keep taking something for these symptoms. We have to look at everything that's happening in the body, where to start, and really how your body needs to be supported, because it's going to look um different from person to person. And finally, just addressing deficiencies in our body, I would say nutrient deficiencies and inflammation in the body. Um, I would definitely say the body will not function at an optimal level if it doesn't have the right nutrients that are required to um repair it. And you know, from repairing, but also for hormone production and detoxification and energy. And I'm seeing women too, like during this phase of life, most of the time they are going to be deficient in magnesium, but it's important not to just, oh, I need to take magnesium. Understand what is going to be the best type of magnesium for you because there's different types of magnesium. Um, and then there's vitamin D, D3. We should, if we're supplementing, take that with K2. Um, I'm finding a lot of doctors are telling clients just take vitamin D and just take a thousand milligrams. Well, you need the K2 to make sure that the calcium is going where it needs to go in the body. Um, but a lot of times people aren't getting the right dosage and the right type of vitamin D. So it's important to know what is going to be the best type for you, and as well as like with your B vitamins, um making sure you are getting all the different B vitamins that your body needs, as well as omega-3s. Um, we have too much omega-6 in our diet from eating all this processed food and fast food, things like burgers and um French fry um French fries and um what have you. But um, you know, it's important that we have a good balance of omega-3s in our diet. And when you look at other countries in America, um, we are very deficient in omega-3s um compared to other countries, like our ratio of omega-3 to six. Um, it's it's we're higher, I should say, in omega-6s versus omega-3s compared to other um countries. And then also iron, um a lot of times this is not looked at. So if you're going to the doctor, um I would just ask them to check these things for you in your labs. Um, and if you're not able to get those um things checked, um, or your insurance won't pay for it, um, then I have a way in which you can get those um labs. So really just keep those things in mind. And then, you know, I talked about inflammation in the body, um, especially things like joint pain and stiffness. Um, a lot of women, like they're they'll sit like for maybe 30 minutes and then they'll get up and it's just hard to move, their joints are stiff. Um, and again, the brain fog, the fatigue, the weight cane, the mood changes, um inflammation can have an impact on all of this. Um, and then again, I want to just say going back to making sure you get adequate um nutrition in your your diet, food I would definitely say is information for the body. Like when we eat, you know, the food is broken down and it goes into our cells. So it's like a support for our body. So just imagine if you don't have the right food going into your cells or your body just can't digest the food. Sometimes people are eating healthy, but because they're having maybe issues with their digestive health and their ability to break the fruit the food down um properly and go to the right places. And then when the inflammation comes in, if your cells are inflamed, things just don't go into the cell properly the way it should. So um we we become deficient without knowing it and thinking, well, I eat right, but I'm still having these symptoms. So again, it's getting away from, you know, I'm having this symptom. What do I need to take for this particular symptom? It's more about what is it that my body needs right now in terms of support and where is the best place to start? Because if you have multiple things going on, you really have to have a starting point and knowing where to start is is, I would say, probably one of the most critical aspects of beginning that killing journey for women going through um all stages of menopause. So I just want to leave you with this. Um again, I see menopause just as a season of change for women, but remembering that you might need something a little bit different because your body is different, your lifestyle is different. So, you know, where you start um might look a little different, and what you need might look a little different. Um, but I would definitely say you can live like a healthy life, a good quality of life, you can age well um when you're giving your body the support that it needs. Um, and you can make changes in terms of just your energy level, your mood, and getting adequate sleep, and and really just overall, you know. I know when personally I was going through all these changes in my body, it was it just amazed me how quickly my body could transition from one thing to another, like from not sleeping to um. Mood changes to energy level, you know, so many different things are going on at one time. And you're like, you know, a lot of women say, Is this something I'm going to have to deal with forever? And I say no, if you begin to make um the changes and support your body the way it needs to be supported. So there are answers and solutions for you, but it's understanding the five things that I mentioned. So I just wanted to reiterate this. I've probably shared some of this in previous podcasts, maybe a little differently, but again, this is what I'm seeing where women need um support in these areas. So that is all my friends for this episode. So I hope you join me for the next episode of Menipod's Breakthrough. Thank you for listening to Menipod's Breakthrough. If this episode resonated with you, don't forget to hit the follow button so you never miss a new conversation. Share it with a friend, colleague, or anyone who could benefit from support during this season of life. You can connect with me, access more resources, get tips, and coaching support, and learn about our menopause program for women by visiting www.happiness in you coach.com dash menopause dash elite dash program forward slash. Remember, you don't have to just survive menopause. You can thrive through it. And you are not alone in this season of life.